One easy way to pick a real ringer - rather than the wanna-be's, usedtobe's or nevercouldbe'sbuttryinghard's - in a crowd is to look for the amount of cow shit stains on his or her hat - if it has a generous spray of shit from brim to brow then they are most likely a real ringer - or stole the hat off one.
To my mind this Income Quarantining is a bit like the old days when they used to put Aboriginal people under the “dog license", where they had to grovel to the government for permission to do all kinds of things. People need to stand up and say “No, this is not right for Australia. What kind of country are we living in?”
I’ve been working with really strong community members, people who have been given well-deserved authority and respect by their communities and who have been completely overlooked by governments. I just cannot understand why this government continues an approach that completely disengages communities and individuals. Particularly when you look at the cumulative impact of that continual disengagement and the return to the top-down approach. Eventually the government must finally realise that this approach just isn’t working.
Most of the people working for the intervention are Kardia (non-Aboriginal) - there is not much work for Yapa from the Intervention – most of those jobs go to Kardia people. When they come in with all their flash new cars, flash Toyotas, that makes us feel down. What the Yapa are thinking is that all the Kardia are "moneyfaces" (that they only care about money). And some people think like it was a hundred years ago and is still happening now.
Two years ago Kevin Rudd, in what appears to have now faded into a largely symbolic apology to Aboriginal Australia, told the nation that: …symbolism is important but, unless the great symbolism of reconciliation is accompanied by an even greater substance, it is little more than a clanging gong. It is not sentiment that makes [...]
I wandered downtown earlier today to catch up with some friends & countrymen at the Prescribed Area People's Alliance Rally outside the John Flynn Church in the middle of the Alice Springs Mall. The main theme of the Rally was to celebrate - in an ironic sense - the second anniversary of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's "Sorry" speech to the Australian Parliament.
There are some days that you’d prefer to be digging a ditch than to be a public servant. Particularly if you were one of the members of Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin’s FaHCSIA staff that turned up to the New South Wales Parliament House on the last Thursday of January to face a grilling [...]
From every perspective, timing, project management, from every perspective it was doomed to failure...there were some very strange things happening....the time-frame was crazy...a lack of planning, proper control, and engagement; it was just never going to work.
Ms SCRYMGOUR: You would not mind paying that amount of money if...Ms CANNON: If it worked! Ms SCRYMGOUR:...it actually worked and provided the kind of information you needed. Ms CANNON: I would not mind paying my $1.2 million if it worked...Ms CANNON: Oh, yes. It has not been a good process.
We need look no further than Howard's Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough to see that this portfolio has an awful ability to wreak absolute havoc on political careers - and with Nigel expected to run for re-election next year there will be more than a few - both inside his Country Liberal Party and in NT Labor - who will be keeping a very close eye on his performance.
