Is it time for "culture" change

 or do we go on doing what we keep being told is "right" and even "respectful" of indigenous culture? 

I am re-posting below the long and very obviously heartfelt "tweet" by someone who is both "indigenous" and in a position where she has been trying to represent other indigenous people in our federal parliament. I know, from talking to the indigenous people I have met, that they share similar concerns.  

@JNampijinpa

I would love nothing more than to be wrong about Indigenous issues. I would love to wake up tomorrow and find out that actually it was ‘colonisation’ all along and the government funding is fixing everything now. I would love it if the violence, the alcohol, the neglect, and the squalor in town camps and remote communities was all made up. I would love to be wrong because if I was, there’s a chance my niece Kumanjayi Little Baby would still be alive today. Instead, I’m left feeling numb about what happened to this innocent little girl who has been taken from us so young. Many of us are reeling from what happened last week. And from what they’ve seen about conditions in town camps in and around Alice Springs. They are shocked by reporting that suggests calls to child protection agencies were not acted upon. They are appalled at the total failure of the government to make a dent in the disadvantage and dysfunction in these communities despite all the money you could want. And many, like me, are angry that the Labor Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Malarndirri McCarthy, has responded by saying “now is not the time” for politics. Well, Minister, I’ve been shouting from the rooftops about this for years; was that not the time either? For this government, for the bureaucrats, for the inner-city activists and academics, is it ever the time? They should be honest with themselves. Do they ever want to look these issues in the face? I don’t think they do. Because if they did, they would have to face the fact that the death of Kumanjayi Little Baby happened because too much of the Indigenous affairs system has become focused on process, ideology and symbolism instead of protecting children at risk. They are too scared of being called racist to admit that the unwillingness to challenge harmful behaviours in the name of “culture” means they let children live in dangerous, dysfunctional camps that would not be tolerated anywhere else in the country. They are too scared that someone might call them racist and bring up past wrongs, like the stolen generations, to remove children in dangerous homes and put them into care. They are too scared of risking their grant funding or next promotion in their public service jobs to openly acknowledge that high rates of Indigenous incarceration might have to do with high rates of violence and sexual assaults in Indigenous communities. So no, I do not accept that “now is not the time” because this is what the dysfunction in Aboriginal communities actually looks like and we cannot look away. We cannot keep treating Indigenous People as though different standards should apply. The separatist approach has not worked. It has not worked and it will not work. Put away the victimhood and racial grievance and stop being scared. Just fix the problems. Put violent offenders in jail, regardless of race. Put kids in danger into safe homes, regardless of race. Clean up the camps and enforce the same standards we do in public housing, regardless of race. This isn’t hard, provided governments can find the courage. I hope and pray that they do, for the memory of Kumanjayi Little Baby. Time for REAL solutions.  

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price
Senator for the Northern Territory
Shadow Minister for Small Business
Shadow Minister for Skills and Training

This is coming from a Senator who is indigenous.  Is it time to listen to what she has to say? Will those with vested financial interests be heard instead?  Will anything change? 

 

 

We teach children it is wrong

to lie so how is it that the Prime Minister can do it?

One of the much younger generation asked me this yesterday. Their father had read out a piece listing items the Prime Minister had either lied about or "backflipped" on. I found the list and it is extensive.

There is the very well known one about how power prices would fall by  $275 because of "renewable" energy. Rebates were put in place when it was obvious this was not going to happen but even with rebates the price of energy has risen well beyond that.  The plug on rebates was pulled out at the end of 2025 and prices are now rising still higher. 

  There was the promise to keep the previous government's stage three tax cuts exactly as planned with no changes. They have been changed and restructured  but only to the government's income stream advantage.  

They promised no changes to superannuation and then introduced a new tax on balances over $3 million.  

They promised "real" wages would grow and rise above pre-election levels.  That has not happened.  

They promised extra water under Murray-Darling Basin Plan and delivered 5% of what they promised. 

 The promised Makarrata Commission for truth-telling and treaty has been abandoned after the Voice referendum failed.  

They promised no changes to negative gearing but are now going ahead with changes that will do nothing for housing policy but will severely disadvantage a generation which did not have access to compulsory superannuation benefits.

They promised the long-term immigration plan was locked in. It was not. They are bringing in more migrants who have been shown in other parts of the world not to integrate.  They are being placed in areas the government is desperate to retain at the next election with their right to citizenship being fast tracked.

To move these people around they are trying to secure less than the mandated fuel supply but are telling us that being "given" an extra day's supply came about because of the Prime Minister's diplomacy. 

They backflipped on removing sexuality, gender identity and sexual variation questions from 2026 census but refused to add two questions which would have greatly assisted housing and health planning.  They tried to refuse to run a Royal Commission into the Bondi terror attack and rising antisemitism. It was only under immense pressure they announced one. •  At the same time they got the hate speech legislation through by splitting the bill to get it through Parliament.  They have removed the RMIT ABC election promise tracker amid scrutiny over these broken promises.  

