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We’ll decide who buys our wheat
and the manner in which they buy.
We’ll decide who we will bomb
and the manner in which they’ll die.
And by the way, we didn’t know,
we didn’t know that it wasn’t so.
We never heard the children’s screams.
Saddam Hussein was the one it seems
who took the wheat, gold and dreams
and designed the Wheat Board’s schemes.
As for the AWB’s deals, we were blind.
Lost are the WMDs we hoped to find.
We took the cash but couldn’t see
the corrupt deals with well bribed ghouls
or all the misery hidden in the debris
of dismembered bodies and tortured souls.
We’ll decide who buys our wheat,
who will starve and who will eat,
who we’ll spurn and who we’ll greet
and who we’ll rob and who we’ll cheat.

First Published Al- Moharer Vol. 239b 6/2/2006 http://www.al-moharer.net/ mohhtm/j_tomlinson239b.htm

I live in a land of the deaf where the one-eyed king is blind:
blind to the suffering of the original owners of country
blind to the erosion of hope and aspirations of workers
insightful of every opportunity to divide the nation
blind to the destructiveness of his racist ideology
blind to the lies he tells about African refugees
awake to opportunities his twisted mouth conveys
blind to the possibilities of a peaceful future
blind to the war crimes he commits in Iraq
sure sighted about the need for mutual obligation
blind to the needs of young unemployed people
blind to the fears of lone parents and their children
clear sighted about the ruthless greed in leafy suburbs
blind to the future possibilities for all humanity
blind even to his own indifference towards Indigenes.

First published on Union Songs 30/10/2007 http://unionsong.com/u560.html

Written by John Tomlinson and Penny Harrington.
Inspired by and can be sung to the tune of Bob Dylan’s Mr. Tambourine Man.

Chorus:
Hey! Mr Johnny Howard, tell a lie to me,
I’m hard-up and there is no place I’m going to.
Hey! Mr Johnny Howard, tell a lie to me,
in the jingle jangle morning I’ll come shadowing you.

Though I know that this week’s wages have crumbled into sand,
vanished from my hand,
Work Choices’ cruel command have left me weeping,
your arrogance amazes me, you’ve brought me to my knees,
the bosses you must please
your promises can’t appease, they’re just deceivin’.

Take me on a trip upon your sleazy curlin’ lip,
my senses have been stripped, my throat can feel the grip,
my eyes too blind to cry, wait only for your jack boots
to come thunderin’.
I’m not going anywhere, I’ll refuse to fade
into your sad parade, cast your empty spell away,
I’ll not go under it.

Though you might hear cryin’, sighin’, from the mouths of those you shun,
it’s not meant for everyone, just keepin’ Blackfellas on the run
‘cause you don’t want to keep the miners waitin’.
You say you’re intervening, that it’s for the children’s sake
John, you really take the cake – you grab control to seize their land
with the waving of a wand – it’s just a chimera we’re seeing
that you’re chasing.

My conscience disappearin’ through the half truths of your lies
turned away from human sighs, like a hanger-on of thieves,
the frightened refugees, that you placed out of reach,
with your sullen twisted speech inflicting sorrow.
Yes, we’ll dance together in our land with one fist waving high,
in a common unity, struggling for humanity,
with a memory of your sin against those of different skin,
we’ll fight today to build a bright tomorrow.

First published Union Songs 26/9/2007http://unionsong.com/u545.html also published same day Al-Moharer http://www.al-moharer.net/mohhtm/tomlinson261.htm

Unpublished comment written in 2012

It’s reassuring to know that conservative parliamentarians have extreme learning difficulties and that creating a reasonably progressive and humane alternative is a surmountable task. For some time now I have been concerned that building a political platform that was capable of attracting sufficient support to attain power was slipping out of the hands of progressive forces in Australia and elsewhere.

The racially discriminatory Northern Territory Intervention launched by Mal Brough and John Howard in a last ditch effort to retain power was continued by Kevin Rudd and expanded by Julia Gillard. Prime Minister Gillard is continuing, with alacrity, the invasion of Afghanistan started by John Howard. The denigration of social security recipients (particularly those who are single parents or unemployed) was intensified under Howard and continued by Labor’s Jenny Macklin. Initially the Rudd Government attempted to build a humane policy in relation to asylum seekers arriving by boat but the recent return to the Pacific solution (which has all the subtlety of the final solution to the Jewish question) might lead one to doubt that it is possible to build progressive social policy likely to gain traction with the general public.

These features were not just part of the political landscape here but could be found predominating in Berlusconi’s Italy, Assad’s Syria, Sudan and in hundreds of dirty wars like what is occurring in Somalia. The great Black hope for progress in the United States of America failed to get his budget through, failed to close Guantanamo, failed to turn the US into force for world peace and became just another cheer leader watching the assassination of Osama bin Laden and authorising drone strikes on rebel fighters when ever and where ever the fascist power of the US or its Israeli allies was challenged.

