“The purpose of this is not to violate people's land rights. The purpose of this is to get control of these townships and if there is any disturbance of title then just compensation will be paid.” John Howard, 29/6/07
Here we go again folks. In his frantic search for an election-winning ‘rabbit out of a hat’ the PM and his sidekick, Mal Brough, have again elected to play the race card, choosing to suddenly discover the plight of indigenous children in the NT.
After all, it worked before with the Tampa and Children Overboard distortions of the truth.
In each case the fundamentals are the same. Each is based on white Australia’s lack of understanding that, whilst other peoples may have a different culture, they are fundamentally human too and so share most, if not all, the basic human urges- a quest for happiness, a love of partners and children, a desire for a better future etc.
Common sense would tell us that no race is intrinsically evil but this is the pre-election premise the PM would like us to assume every three years.
In the case of the 433 asylum seekers on the Tampa, John Howard asked us to believe that they were merely economic refugees/illegal immigrants, seeking a more lucrative future in OUR Australia. Over time most were accepted as genuine refugees, either by Australia or other countries, but not before an election was won on their backs and the expenditure of a billion dollars of your money. That’s a couple of hospitals or dozens of schools.
‘Children Overboard’ asked us to suspend all logic and believe that a group of people from a particular ethnic group would willingly risk their children’s lives by throwing them into the sea. Of course the truth turned out to be that their ship was sinking and, luckily, our Navy was there to rescue them.
In ‘Operation NT’, the PM is again asking us to believe the incredible; that Aboriginal people, men in particular, are all drunken paedophiles who have the NT’s children living in a state of fear.
It is true that many individual Aboriginal people and communities in the NT could be described as dysfunctional based on their anti-social behaviours, addiction to drink, petrol sniffing other drugs or just the depression brought about by the seeming hopelessness of their day to day existence.
But this is not a new phenomenon. I’m 57 and it has been the case for as long as I can remember. The PM is the second longest serving Member of the Federal Parliament; 33 years. I don’t recall him making a significant statement about Aboriginal welfare in all that time until now.
At least in this case some good will probably be done, although I doubt its Blitzkrieg approach will be very cost effective. Unfortunately, the downside in this case is likely to be far more severe than the couple of years on Nauru to which we subjected the Tampa people. It would seem that Howard and Brough have their eyes on the annexation of Aboriginal Lands as a longer-term objective.
Once considered worthless desert, these Lands are now either laden with minerals; particularly the PM’s mineral of the moment, uranium, or ideal sites for the dumping of the world’s nuclear waste. The Adelaide- Darwin railway was built for the transport of these two materials by a subsidiary of Halliburton, Dick Cheney’s company. Halliburton is heavily involved in the nuclear industry.
The only question left to ponder is what will be the Liberal’s election slogan and catchcry. How about, “Caring for all Australians” and “We will decide who gets Centrelink benefits and the circumstances in which it’s doled out”.
Whatever they are, you can bet they will have racial connotations and be sold to us with lots of pics of drunken Aboriginal men and the PM clutching a particularly photogenic Aboriginal child.
After all, it worked before with the Tampa and Children Overboard distortions of the truth.
In each case the fundamentals are the same. Each is based on white Australia’s lack of understanding that, whilst other peoples may have a different culture, they are fundamentally human too and so share most, if not all, the basic human urges- a quest for happiness, a love of partners and children, a desire for a better future etc.
Common sense would tell us that no race is intrinsically evil but this is the pre-election premise the PM would like us to assume every three years.
In the case of the 433 asylum seekers on the Tampa, John Howard asked us to believe that they were merely economic refugees/illegal immigrants, seeking a more lucrative future in OUR Australia. Over time most were accepted as genuine refugees, either by Australia or other countries, but not before an election was won on their backs and the expenditure of a billion dollars of your money. That’s a couple of hospitals or dozens of schools.
‘Children Overboard’ asked us to suspend all logic and believe that a group of people from a particular ethnic group would willingly risk their children’s lives by throwing them into the sea. Of course the truth turned out to be that their ship was sinking and, luckily, our Navy was there to rescue them.
In ‘Operation NT’, the PM is again asking us to believe the incredible; that Aboriginal people, men in particular, are all drunken paedophiles who have the NT’s children living in a state of fear.
It is true that many individual Aboriginal people and communities in the NT could be described as dysfunctional based on their anti-social behaviours, addiction to drink, petrol sniffing other drugs or just the depression brought about by the seeming hopelessness of their day to day existence.
But this is not a new phenomenon. I’m 57 and it has been the case for as long as I can remember. The PM is the second longest serving Member of the Federal Parliament; 33 years. I don’t recall him making a significant statement about Aboriginal welfare in all that time until now.
At least in this case some good will probably be done, although I doubt its Blitzkrieg approach will be very cost effective. Unfortunately, the downside in this case is likely to be far more severe than the couple of years on Nauru to which we subjected the Tampa people. It would seem that Howard and Brough have their eyes on the annexation of Aboriginal Lands as a longer-term objective.
Once considered worthless desert, these Lands are now either laden with minerals; particularly the PM’s mineral of the moment, uranium, or ideal sites for the dumping of the world’s nuclear waste. The Adelaide- Darwin railway was built for the transport of these two materials by a subsidiary of Halliburton, Dick Cheney’s company. Halliburton is heavily involved in the nuclear industry.
The only question left to ponder is what will be the Liberal’s election slogan and catchcry. How about, “Caring for all Australians” and “We will decide who gets Centrelink benefits and the circumstances in which it’s doled out”.
Whatever they are, you can bet they will have racial connotations and be sold to us with lots of pics of drunken Aboriginal men and the PM clutching a particularly photogenic Aboriginal child.
" Me thinks White Man speak with forked tongue"- Traditional
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