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Article in the National Times, weekend of 2 December 1978:
Demonstration through Redfern and Sydney City about Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and Land Rights Issues - Photos by Mannie De Saxe
The march through Redfern and into the City ended with a sit-in outside Sydney Town Hall, closing George Street for about an hour.
Federal Treasurer Peter Costello, 4 Treasury Place, Melbourne Vic. 3002.
Friday, 11 May 2007.From: Kendall Lovett, 2/12 Murphy Grove, Preston; Postal address: PO Box 1675, Preston South Vic. 3072.
Treasurer,
This week you handed down the Budget for the 12th time and again the funding for Aboriginal health measures announced was way below what is needed for equality with other Australians. After 40 years since the referendum, Australian governments are still dragging the chain on closing the indigenous life expectancy gap.
It really is imperative that you read the photocopy enclosed (SMH 27.4.07) in which Ian Ring from the Centre for Health Service Development, University of Wollongong, calculates that the real funding required is in the range of $350 million to $450 million annually not around $121 million (approx) for health measures over the next 5 years that you have allocated in the Budget.
There is still a generous surplus available after the Budget I am led to believe so what better way to use a good portion of that surplus than in the manner suggested by the Centre for Health Service Development.
Sincerely,
Kendall Lovett.
Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott, PO Box 450, Manly, NSW 2095.
Friday, 11 May 2007.From: Kendall Lovett, 2/12 Murphy Grove, Preston; Postal address: PO Box 1675, Preston South, Vic. 3072.
Health Minister,
This week the Treasurer handed down his budget for the 12th time and again the funding for Aboriginal health measures announced was way below what is needed for equality with other Australians. After 40 years since the referendum, Australia’s governments are still dragging the chain on closing the indigenous life expectancy gap.
It really is imperative that you read the photocopy enclosed (SMH 27.4.07) in which Ian Ring from the Centre for Health Service Development, University of Wollongong, calculates that the real funding required is in the range of $350 million to $450 million annually not around $121 million (approx) for health measures over the next five years that the Treasurer has allocated in the Budget.
There is still a generous surplus available after the Budget I am led to believe so what better way to use a good portion of that surplus than in the manner suggested by the Centre for Health Service Development. Perhaps it’s up to you to bend the Treasurer’s ear and the PM’s ear in that direction.
Sincerely,
Kendall Lovett.
The response (below) to the above letter to the Treasurer on 11 May 2007 was received from the Department of Health and Ageing on 8 August 2007:
Ms Nicola Roxon MP, Federal Shadow Health Minister, 204 Nicholson Street, Footscray Vic. 3011.
Friday, 11 May 2007.From: Kendall Lovett, 2/12 Murphy Grove, Preston; Postal address: PO Box 1675, Preston South, Vic. 3072.
Shadow Health Minister,
This week the Federal treasurer handed down his Budget for the 12th time and again the funding for Aboriginal health measures announced was way below what is needed for equality with other Australians. After 40 years since the referendum, Australian governments are still dragging the chain on closing the indigenous life expectancy gap.
It is really imperative that you read the photocopy enclosed (SMH 27.4.07) in which Ian Ring from the Centre for Health Service Development, University of Wollongong, calculates that the real funding required is in the range of $350 million to $450 million annually not $121 million (approx) for indigenous health measures over the next five years that the Treasurer has allocated in the Budget.
Would you or your colleague, Jennie George, ask the Treasurer in the House why he has allocated such a paltry amount in a time when he is able to live up to the expectations of the referendum of 1967?
There is still a generous surplus available after the Budget I’m led to believe so what better way to use a good portion of that surplus than in the manner suggested by the Centre for Health Service Development at the University of Wollongong.
Sincerely,
Kendall Lovett.
This item from the Sydney Morning Herald is the enclosure with the above three letters.
Nicola Roxon, Federal Shadow Health Minister, responded to the above letter as follows:
Below is the text of an article by Jennifer Martiniello which will be
forwarded to major newspapers in Australia. Please pass on to your
networks. Jennifer Martiniello is a writer and academic of Arrernte,
Chinese and Anglo descent. She is a former Deputy Chair of the
Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander Arts Board of the Australia
Council for the Arts, and a current member of the Advisory Board of
the Australian Centre for Indigenous History at the ANU.