First published Al-Moharer 6/12/2006
http://www.al-moharer.net/mohhtm/tomlinson 251b.htm
also on the same day in Union Songs
http://unionsong.com/u442.html
also published in The Woodstock Journal CMFEU Tasmania Vol. 39 Dec 2006
also published in The Word Feb/March 2007 Issue 28

Once a jolly jumbuck camped by a billabong
under the shade of a swaggie it seems
and he sang and he watched while Conzinc mined uranium
“Who’ll come a waltzing Matilda with me”.

Down came a miner to poison the waterhole
up jumped John Howard and embraced him with glee
and he sang as he stuffed the profits in his money bag
“You’ll come a waltzing Matilda with me”.

Up rode the Greens a-riding on a fountainhead
up rode the Democrats, the ALP.
“Where’s the grubby yellowcake you’ve got in your money bag
We’ll not go a waltzing Matilda with thee”.

Howard and the miner weighed down by uranium
both drowned themselves by the Coolabah tree
and their ghosts may be heard as they greet the God of Capital
“Please come a waltzing Matilda with me”.

unpublished comment 2012

Julia Gillard has refused to apologise to the wife of Mamdouh Habib despite the fact that:

AUSTRALIA’S intelligence watchdog has called on the federal government to apologise to the wife of former Guantanamo Bay detainee Mamdouh Habib, for not keeping her informed about his welfare and circumstances.

The recommendation comes in a report by the Inspector-General for Intelligence and Security Dr Vivienne Thom given to the government in December, but only publicly released today.  However, Julia Gillard said in a statement the government would not be apologising.

“We are satisfied that Australian agencies and officials performed their duties faithfully in the difficult and unprecedented environment in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks,” Ms Gillard said.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/pm-refuses-to-apologise-to- mamdouh-habibs-wife/story-fn59niix-1226308462086

This Prime Minister has form for ignoring the advice of the referee when such advice clashes with her preconceived wisdom or the interests of ASIO and their US masters. Hundreds of asylum seekers languish for months or years in detention centres awaiting an ASIO clearance long after they have been found to be refugees. We are staying in Afghanistan, we are welcoming US troops to be based on our shores, we are even planning to allow the US to base killer drones and other unpiloted surveillance aircraft to be based on our offshore islands in the Indian Ocean.

She was deputy PM when Rudd decided to persevere with the ill-conceived NT Intervention against the advice of the expert committee set up to review the Intervention. Gillard has expanded the denigrating aspects of the Intervention in the NT. She has supported Macklin’s plans to control other social security recipients money in other parts of Australia where large populations of Aboriginal and other non Anglo-Celtic people live.

Fascists, racists, ASIO, Mossad, and the CIA don’t need John Howard anymore to do their bidding they have now got Julia.

Introduction

This paper will argue that much of the current debate about income security, unemployment and social dislocation on Indigenous communities on Cape York fails to address the real issues confronting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in these communities. In significant areas, the assertions made about ‘welfare dependency’, domestic violence, unemployment, economic underdevelopment and drunkenness have derived out of a Eurocentric understanding and have addressed white agendas.

Nothing in this paper is designed to deflect attention from excessive drinking, violence, unemployment and despair which exists in many communities on the Cape. Rather, we hope to summarise the perceptions of many Indigenous citizens and to provide the wider society with explanations of the situations which currently exist and to suggest ways in which Indigenous people can surmount those difficulties in ways which are compatible with Indigenous aspirations. There is no single Indigenous view about any of these issues, rather we are attempting to encapsulate the essence of the dialogue which is proceeding apace throughout the region.

The mainstream media, the Queensland and Federal Governments have supported the views of some prominent media personalities; in particular Noel Pearson and Tony Fitzgerald. These instant experts share remarkably similar views of the causes of the problems on the Cape and as a consequence, identify remarkably similar solutions. The identified problems are the grog, violence and unemployment, the solution which such an analysis demands is to control the grog and end ‘welfare dependency’.

The elitist suggestion implicit in a lot of the ‘welfare dependency’ rhetoric is that those who impose the obligations on others are ‘being cruel to be kind’. We certainly believe they are being cruel. We do not believe that there is any evidence which suggests that such impositions of obligations makes people better citizens, helps them escape the welfare system or has any beneficial outcomes for those on whom the obligation is imposed. Those who impose the ‘mutual obligations’ are the sole beneficiaries of such policies.