They are just some of the things they promised and have not delivered. They did this and promised a new era of transparency and open government plus FOI reform so laws couldn’t be flouted. FOI refusal rates have nearly doubled to 23 per cent and full disclosures are lower than ever before.

Lying is part of the political game but these are lies the government has continued to repeat and will go on repeating. The financial mess the country is now is apparently the fault of the war in the Middle East. The Treasurer is making "savings" that are not savings at all. He is simply going to tell us that they will be spending less and providing less than they would like. He will take from those who have worked longer and hardest to give to a generation who believe they can have right now what their parents and grandparents spent a lifetime working for. It is the youngest generation which is more likely to vote for them.

The "ISIS" brides due to return today

"will face the full extent of the law" and "will be arrested" - well, some of them will. They will "all be subjected to monitoring" - perhaps.

I keep wondering about this. I suspect these "ISIS" brides, women who went off to join their husbands in the Islamic State fight which failed are not all the same. 

Some of them will have gone out of a belief that the proposed caliphate would come about. They would have seen themselves as the wives of the leaders. They would have been ready to assume roles which gave them control over other women. They would have believed they would eventually be leading lives where they controlled not just other Muslim women but all women. These women would be hard line radicals. I have no doubt that at least one of those returning to this country will be in that category. She will still be a believer in these things. Given the opportunity she would do it again and believe that doing it "differently" would mean success the next time.

Then there will be others who will still believe it was right to go. They won't see it as a failure but a setback. The conditions there may have been appalling but they will believe that this is necessary in order to get to heaven.

There will be others who believe varying shades of both these things.

And there will be women who went because they had no choice. They had married, often by family arrangement, the men they went to join. They were told that not to go would bring shame on their families and the families of the men who went. They will have been taken out of school at the earliest possible age. They are not well educated. All their lives they have lived under the control of their fathers, their brothers and their husbands. To a lesser extent they have also been controlled by their mothers and then their mothers-in-law. They will have submitted to sex whenever it was required of them. They will have had multiple children and be expected to bring them up in the same traditions. 

This group will go on believing all this is right because this is what they have always been told. Changing those beliefs will be impossible. They may appear to do so. They may try but those beliefs will always be there.

Monitoring all these women, their children and grandchildren will cost millions of dollars every year for many years to come. Those who are citizens of this country have the right of return. How we handle the situation is going to be a test for all of us.  

   

Do we need another "Intervention"?

The "Intervention" was a government initiative of the early 2000's. It involved taking over some of the welfare payments being made to some indigenous people and leaving a smaller amount for discretionary spending.  It involved bringing in alcohol free zones. Some welfare payments were tied to school attendance. There was a greater police presence in some indigenous areas.

The plan was supported federally by both Labor and the Coalition but it was opposed by the state Labor government and Human Rights Commissions. It was also supported by many indigenous elders.

These "interventions" were also heavily criticised by people who claimed "indigenous people have the right to self-determination". They claimed that the result was increased levels of incarceration for those who would not abide by the measures.  That the measures did result in lower levels of domestic violence and increased school attendance was not seen as a measure of success. It was claimed there were "other" ways of helping indigenous people. The measures were dropped and there has been an increase in domestic violence issues. Alcohol related issues have increased. School attendance is down. There are more instances of children not being even adequately cared for.

Should those measures have been kept in place? There are still people arguing that they were wrong, that this is not how indigenous affairs should be handled. 

These arguments are being made even while billions (yes, billions - not millions) of taxpayer dollars are being spent for no measurable improvements. Argue that the reverse is true and we are told it is the fault of "the system" - whatever that is. We are told that indigenous people need "greater" rather than lesser control over their own affairs.

Is that working? No it is not. It will not work. Handing more control to indigenous "leaders" has been shown over and over again not to work. The latest horrific (and it really is horrific) murder of a young child came about partly because of this. The child had been the subject of repeated welfare reports. Nothing was done. The police were involved. Nothing was done. She slept on a mattress in the "living room" of a house not really fit for human habitation. Not so long ago it had been a new dwelling that, appropriately cared for, was more than adequate. The child's grandfather is head of an indigenous housing organisation and is reportedly receiving a very high income. Everything suggests this child should have been safe, well housed and well cared for but she was not. What is more it was considered so "normal" by the authorities they did not intervene. 

Yes, it sounds "racist" to say that. When suggestions are made about what might be done then there are claims of "if you do that then there will be another "stolen generation" so we have to leave them where they are". 

Perhaps it is time for more people to read the report into the "stolen generation" and look at the number of successful claims. There has been just one successful claim in this state - but we are still told there were "many" children just taken from their families. 

I would not agree with a policy that in any way forcibly removed children from their families if they were being even just adequately cared for at home. That said I wonder whether we do not need to intervene much more strongly when children are not being properly cared for. Is it perhaps time to stop the nonsense of "the right to self-determination" when such large sums of money are being spent for no visible benefit?  

 

There is currently a joke

going around that goes something like this. 