Howard's new Tampa children overboard are our Aboriginal children. The Little Children are Sacred report does not advocate physically and psychologically invasive examinations of Aboriginal children, which could only be carried out anally and vaginally. It does not recommend scrapping the permit system to enter Aboriginal lands, nor does it recommend taking over Aboriginal 'towns' by enforced leases. These latter two points in the Howard scheme hide the true reason for the Federal Government's use of the latest report for blatant political opportunism.
It has been an openly stated agenda that Howard wants to move Aboriginal people off their lands, and has made recent attempts to buy off Aboriginal people by offering them millions for agreeing to lease their lands to the Federal Government, e.g. Tiwi Islands and Tangentyere in Alice Springs. There was also the statement by the Federal Government that it could not continue (?!) to provide essential services to remote communities, which raised an uproar of responses in the press. The focus on the sexual abuse of children is guaranteed to evoke the most emotive responses, and therefore command attention, just like the manipulation of the Tampa situation. But while the attention of the media and the public is being emotionally coerced, what is being sneaked in under the covers?
Two issues specifically - mining companies have applied for more exploration permits in the Northern Territory, the Jabiluka uranium mining operations at Kakadu have already hit the media because of the mining company's applications to the Government to significantly expand its operations, including establishing new mines at Coronation Hill, and another critical issue - nuclear waste. The Howard Government has already mooted that nuclear waste should be dumped in the Northern Territory, on Aboriginal lands. Aboriginal traditional owners are absolutely opposed to this. We have a long history of deaths and illness from radiation, from the atomic tests at Woomera in the 1950s to the current high incidences of carcinomas in the community at Kakadu near the Jabiluka site. The main obstacle to the Federal Government's desired expansion of mining operations in the Northern Territory and nuclear waste dumping is, of course, the Aboriginal people who have occupancy of, and rights under the common law to, their traditional lands.
Following the stages of the Howard Government's usual modus operandi (defund, blame, eliminate), defunding of critical programs for remote Aboriginal community projects began in July 2004, with coerced changes to funding contracts, and monies for critically needed youth and health programs in remote areas being the first dollars to go. Take Mutitjulu for example, which was notoriously profiled by the ABC's Nightline program. I say notorious because one of Senator Mal Brough's personal staffers was the so-called ex-youth worker interviewed on that program, and the content of that interview was laden with myths and mistruths. The staffer in question failed to appear when summoned before a Senate inquiry to explain and the Senator's office is yet to issue a statement. When the community lodged a formal protest to Government, it was raided and their computers seized. But the program did show the effects of the Howard Government defunding of essential programs on that community, in particular the youth centre and health centre. The people at Mutitjulu also just happen to be the traditional owners of Uluru, one of this country's most lucrative tourist attractions. The Howard Government would not like us to ask who benefits by the people of Mutitjulu being forced off their community. Under the amendments to Native Title made by the Howard Government, once Aboriginal people have left their traditional lands, forcibly or otherwise, their rights under the common law that every other Australian enjoys over their land are significantly impaired.
Progressive defunding of Aboriginal art centres has also begun, with a range of community art centres not having their funding renewed by DCITA in July 2005 and 2006 in the Northern Territory, from communities in Arnhemland to mid and southern Territory communities. The art production facilitated by those Aboriginal art centres are the only means through which members of those communities can actually earn a living, as opposed to being on welfare. But then, dependent people are easier to control by means of that dependency. The Howard Government's failed Shared Responsibility Agreements (SRAs) have also been the catalyst for further blame shifting and progressive defunding, take Wadeye for example.