Essentially, our argument is that imposing so called ‘mutual obligation’ upon Indigenous citizens of the Cape is a further extension of the colonial invasion which has proceeded relentlessly for the last 214 years. We believe it will exacerbate the situations which daily confront Indigenous people on the Cape, rather than providing people with real opportunities to improve their social and economic situation. People freed of behavioural constraints will willingly choose to accept those social obligations to others which they regard as reasonable. Only when Australian people and their governments truly recognise Indigenous people’s human rights will they be free of their compulsion to impose obligations. Only then will Indigenous people be able to effectively address the social and economic questions which confront them.

Policies of ‘mutual obligation’ are increasingly being imposed on the poor in white society allegedly because such policies are supposed to decrease ‘welfare dependency’. In part, the attractiveness of the ‘welfare dependency’ rhetoric is that it justifies limitations imposed on welfare spending. Such rhetoric has a sanctimonious aura allowing the better off to justify a meanness of spirit under a cloak of benediction. The logic underlying the entire ‘mutual obligation’ rhetoric underpinning the thinking which led to the Community Development Employment Program (CDEP), began in 1977 and which has existed on the Cape since 198?. ‘Mutual obligation’ has been tried. It has not solved the very problems which the next round of imposed ‘mutual obligation’ is supposed to solve.

On the way to gaining an understanding of the situation in Cape York Indigenous communities it will be necessary to:

• investigate the history of white/Indigenous contact on the Cape,
• examine some of the current reports and widely distributed analyses of the situation on CapeYork, h pose some basic questions, and
• ask from where the ideas which drive much of the analysis have come before it will be possible to understand why such reports and analysis find such ready acceptance by Queensland and Federal Governments, conservative newspaper commentators and their white readership.

It will also be necessary to:

• discuss several of the features of life on the Cape York which are ignored in current public discussion,
• examine why these features are not discussed, and
• look at alternative interpretations of current reality on the Cape before putting forward our suggestions which might enable Indigenous citizens of Cape York to come to terms with the issues which confront the people of their areas.

We have not set out to create radically new ideas because we believe that many Indigenous people of Cape York already have the answers. Our job, as we have interpreted it, is to pull together these ideas and to try to present them in a way which might allow the Queensland and Commonwealth Governments to desist from interfering in a socially destructive manner, choosing hopefully to work with the communities and to provide the necessary finance and external assistance.

Why is this debate proceeding now?

In recent times there has been a significant coverage of events occurring on Cape York after decades of media neglect. The Mabo and Wik debates kicked it off, the return of some land to Indigenous owners, the Cape York Partnership agreement signed by pastoralists, Indigenous leaders, conservationists and the Queensland Government have all played a part. More recently the return by Comalco of some land to the native title holders. This land had been ceded to this alumina mining company by the Queensland Government in 1963 and either did not contain useful minerals or was land from which the ore had been extracted. Bonnie Robertson’s Taskforce Report (199?) which looked at the connection between drinking and domestic violence drew attention to the prevalence of internecine violence on many communities on the Cape. Noel Pearson’s 1999 report entitled “Our right to take responsibility” focused on ‘welfare dependency’, the grog problem, unemployment, the need to impose ‘mutual obligation’ and the absence of a real economy on many Indigenous communities. Towards the end of 2001, Tony Fitzgerald’s three volume report was handed to the Queensland Government recommending restricting alcohol on communities where social dislocation and domestic violence was occurring .

The issues which these reports address have been long standing ones on the Cape (Wilson 1982), the failure to pay attention to them in the past is as significant as the frequent attention currently being exhibited. To this extent, we are indebted to Bonnie Robertson, Noel Pearson, Tony Fitzgerald and those in the media and government who have done much to publicise the issues raised.

The job which is ahead of us is to interrogate these reports in order to see whether they throw light on the issues which will need to be addressed if Indigenous people are to gain from the exposure they are now experiencing, whether the reports recommendations will ‘solve’ the problems which the reports identify. To investigate whether the proposed solutions have been tried before and if they were efficacious then. To ask whether these solutions have been tried unsuccessfully in the past is there anything which has changed which is likely to make them successful now. To see if there are alternative solutions to those the reports are proposing. To ask some basic questions about what is driving the directions these reports are taking.

Noel Pearson’s from Our right to take responsibility to ‘mutual obligation’

Some questions
Noel Pearson demonstrated his undoubted communication skills in the period between the Mabo No 2 judgement and the passage of the Keating Government’s Native Title Act. He became a darling of the media. When he produced his “Our right to take responsibility” discussion paper his views were presented in much of the mainstream media as the Indigenous view. The complexity of the issues which he was addressing escaped many of the commentators. They needed to but did not ask “Are Pearson’s views an Indigenous view or are they simply the views of an Indigenous person?

