Our failure to vote for the Voice to Parliament

is apparently the reason the five year old niece of the Senator died. 

I was told this yesterday after watching the speech given by the Senator. She was in tears...and I was close to that too. 

I am also angry. I am angry because those who could do something about the situation are not doing anything. They are not going to do anything.

The media has reported the speech. I saw one report on the news service I watch last night. Oh yes, it showed the Senator in tears. That was about it. After that came the usual "we must do something" and then the same old solutions were trotted out. 

The Senator had said something entirely different. She told the Senate things had to change. She told them there could not be more of the same. The "solutions" are not working. They will not work.

The "Intervention" sequestered welfare payments so mothers could feed their children. Many of those involved welcomed that. They did not have to hand over their money to be spent on alcohol. They could not. The money was not there. The "alcohol free" zones were much harder to police but alcohol related incidents were noticeably reduced. Children were going to school more often.

We stopped that because sequestering welfare payments was seen as "undignified" and "racist". Is it undignified to have the ability to feed your children? As for "racist" then why is it racist to do this for one group and not another. There are others who also have their welfare payments dealt with in this way. It is sometimes done at their request to prevent the very same sort of problems indigenous women were facing. 

There is a town in a remote area I knew well when growing up. There are indigenous "camps" around it. Back then attempting to get the children to school was a major problem for the Education Department. Some came, some came sometimes, some came when the weather was bad. The girls were much more likely to attend than the boys. By the end of their primary years however it was rare to see them in school and truancy officers had no power to get them there.

"Oh, we will have to teach them in their native language!" came the cry, "That will solve the problem. They will engage. They will want to be there."

Of course it has done nothing of the sort. The curriculum could not be taught in the local language. The local language barely existed, There were just a few very elderly people who spoke nothing else. The next generation spoke a mix of that and English. The generation after that would have spoken almost nothing but English but there was the push to "revive their language" and teach them in it. Everyone was assured that doing this would solve the problem of getting them to school and keeping them there. That would lead to higher levels of achievement and employment.

It has done nothing of the sort of course. Why would it? The resources are not there. They were never there. They will not be there. Despite this those with the responsibility to handle the affairs of indigenous people persist with this as if it is the answer to the education of "our people".

It is one reason why the good Senator was struggling to speak yesterday. She knows how important education is. It is how she has got to where she is today. 

I watched her and listened to her yesterday. I felt, and still feel, angry. Nobody should have to stand up in our national parliament and say what she had to say. She knew that the proposed "Voice" would not work because it would just bring about more of the same. It is a "same" which does not work.

And when I support her...well then I am supposedly "racist".