Our Aboriginal communities are being squeezed further into dysfunction and disenfranchisement by carefully targeted political engineering, the systemic and ruthless roll-out of a planned agenda. It is no accident that Howard's scheme to address what he calls the urgency of the Little Children are Sacred report's 97 recommendations was trotted out so very quickly, and addresses so very few of those recommendations. It is sheer political opportunism to advance an already in motion agenda, and to score points in an election year. After all, The Little Children are Sacred report is not the first of such reports, nor are its findings and recommendations new. The Federal Government has had the 1989, 1991, 1993, 1997 and 2002 reports gathering dust and deliberate inaction on its shelves. Perhaps Mr Howard has been saving them up for a rainy election year? And of course Mr Howard's scheme targets only Aboriginal communities, despite the fact that the findings specifically state that non- Aboriginal men, that is, white men, are a significant proportion of the offenders, who are black-marketeering in petrol and alcohol to gain access to Aboriginal children. What measures is the Howard Government going to take about non-Aboriginal sex offenders, pornographers, substance traffickers and the like? Nothing according to the measures announced, but then, they're not Aboriginal and they don't live on the Aboriginal communities where their victims live.
So who are the real victims here, the silenced victims of John Howard's scheme? Aboriginal children, of course, who will be subject to physically and psychologically invasive medical examinations, irrespective of their home and family circumstances, and who will deal with the mental and emotional fall-out from that? Aboriginal men, too, who become the silenced scapegoats, painted by default by John Howard as all being drunken, child-raping monsters. Perhaps the fact that almost every picture shown of Aboriginal men in the media these days shows them drunk, with a slab, cask or bottle under their arms leads Mr Howard to expect that one to pass unchallenged, irrespective of the fact that statistics show that only 15% of Aboriginal people drink alcohol, socially or otherwise, compared to around 87% of non-Aboriginal Australians. The greater majority of Aboriginal men are good, decent people. Perhaps the media would like to rethink its portrayals of Aboriginal men? How about some photos of the other alcoholics, you know, the white ones. There's more of them.
And what of our communities? The Howard Government also hasn't mentioned that the majority of Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory are already dry communities, decided and enforced by those communities. But then that would spoil the picture Mr Howard wants to paint of our Aboriginal communities. Other large communities, such as Daly River, have controlled the situation by only having alcohol available from the community's club and enforce a strict four can limit. Also forgotten in the current politically opportunistic furore is the fact that Aboriginal communities around Tennant Creek and Katherine have been lobbying Governments and town councils for decades to restrict the sale of alcohol on Thursdays, when Aboriginal community people come to town for supplies. So far their pleas have been rejected. Nothing in Mr Howard's plan to facilitate that, either. Or about the control of alcohol when those people, once forced off the communities into the towns, bring their problems with them, child abuse or alcoholism and all the rest. Of course that would make access to Aboriginal children a lot easier for white offenders, they won't have to go so far to find a victim.
One last word on focus of attention. In the famous Redfern Address, the then Prime Minister, Paul Keating asked perhaps the most important question for all Australians to consider. He said 'We failed to ask the most basic of questions. We failed to ask - What if this were done to us?' What if this were done to us - to Mr and Mrs Average Australian, to our schools, youth centres, health centres, access to medical care, communities, homes, children, grandchildren? After all, current national health reports from a wide range of health organisations name sexual abuse of non-Indigenous Australian children as a crisis area in need of urgent attention. And the numbers of victims are higher. National reports into mainstream domestic violence, alcohol and substance abuse also call for urgent action, again the issues are at crisis level, and the numbers of victims and abusers are far higher than in the Little Children are Sacred report. None of the recommendations in all of those hundreds of national health reports recommend compulsory sexual health tests for every Australian child under sixteen. Not one of them recommends that a viable solution is closing down youth and health programs, in fact they all advocate that more are needed. None recommend that the victims' or the offenders' communities and homes should be surrendered to the Federal Government and put under compulsory lease agreements, and none advocate processes which would lead to either the victims or the abusers losing their rights under common law to their property as measure to control or remedy the occurrence of abuse. Would the Howard Government even dare to contemplate such as that? I think not. It would be un-Australian, and the Government it would expect immediate legal repercussions on the grounds of impairment of human rights, extinguishment of rights under common law, discrimination, and a raft of other constitutional issues. Besides, Mr and Mrs Average Australian don't, for the most part, live on top of uranium and mineral deposits or future nuclear waste dumps.