It is extremely important to know if Pearson’s views are reflective of a wider Indigenous perspective or whether they are so clouded by a Lutheranised view of the world that it would be more appropriate to simply regard them as part of a conservative Christian world view.

The anthropologist David Martin who has worked extensively on Cape York makes the important point that:

it cannot be assumed that the pejorative view of dependency advanced in the welfare debate, grounded as it is, in no small part, on an ideological construct of the moral worth of the productive individual within the market economy, is necessarily shared by all Aboriginal people.

On the contrary, there is a significant body of anthropological writing which suggests that ‘dependency’, in terms of a culturally established and validated capacity to demand and receive resources and services (symbolic and tangible) from others is a core principle through which Aboriginal agency is realised in the structuring of social relationships. This principle operates both within contemporary Aboriginal groups and in the intercultural zone between them and the wider society.

Had observers asked what was driving Pearson’s analysis, then it may have allowed commentators to identify the antecedents of Pearson’s views. (See section Where do these ideas come from?) Pearson uses the words ‘reciprocity’ and ‘mutuality’ often in ways compatible with Prime Minister Howard’s (1999, 2000) Patrick McClure (2000) or Mark Latham’s (1998) usage. Ray Cassin, writing at Page 22 of The Sunday Age on 27/8/2000, attacks such usage, he says

You can be ‘on’ social security in the literal sense of receiving benefits, but this usage does not carry the pejorative flavour of being ‘on’ welfare. The reason is not mysterious: we do not talk about social-security dependency, or social-services dependency because ‘social security’ and ‘social services’ are bound up with an older notion of entitlement, and an understanding of mutual obligation that goes beyond tit-for-tat reciprocity.

The ideal of mutual obligation underpinning a system of social security is not one of reciprocity, but of obligation borne by all of us to contribute to the support of people who would otherwise be destitute.

Noel Pearson (1999) has spent much effort condemning the society security system for undermining Indigenous society. He wrote:

The following are some of the problems with welfare:

• it is invariably a poor substitute for a fair share. Welfare is never enough to properly live on. Rather than provide the opportunity for a proper place in the wider economy andsociety, the cheap option of welfare is provided instead;
• it kills initiative and breeds dependency. It discourages people from self-providing and taking their fair share through engagement in the real economy;
• it promotes wrong and destructive values in the recipients and the society at large – namely that life can be sustained through perpetual dependency, when the truth is that it never is;
• it undermines self-esteem and promotes a sense of helplessness and hopelessness in people;
• it pacifies recipients rather than invigorating them into social or political action to secure a better deal for themselves and their children;
• it reproduces these same problems in following generations.

These are not new observations about the effect of welfare. They apply to members of the wider white society who have grown dependent upon welfare as much as it does to Aboriginal society.

Noel Pearson has even gone as far as suggesting that:

The first step in leeching out the poison from welfare is to ensure that Government stops dealing poison directly to individuals in our society, through sending cheques in the mail. It is the direct corruption of individuals through the provision of resources via the government’s welfare mode that is the source of the problem.

Clearly Pearson is drinking from the same cup as ex-Minister Jocelyn Newman who when commissioning the McClure (2000) Report set the context in which the report was to be written with her paper entitled “The Challenge of Welfare Dependency in the 21st. Century”. Despite the ardour with which Pearson, Latham (2000), Newman (1999) and other conservatives hold such views about the unerring propensity of social services to increase dependency, weaken initiative and destroy society, they are simply wrong. Professor Robert Goodin with his colleagues (1999) and Standing (2002) provide a total refutation of the suggestion that generous welfare provision invariably lead to the outcomes that Pearson asserts. Anthropologist David Martin (2001) who has worked extensively on Cape York agrees with Pearson that Indigenous people on the Cape are experiencing increased social problems but he goes on to assert that Noel Pearson “is not correct in positing access to welfare incomes for Aboriginal people as contributing to this social breakdown in a direct and causal sense p.11.”

Pearson at other times speaks as if he considers ‘mutual obligation’ as he wants to apply it on the Cape to have a specific Indigenous flavour. ‘Mutuality’ and ‘reciprocity’ have clearly defined locally specific meanings in traditional society. They more a more generalised meaning in modern Indigenous society certainly one that goes beyond “tit-for-tat reciprocity.” The problem that then exists for any agency wishing to impose ‘mutual obligations’ on Cape York communities is what do such words mean within the specific cultural context of a particular community or a specific clan group living in a community.

If a department can’t clearly articulate what central ideas such as ‘mutual obligation’ mean in the specific context of Indigenous communities on the Cape, or in other parts of Queensland, then it will not be in a position to evaluate the effectiveness of its program. It will subject some to arbitrary termination of benefit. To the extent that Indigenous views as to appropriate obligations clash with the department’s interpretation of required obligations, then this further alienates Indigenous people from their cultural base undermining their sense of community, culture and society. This is simply a further imposition of Eurocentric practices. If specific Indigenous interpretations of concepts such as ‘mutual obligation’ are not articulated there is the ever present possibility that ‘mutual obligation’ will simply come to mean on Cape York what John Howard (1999, 2000) intends it to mean.

