April 16, 2004

ADVANCEMENT AT LAST

"You couldn't have had a better model for helping Aboriginal people than ATSIC," claims Geoff Clark, "and I challenge anyone to come up with a better thing."

Anything would be better. In fact, nothing might be better, as we’ll soon discover, once ATSIC is dumped. Here’s Bernie Slattery:

During ATSIC's existence, remote Aboriginal communities become barely functioning hell-holes ravaged by alcoholism, petrol sniffing, lawlessness, disease, violence and crime. The main reason for this was that those communities were entirely dependent on ATSIC and other government funding.

Sydney's Redfern, where riots exploded earlier this year, was an urban manifestation of the same problem: an imploding community dependent on government handouts.

The Sydney Morning Herald’s spin on this? "Howard silences Aboriginal advocates":

The Federal Government has ended the policy of self-determination which for three decades has taken the voices of elected Aboriginal representatives to Canberra, with the Prime Minister, John Howard, announcing he will abolish the nation's peak indigenous body.

No advocates have been silenced, and self-determination may be pursued independent of ATSIC. In fact, without the smothering curse of welfare, it’ll probably florish. ATSIC just needed more time, according to Margaret Hornigold:

I think that ATSIC was starting to get a grip on the way it should be starting to be going.

The way ATSIC is going is out. Peter Beattie is glad to see it.

Posted by Tim Blair at April 16, 2004 06:21 PM
Comments

Good riddance to bad rubbish. The single Aboriginal in real federal parliament was one thousand times a better influence than the thugs, rapists and corrupt gits who populated ATSIC.

Posted by: Quentin George at April 16, 2004 at 08:02 PM

i dont get it. are aboriginals australians or are they some kind of different thing (like cows in india) that deserves preferential treatment?

Posted by: roscoe.p at April 16, 2004 at 08:35 PM

I think the most damning indictment on ATSIC came last night on ABC's 7.30 Report when the Acting Chairman of ATSIC, Lionel Quartermaine, tried to argue that mainstreaming funding was not the solution. He said:

"I don't see how mainstreaming Indigenous programs will help when the mainstream has failed. We've still got health issues, in this country, on a Third World par. We make up 2 per cent of the population yet we've got 20 per cent in jail. We've got education that's failing Indigenous people, so, you see, mainstreaming programs won't work."

So much for 14 years of ATSIC!

Posted by: Jeff Clarke at April 16, 2004 at 08:38 PM

The nepotism is rife in ATSIC.

Any aboriginal community that doesn't have a regional councillor is simply ignored.

Posted by: 2dogs at April 16, 2004 at 08:42 PM

Yes, Aden Ridgeway is extremely sensible, especially for a Democrat.

His views are left of mine but at least he avoids the galling moral preening that seems to infect most of the Chippocrats (Andrew Murray and Paul MacLean excepted).

With Warren Mundine as one of the ALP's three co-presidents, he too must surely have a crack at a winnable preselection. There's no shortage of smart, honest and articulate Indigenous public figures across the political spectrum (Noel Pearson, Boni Robertson, Marcia Langton, yes, even Pat O'Shane and sports-oes like Cathy Freeman and Nova Peris-Kneedbone) but for some reason they have never seemed to win seats in ATSIC elections, or even to stand.

Posted by: Uncle Milk at April 16, 2004 at 09:04 PM

Yes, Aden Ridgeway is extremely sensible, especially for a Democrat.

His views are left of mine but at least he avoids the galling moral preening that seems to infect most of the Chippocrats (Andrew Murray and Paul MacLean excepted).

With Warren Mundine as one of the ALP's three co-presidents, he too must surely have a crack at a winnable preselection. There's no shortage of smart, honest and articulate Indigenous public figures across the political spectrum (Noel Pearson, Boni Robertson, Marcia Langton, yes, even Pat O'Shane and sports-oes like Cathy Freeman and Nova Peris-Kneedbone) but for some reason they have never seemed to win seats in ATSIC elections, or even to stand.

Posted by: Uncle Milk at April 16, 2004 at 09:05 PM

Apparatchiks Talking Shit in Canberra (ATSIC). No more. That's a big yay for tax-payers and a glimmer of hope for remote and disadvantaged Aborignes.

Of course, there'll be spin. Howard's preference for actually doing something to improve the practicalities of Aboriginal existence will be denounced, naturally, as racist.

Posted by: CurrencyLad at April 16, 2004 at 09:21 PM

[Tried to post this at Slatts' but for some reason it wouldn't take in his comments box.]

Slatts,

No tears here for ATSIC, but I'll take you up on the apartheid point. Black South Africans had no votes for the main Parliament because they were nominally citizens of their "homelands" aka Bantustans -- which were tiny, scattered, non-viable pseudo-states far from where these guys lived and worked.