A man goes to heaven. He is waiting for St Peter to fill out the paper work at his desk. He looks around the office and sees all the clocks on the wall.

"What are all the clocks for?"

"Oh, they are the lie clocks," St Peter tells him.

"The lie clocks?"

"Yes, if they move then we know people have told a lie."

"Oh. Whose is that one there?"

"That's Mother Teresa's. It has never moved. She never told a lie."

"And that one?"

"That's Abraham Lincoln's. He only ever told two lies."

"Can you tell me where the one belonging to Donald Trump is?"

"Oh Jesus has that one in his office. He uses it as an air conditioner."

Yes, funny but it could also be applied here to our Prime Minister and his Cabinet, particularly his Treasurer. We have, believe it or not, just been told that "Lying is how you build trust." 

Apparently you lie to the public and then, gradually over months and years, you lie to them even more so that they come to believe that their policies are necessary and the changes are necessary. They tell you "the situation has changed", that an external event or some natural disaster has made the change in policy necessary. It is not true of course but this is how they handle policy changes.

There are some changes coming up in the Budget that will do a great deal of economic harm. They are being made with an eye to a third term in government. They will appear to be giving to "struggling" families who are finding it hard to make ends meet. 

A retired bank economist tried to explain to me yesterday that the proposals being discussed in the press will raise rents by around twenty percent. They will not add to housing stock and may make it more expensive to actually build houses. We already have a housing shortage. This will add to the problems. But.... it sounds good. 

By the time the next election comes around this will almost certainly be blamed on the war in the Middle East and the fuel shortages. Will the government be held to account? It is unlikely. We will just see more solar panels and wind turbines on agricultural land and be told that this is how we reach the magical "net zero".  

There is a need to be quiet

if you live in close proximity to other people. At least, I thought there was.

I live in a group of twelve units. They are not flats where people live on top of one another but self contained ground floor dwellings. They are what Americans might call condominiums. 

When I moved here I expected there would be a need to be aware of those around me. I was prepared for a need to be quiet. I hope I have been.

The same is not true of everyone. There is an alcoholic who lives in another unit whose voice I often hear. There is someone who lives two doors from her. I often hear her talking to the alcoholic and going in and out of her unit. These are background sort of noises. I can cope with those. They occur during daylight hours.

No, it is my next door neighbour. My neighbours seems to keep very odd hours. It is not unusual for me to hear what sounds like the dishes being done at eleven in the evening. This is not quiet. It is clattering and banging. The footsteps backwards and forwards are rapid and heavy. 

There is a machine of some sort being used at times. It sounds like one of those heavier floor polishers used by commercial cleaners. The other morning it was used just after 3am.  Yes, of course it woke me. The wall between is not that thick.

This person goes in and out the back screen door. It is left to bang shut. The other door is shut with a bang. There are more heavy footsteps. 

Oddly I never hear a television set or radio.

I have no idea what this person does for a living. Is it shift work? I would not have thought so. I am not sure this person even does go to work. We have spoken - but only briefly.

Is it unreasonable to ask for quiet between ten at night and six in the morning? Is it unreasonable for people to be aware? 

It worries me. Am I making any noise which disturbs people? Nobody has said anything but I still wonder.

I suppose it is better than being able to hear the two young ones on the other side when they are in bed.   

We are over taxed

in this country. We pay some of the highest, if not the highest, rates of taxation in the world. (Yes, some of those Scandinavian countries are high - but they get more for their Euros.) 

We are also over-governed.            

We pay tax on almost everything we buy through the "GST" - the "goods and services tax". We pay tax to our local council, shire, borough or whatever it is called. That is supposed to pay for things like local roads and rubbish collection. We pay taxes to our state government. We pay taxes to our federal government. We also pay for other government run "services". Our national health service is not "free" - although the Prime Minister keeps telling us it is. 

A great deal of our taxes go on duplicating services in varying amounts at different levels. They go on sorting out the different laws and regulations in each state. They go on employing the vast legal network needed to oversee all this. Yes, plenty of people have cause to want things to go on this way. Their livelihoods depend on it.

It needs to change. It won't change.

But it is also this sort of thing that allows petty little dictators who are also excellent con artists into making people believe that millions upon millions of dollars spent rooting up trees in parkland is a good idea. The Premier of this state is one of those dictators. He is still trying to go ahead with the "LIV" golf course to the north of the CBD. There is already a golf course there. It is a public course used by many. It is apparently more than fit for purpose. There are hundreds of trees there. The LIV course is redesigned. It requires hundreds of trees to come out. Not as many people will be able to use it. The land has been taken without compensation from people who have cared for it, from ratepayers who have paid their taxes into it.

I could not care less about golf. I am Mark Twain's view that it is "a good walk spoilt" but I do care about the trees and the wildlife which rely on the trees and the removal of our green canopy. I also care about fairly compensating people for loss. This has not been done here.

This is what happens when a government is handed too much power. All I can do is hope there is a backlash at the next election - but it will be too late to save what needs to be saved.