Where do these ideas some from?

We will now attempt to locate the origins of the fear of ‘welfare dependency’. It is necessary to undertake this sojourn in order that the current ‘mutual obligation’ debate can be placed in its proper historical context.

The first thing to realise is that the Howard Government’s concept of ‘mutual obligation’ is simply a more extensive and extreme version of the previous Labor Government’s policy of reciprocal obligation. Elements of ‘mutual obligation’ driven by the fear of ‘welfare dependency’ are present in the consolidation of the Federal social security legislation in 1947. They are most obvious in relation to the treatment of unemployed people. The CDEP (Community Development Employment Program) and the compelled participation in the ‘Work for the Dole’ scheme are latter-day equivalents of the 1930s Depression “Susso” scheme’s forced labour programs. The fear of ‘welfare dependency’ is revealed in the Parliamentary debates which occurred at the time of the introduction of the first Commonwealth social security legislation in 1908. In the Australian colonies from the early 1800s policies were implemented which aimed to refuse assistance to the unworthy poor, malingers, and the ‘work shy’ (Dickey 1980).

Such policies were simple adaptations of the British Poor Law system of welfare relief. The revised Poor Law of 1834 enshrined the concept of ‘less eligibility’ which hoped to discourage people from applying for welfare relief by ensuring anyone assisted would receive less than the lowest paid worker and that those who were assisted were stigmatised. The first legislative enactment of the Poor Laws was in 1601 and as Rodgers (1968 p. 12) points out this act was the parliament’s attempt to pull together the practices of the previous 70 years. Even in the days of the 17th. Century Poor Laws there were those who wanted the people who were assisted to make the scheme self-supporting “but unfortunately systems of this kind have nearly always failed because they involve compelling people to work against their will (Rodgers 1968 p. 15). [Fuller accounts of this welfare history can be found at Polanyi 1945, Tomlinson 2001].

What is clear from this brief history is that it is possible to observe clear linkages between the Howard Government’s 2002 policies of ‘mutual obligation’ and ‘welfare dependency’ and the policies of circa 1530 in Britain. Clearly the linkages between the current Australian Government welfare policies and those of church and parish welfare policies would stretch back even further into antiquity. This raises a number of central questions:

• What is it which makes such outdated social concepts so acceptable to the Australian Liberal Government?
• Why are present welfare policies so closely linked to pre-17th. Century views of welfare relief rather than being based upon the understandings provided by modern social science research?
• As we start on a new millennium why are 500 year old moral imperatives appropriate to apply to complex social questions today?
• Are the 16th. and 17th. Century Christian values appropriate to enforce upon Indigenous individuals and communities in 2002?
• If such antiquarian views are to be enforced upon Indigenous citizens what regard is to be given to traditional Indigenous views about appropriate reciprocal relationships?
• What regard is to be shown towards the self-sustaining system of Indigenous reciprocity which has evolved on the Cape in the post-invasion period?
• If this central aspect of Indigenous culture and interpersonal relationships is simply to be supplanted by 5 century’s old European Christain views about obligation, is this not then a further extension of Eurocentric colonisation?

What sort of Income Support system would work? A hand-up not a hand-out

Van Parijs (1992[a] p.229) claims that because a Basic Income is paid, irrespective of all other sources of income, it can be used by those who desire work as a wage subsidy; yet, because it provides sufficient income on which to live, it does not compel any potential worker to work under conditions which that worker finds unacceptable. He concludes that “Whereas a rising means-tested benefit makes it increasingly difficult for unskilled people to find a job, a rising basic income makes it increasingly feasible (Van Parijs 1992[a] p.229)”.

There are efficiency arguments which can and should be mounted in support of an unconditional Basic Income.

• A Basic Income requires the least interference in the lives of citizens.
• It supplies all permanent residents with equal assistance.
• It is the most inclusive form of income support payment and the most secure, thus enhancing citizenship.
• It provides sufficient income to allow the possibility that people will explore their creative capacity.
• It removes many of the obstacles to a reinvigoration of the industrial, technical and computing infrastructure.
• It allows the State a fuller understanding of the impact of its other social wage policies.

However, a Basic Income is just that – an unconditional universal income guarantee. It delivers an income floor without interfering with productivity. It is a vast improvement on categorical selective social services. It is an advance on all social insurance and private provision schemes which invariably result in the ‘individualisation of risk’ (Lerner, Clark & Needham 1999 p. 11) and as a result create a ‘do it yourself welfare state’ (Klein & Millar cited in Page 1998 p.307).