But seriously, the most critical question for all Australians to ask themselves in the lead up to this year's Federal Election is just that - What if it were done to us? With full acknowledgment of what has already been done to workers, trade unions, student unions, public primary, secondary and tertiary education, elderly care, palliative care, medicare, crisis health care, nurses, teachers, multicultural affairs, migrant groups, women, child care, small businesses and artsworkers, among the many, through the exercise of policies of social engineering and fear, your answer at the polling booth may just determine whether it will be done to you, or continue to be done to you.
As reported in the Sydney Morning Herald 25th June, the Howard Government last week used the military to seize control of 60 Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory, which are now under military occupation. This is not Israel and Palestine. The Northern Territory is not Gaza or the West Bank. This is Australia - but is it the Australia you thought you lived in? Walk in our shoes, Aboriginal Australia's, and ask yourselves, what would it be like to have this done to us? And then, walk with us.
Jennifer Martiniello
The following letter by Noel Tovey appeared in ACT Gay on 14 January 2009 and is reproduced here in full:
Dear Prime Minister,
I write to you as an elder Indigenous man about a matter of grave concern to me.
Our old people suffered great hardship and trauma in the past and you moved to apologise for this and acknowledge that pain. You demonstrated a deep understanding of the significance of respecting elders, acknowledging mistreatment and minimising harm. We will always treasure your respectful treatment of our elders on that day of apology, and in years to come.
I am an Indigenous artist and writer and am myself 75 years of age. As an older Indigenous man who is also gay, I am deeply concerned at the suffering of gay elderly people, who, like me, have experienced severe trauma in the past due to the ignorance of those around us. I was taken away from my family in 1940. In 1951, while living on the streets in Melbourne I was charged with ‘The Abominable Crime of Buggery’. I was vilified by the Melbourne press and spent time in Pentridge Jail waiting to be sentenced. Several of my friends have committed suicide rather than live a life of fear and shame.
I have grave concerns about the ‘same sex equal treatment’ reforms and the way in which these may compound the suffering of elderly gay people, including Indigenous people. Elderly gay people are from a generation that preceded civil rights and they were subjected to shock treatment, lobotomy and other horrors. They hid from view and remain mostly hidden today. Nevertheless, they are elders of our gay community who deserve protection.
I implore you to protect these elderly people from the harm of being forced to reveal their identities, even in confidence, to officers from Centrelink. For this generation, there was no safe confidential context in which to ‘come out’. The thought of having to do so now is causing them extreme anxiety and consequent physical harm.
Please give your urgent consideration to enacting grandfathering arrangements in relation to age pensioners to protect gay elders from harm. I am mindful that had my own life story not become a fortunate one, I would more than likely be a hidden gay age pensioner myself today. I know you to be a man of compassion and I appeal to your sense of justice, which was so visible to a proud nation on the day of the apology.
I would be very happy to talk with you further about this serious matter.
Yours Sincerely
Convincing Ground - Learning to fall in love with your country - by Bruce Pascoe, published by Aboriginal Studies Press, 2007
"Pascoe draws on the past through a critical examination of major historical works and witness accounts and finds uncanny parallels between the techniques and language used there to today's national political stage. He has written Convincing Ground for all Australians, as an antidote to the great Australian inability to deal respectfully with the nation's constructed indigenous past.
For Pascoe, the Australian character was not forged at Gallipoli, Eureka and the back of Bourke, but in the furnace of Murderous Flat, Convincing Ground and Werribee. He knows we can't reverse the past, but believes we can bring in our soul from the fog of delusion. Pascoe proposes a way forward, beyond shady intellectual argument and immature nationalism, with our strengths enhanced and our weaknesses acknowledged and addressed." (from the back cover of the book)
Bruce Pascoe is a widely published and award-winning writer, editor and anthologist, whose books include Shark, Ruby-eyed Coucal, Earth and Nightjar.
North of Capricorn - The Untold Story of Australia's North by Henry Reynolds, published by Allen and Unwin, 2003
The Wik Case - Issues and Implications edited by Graham Hiley, Published by Butterworths, 1997
MannieBlog (from 1 August 2003 to 31 December 2005)
ACTIVIST KICKS BACKS - AKB (from December 2005 onwards)
RED JOS BLOGSPOT (from January 2009 onwards)
This page was last updated 8 September 2009