Whereas Indig Austs have a vote for the federal and state Parliaments. Giving them a vote for an advisory and funding body doesn't deprive them of that. The fact I missed out on a vote for ATSIC was no skin off my own nose, since the matters it controlled weren't ones that affected my life -- although it was still a shame for ATSIC's own constituents that the august body spent so much and achieved so little.

Here's my back of the envelope...

(1) An Indigenous Consultative Board of 9 members. Elected nationwide by Senate-style PR in a postal ballot so you need 10% to get elected. With 2-300,000 Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, that might mean 20-30,000 votes if there's high turnout. So nationally prominent figures get in, rather than a few dozen votes filling each local ward-level seat based on family ties.

(2) No separate racial electoral roll -- it should work by self-identification where you have to tick yes on the ballot-paper for "I am of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent" for your vote to be counted. I doubt many whitefellas or LOTE immigrants would be interested in voting anyway, and with 20,000 votes as the quota, a few Ian McNivens who insisted on voting to make a point would not affect the result.

I think there should be some peak body to advise govts on ATSI-specific issues. Of course, nothing prevents ATSI people setting up a private body like the RSL or CWA, but if it's set up by legislation there's less likely to be legal problems with the Racial Discrimination Act.

Posted by: Uncle Milk at April 16, 2004 at 09:23 PM

Oh, yeah.... Who'll bet a twenty that in the next 24 hours, some pundit (my money's on [1] Phillip Adams or [2] Emma Tom, in that order) will write a smart-arse column likening ATSIC to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq? "Imposed by an occupying power on subjugated people of a different race", yadda yadda yadda.

Posted by: Uncle Milk at April 16, 2004 at 09:30 PM

Noel Pearson has some interesting things to say about the government's policy.

Well, there's no positive program that's been articulated other than this vague prejudice against special Indigenous structures.

I think the Prime Minister is completely wrong when he assumes that mainstreaming is the solution.

We are going to return to, in fact, a big government, service delivery, welfare delivery paradigm in Indigenous affairs and at least in Cape York Peninsula, that's what we've been trying to get away from.

We've been trying to get away from the notion that government has all of the answers, that government responsibility is the key to Indigenous uplift.

The key to Indigenous uplift is welfare reform.

It's Aboriginal people taking responsibility for their own affairs and it's about intolerance of substance abuse.

Maybe he's right. I hope not.

Posted by: TimT at April 16, 2004 at 10:10 PM

Woaah, the italic tags didn't work for some reason. Anyway, the whole post is Noel Pearson with the exception of the opening and closing paragraphs.

Posted by: TimT at April 16, 2004 at 10:12 PM

Some good advice, my friends, if I may presume to judge it so- place not your trust, in Noel Pearson. That would be a mistake. Regards, Byron

Posted by: Byron_the_Aussie at April 16, 2004 at 10:46 PM

ATSIC is about the fourth attempt over the years to have "self determination" for Aboriginal people.

You would think that by now they would have figured that "self determination" means taking responsibility for yourself.

What it meant to the indigenous lobby was the take over of aboriginal policy by black bureaucrats.

Whether the policy is run by white or black bureaucrats, the experience of teh last 30 years shows that both are complete failures with the lot of aboriginal people deteriorating as time went on.

It would be better if all indigenous specific programs were abolished. I fear however that it will be given a new name and the budget increased as has happened everytime before.


Posted by: amortiser at April 17, 2004 at 12:20 AM

Why have separate policies for the Aborigines? They seem to have the same pathologies that American Indians have and for the exact same reasons. Forget the handouts. Insist on education and work, and let people jostle up with the market place. Forget the white guilt crap and do what the Caribbean does. Everybody's got to work if they want to eat.

Posted by: Helen at April 17, 2004 at 02:45 AM

The announcement no doubt had something to do with Mark Latham saying something similar a few weeks ago. But this kind of coincidence is tolerable - unlike Latham calling for a withdrawal from Iraq within weeks of March 11.

Posted by: Andjam at April 17, 2004 at 02:47 AM

While going through the archives (having a go at working out how quickly Latham advocated withdrawal), I noticed a post ("ACCORDING TO THE LATEST POLLS ...") (a post predating Fallujah) that links to within the Daily Kos. Are you going to keep the link, or remove it?

Posted by: Andjam at April 17, 2004 at 02:56 AM

Take my word for it - that Geoff Clarke is one nasty piece of work. My flatmate a few years ago had the displeasure of finding herself in a compromising position with the scumbag. After what she told me I looked at those rape allegations in a whole different light - good riddance to him at least.

Posted by: Rob at April 17, 2004 at 10:51 PM

[Squawk squuuhsquawwwk! Bloghead aaAArrk!-- this more accurate rendering of the blogparrot's comment courtesy of the Management.]

Posted by: Miranda Divide at April 18, 2004 at 10:41 AM