A Basic Income is not a utopian panacea – it will not abolish all social difficulties. But, it will allow the State to construct its other social welfare, health, education, disability, ethnic and community service policies on a firm and known foundation. In this regard it may not be the best income support policy, in any absolute sense, just the best income support policy capable of being implemented in the early 21st. Century in Australia.

Basic Income is not a new idea

As Walter Van Trier (1995) and Philippe Van Parijs (1992[b] p. 25) reminds us, ever since the first book length plea for Basic Income written by Dennis Milner (1920) economic efficiency arguments have played a major role. Milner wanted to ensure the inadequacies of the British poor law system were overcome, to enhance national productivity, and to provide a more equitable base from which workers might negotiate wages (Van Trier 1995 Part 1).

A not dissimilar income support arrangement was put to the Australian Government by Professor Henderson in the First Main Report of the Poverty Inquiry in 1975. During the Fraser Government a compatible income support system was specifically suggested for Aboriginal People living in remote parts of Australia (Turnbull 1980 part 2).

The idea of a Basic Income is being actively considered in many parts of Europe and the Americas and even closer to home in New Zealand. [See The Basic Income European Network BEIN web site: http://www.etes.ucl.ac.be/BIEN/bien.html and the Universal Basic Income New Zealand web site: http://www.geocities.com/ubinz/ and Tomlinson (2001).

From the frontier economy to a mission economy to a surreal economy

Some issues

Money
Technical skills
Markets and
Resources
Extraction
Miners import labour rather than train locals Underdevelopment

Options

These are not prescriptive suggestions, there will be many other ideas which people will rather pursue; people in each community will decide which if any suit their aspirations.

Eco and Cultural tourism Artifact production
Lure production
Pastoral
Bush tucker
Horticulture
Mangoes
Bananas
Exotic fruit
Fishing charters
Barramundi , Threadfin Salmon, reef fish.
Catch and release-Jungle Perch, Tarpon Archer Fish Commercial Fishing
Aquaculture
Cheribin
Lobster
Pearl shell/meat prawns
abalone
coral
sponges
partnerships with alternative technology companies
partnerships with bio-technology companies
Service industries
Petrol stations
Local government
Health/welfare/education/alcohol or drug rehabilitation/after school youth worker Conservation
Turtle, Emu, Cassawarry, tropical pigeon breeding programs for conservation purposes Feral pig eradication
Maybe try to domesticate magpie geese or wild duck
Pig and fowl farming

The job of any change agent is to find out what prevents economic or other community desired things happening.

In search of the real economy

Noel Pearson (1999) has spent much effort condemning the social security system for undermining Indigenous society. We are not suggesting that the existing system of social security in Australia is without flaws. On the contrary, the manner in which the existing system of social security operates may lead in many cases to the outcomes about which Pearson and others warn. This is an argument to move towards a generous universal system of income support rather than reduce people’s access to social services. (See: What sort of Income Support System would work?)

Pearson goes as far as suggesting that “In order to leech the poison out of welfare we have to build responsibility, reciprocity and ‘mutual obligation’ into all of the economic relationships and transactions in our society.”

Pearson’s condemnation of the way community government and Indigenous enterprises are funded on the Cape leads him to attack the “welfare economy” which he sees as composed of the social security payments and all the other government provided funds which are intended to help individuals and communities on the Cape to function. He sees such a welfare economy as separate from and inferior to the real economy which he sees controlled by the market. Creating such a theoretical duality may be useful if the intention is to discuss idealised economic models but such distinctions have very limited practical utility.

Pearson himself realises that “Aboriginal people participated in the real economy for most of Australia’s colonial history, and we did so at the lowest end of the scale. Engagement in the real economy was quite degrading and involved tragic exploitation.” He goes on to suggest “all that was needed was for our parents and grandparents to be paid and treated equally – and we would have been better off keeping our place in the real economy.” Though he accepts that “the impact of the equal wage decision (1967) on Aboriginal labour in the cattle industry was decisive. People lost their place in the pastoral economy and returned to the increasingly welfare-based economy of the settlements.” It is clear that Indigenous people in Australia have seldom been offered the opportunity to participate on equitable terms in the market economy. Part of the challenge facing Australian governments at the moment is finding ways to incorporate Indigenous communities into mainstream society / economy or to find other paths which white and Indigenous communities can take which will have equitable outcomes for each.

