A "First Nations Ambassador"?

Here is yet another taxpayer funded woke idea that we are expected to take on board.

"Cat, what on earth are they on about?" M... asked me when I asked him what he thought of it, "Are they trying to say that one person could represent all of us?"

M... and I have had a few conversations about such things lately. We both agree his late mother would be up in arms over the "Voice to Parliament" idea. This is another idea M... does not think his mother would be at all happy about.

Some years ago now we had an issue here. It was to do with building a bridge to a small island which was a tourist destination at the time. The Senior Cat's cousin was one of the few who lived there most of the year round. Unlike some of the other islanders he was not concerned about the building of the bridge. He knew it had to come sometime. Others were much more concerned. They would lose their "lifestyle". 

They enlisted the help of the "local aboriginal community" to stop it - or so they claimed. What they actually did was enlist a group which claimed that the island had particular significance for indigenous women. It was, so the enlisted group claimed, part of "secret women's business". On these grounds they tried to prevent the bridge being built.

There was a long battle over this with lots of media attention. M...'s mother, R..., who was in a position to be better informed than anyone I know was as angry as I ever saw anyone. There was, she told those concerned, no such thing. It was a story people were making up in order to try and prevent progress. These people may have reached a point where they believed what they were saying but there was no secret women's business involved. There was nothing to stop the bridge being built apart from the desire of some to keep the island to themselves. There were other indigenous people who agreed with R... but the "activists" were the ones to get the publicity.  Eventually the bridge was built and all the dire warnings about what might happen have faded into nothing.

I tell the story because it is an excellent example of the sort of problems which need to be resolved before progress can be made. It is also an excellent example of the uncertainty which surrounds so many of these issues. Many people believe there is some sort of "secret women's business" surrounding the location of the bridge. R..., an indigenous woman who really was in a position to know, had never heard of such a thing. 

"It's complete and utter nonsense," she told me, "Even if it wasn't look at those women. They wouldn't know about it."

There are no "First Nations" people in this country. At white settlement the indigenous people here identified by tribal and language groupings. The linguistic diversity alone is enormous. Those on opposite sides of the country would not have understood one another. Many of those languages have now been lost. One was lost because the two mother-tongue speakers of it were brother and sister - and culture demanded brothers and sisters did not communicate with each other. The cultural diversity is so great that the idea of any one person representing all is as foolish as having just one ambassador for all of Europe or Africa. 

Apparently however this is an idea that we are now going to spend millions on. We are being told by the Minister for Foreign Affairs that it is "not about segregation but inclusion". She has gone on to say,

“I think in the world telling the full story of who we are is a good thing to do, regardless of one's political views over the Uluru statement.  This is about telling the full breadth of the story about who we are.”

The idea that it is "the full story" is wrong. I am worried that it will lead to even greater erosion of the once extraordinary diversity of language and culture.