A reading of Rosalind Kidd’s (1997) The Way We Civilise should give the lie to any suggestion that the pastoral company was a real economy unsubsidised by Aborigines, rural labour and governments. Queensland Governments were involved with enforcing the system of indentured labour (setting wage rates and periods of employment). Queensland Governments kept the lease rental for cattle stations artificially low and provided other subsidies to the pastoral leasees. The Queensland Government through its police and mission protectors controlled [and often misappropiated ( Kidd 1997)] the income of Indigenous workers and that same Government set the rates of training wages paid on settlements and missions – the major form of alternative work available to Aborigines.

A reading of The Mapoon Story demonstrates the extent to which the Queensland Government was prepared to disrupt entire Indigenous communities on the Western side of the Cape in order to facilitate the development of Comalco’s alumini mining operation. Nearly 6000 square kilometers of Aboriginal reserves were transferred to Comalco’s control (Kidd 1997 p.204, Roberts, Russell & Parsons1974). In November 1963 Aboriginal people at Mapoon had their houses burned and were shifted by armed police to Bamaga on the tip of Cape York. The Comalco operation was consistently assisted by governments. Comalco, like many other mining companies, does not confirm to Pearson’s definition of a real economy.

If one were to review the industry subsidies provided to primary producers during most of the 20th Century, the publicly provided transport infrastructure (rail, port and road), the tax subsidies and emergency assistance then the bulk of primary production does not meet Pearson’s definition of a real economy. In 2001 the Federal Government provided massive assistance to the housing, airline and tourism industries to prop them up during a lean period. The forestry industry has been throughout the post-colonial history one of the most heavily subsidised industries. No forestry operation pays anything like the replacement costs of the wood it logs or woodchips. The subsidies provided to Australian ship builders, foot wear and clothing manufacturers, steel industry and others have decreased substantially in recent years, but car manufacturers continue to demand and receive subsidies in the hundreds of millions of dollars. These and other industries are assisted by existing tariff protection. Senator Bob Brown estimates that Australian Industry received $14 Billion annually in government provided assistance (Van Dyke 2000). Again these industries would not meet Pearson’s real economy test.

The public service, the parliament, universities, the school and health systems, the community services all receive massive subsidies from the public purse they would not qualify as being part of Pearson’s real economy.

The reality is that, in Australia, economic enterprise which operates without any direct or indirect assistance from government is a rarity. Why then would one expect community enterprise on Cape York to be any different. Pearson himself suggests “The geographical remoteness of the communities of Cape York means it is nigh on impossible for Aboriginal people to engage in the real economy”. Pearson points out that the colonial dispossession removed the possibility of Aboriginal self-sufficiency. The result was that people were forced to move between taking jobs at exploitative wage rates in the pastoral industry or engage in what he terms “an institutional subsistence economy” on a mission or settlement. Pearson points out that until the 1970’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders on the Cape seldom received social security payments but today these payments are widespread and this, plus the assistance community government or community enterprises receive from governments is, he suggests, “the welfare problem which is undermining Aboriginal society”. This remarkable conclusion cannot be supported by the facts.

In section 6 of his report he asserts that were/are three types of real economy on the Cape, namely the traditional subsistence economy, the mission or modern subsistence economy and the white fella market economy. Each of these economies are real he suggests because in them “If you don’t work, you starve”. Yet seven pages later he contradicts this assertion in relation to the traditional subsistence economy when he writes “prior to the impact of welfare, the exchange of resources within the community followed these traditional pattern of rights and obligations between people who were socially connected. ‘Cadging’ – borrowing food from people when one is out – was common and occurred on a reciprocal basis between community members.” On Hopevale Mission where Pearson grew up the ration system may have encouraged self-provision and work, yet people who were unable to provide for themselves were not allowed to starve. In Australia the market economy is underpinned by a welfare system for those unable to maintain themselves. So the ‘starvation’ test for real economies does not have practical utility.

Pearson claims:

The people and communities of Cape York Peninsula are now almost completely welfare dependent. Most of the income is from government transfer payments to individuals and Aboriginal organisations. The economy of the communities is artificially sustained by government welfare transfers. These transfers create the job opportunities that are available in the communities.

On the tests of real economies which Pearson sets up it would appear that few Indigenous or non- Indigenous people living on the Cape are working in real economies. This then poses a number of questions:

• what is it about the styles of economies which exist on communities on the Cape which are leading to dissatisfaction?
• are there more sensible measures/descriptions of the effectiveness of the types of economies on the Cape than have been used so far?
• what would need to change to result in more desirable outcomes for the Indigenous people living on the Cape?
• would the extra expenditure be affordable?
• Would governments and bureaucracies be capable of tolerating the change?

Welfare provision at community or individual levels is a strange place to start if the aim is economic development. If economic development were the desired outcome on the Cape, then the necessary infrastructure to allow such development would need to be put in place. There have been large scale economic developments which has taken place on the Cape since the 1960’s but it has only peripherally included some Indigenous people. Where economic development has been undertaken, in places such as Weipa, the Indigenous owners have been considered an encumbrance rather than partners. The real resources which Aboriginal people owned – land and mineral resources were just taken from them.

The prevailing view on ownership of minerals in Australia is that ownership resides in the Crown. Professor Rowley points out that this was not always the case. For some Aborigines state legislation has been at least as important as actions taken on the national stage. As Charles Rowley put it:

the epoch-making Lands Trust Act of 1966 aroused considerable resistance in the Legislative Council, which succeeded in removing the provisions for mineral rights, although these would not have been revolutionary in South Australia, where proprietors of land grants made before 1880 have retained mineral rights alienated from the original grants (1972 p. 280).

The Commonwealth’s Northern Territory Land Rights Act drafted by the Whitlam Government in 1975 amended and then passed by the Fraser Government in 1976 provided Aboriginal people who had maintained close links with their traditional lands the opportunity to reclaim unalienated crown land in the Northern Territory. The South Australian legislation and the NT Land Rights Act have been the vehicle by which Aborigines in these two regions have recovered ownership of considerable areas of land and have consequently been able to start to develop a secure economic future (Crough 1993). The ceding of mineral rights on indigenous land to local indigenous communities is occurring in parts of the world such as Canada.

It would be a significant step towards reconciliation were the Crown (State and Federal Governments) to restore the ownership of mineral rights to Indigenous people, at least in relation to land where native title has been held to have not been extinguished. This would substantially change Indigenous people’s capacity to control the pace and direction of mineral extraction on their land.

If the ownership of minerals were to reside with Indigenous communities then it is likely that the minimum requirements which would need to be met before a mining operation would go ahead would be:

• All sites of significance would be protected.
• The quality of life in the communities affected would need to be safeguarded.
• Environmental protection systems would need to be in place prior to the commencement of mining.
• Indigenous people would have a minimum of 50% ownership of projects.
• Work for all local Indigenous people who required it would be found.
• Training would be provided to Indigenous local people to assist them with careers in the operation.
• Imported mine staff would undergo training in relation to local Indigenous culture.

The Crown’s conceding Indigenous ownership of minerals would be one of the few ways governments could transfer substantial resources to the Indigenous community without affecting any individual white interests. However as became apparent in the aftermath of the Mabo and Wik judgements it is likely that white pressure groups would emerge which would whip up a backlash. We observed the Howard Government, responding to pastoralists and miners calls for certainty, following the Wik judgement legislate to install its 10 point plan. The uncertainity experienced by Indigenous people about what (if anything) remained of their property rights as result of 212 years of invasion, encroachment, legislation and administrative excisement was conveniently ignored. This 10 point plan took property rights from Indigenous people which the High court had found them to have retained and gave those property rights to lease holders whom the high court had found did not have such rights (Reynolds 1999 Ch.14). Such responses towards perceived gains by Indigenous people are fuelled by a downward envy promoted by the very same politicians who have set out to diminish poor people’s access to welfare services in recent years. There has been a conscious drive to replace concepts such as entitlements and rights with earlier ideas of obligation and duty. Along side this debate have been attempts to deflect Indigenous Australians from their efforts to gain land rights, self- determination, reparation, sovereignty and a treaty.

Practical reconciliation

The Howard Government has emphasised what it has termed ‘practical reconciliation’ as its ‘solution’ to the issues which Indigenous Australians face. The essence of ‘practical reconciliation’ is the provision of at least basic health, nutrition, sanitation community and educational services. No non-racist would oppose Indigenous Australians being assisted to gain access to decent shelter, nutrition, clean drinking water, safe sanitation facilities, appropriate community and educational infrastructure.

There are in the order of a hundred communities which don’t have access to clean drinking water. The prevalence of ill-health amongst Indigenous people is a national disgrace(). Obtaining adequate nutrition is constant issue in many Indigenous communities. Getting decent sanitation is a major problem confronting many communities. There is a massive housing backlog throughout Indigenous Australia. The standard of housing occupied by nearly half of Australian Indigenous families is inadequate ( ). Overcrowding is a major contributing factor to the spread of disease, the prevalence of violence, strained interpersonal communications and so forth. But ‘practical reconciliation’ has too often been ‘provided by the government without involving local people in finding ways to solve the issues in their own ways’. The Australian Army has come in and put on the water supply or outside contractors have started building houses without using skilled builders from the communities.

The failure of State and Federal Governments to ensure that Indigenous Australians have access to adequate shelter, nutrition, sanitation, health and educational services is used by the Howard government to argue that Indigenous leaders should be solving the practical issues rather than pursuing self-determination and land ownership issues. There is almost unanimous agreement amongst Indigenous leaders that self- determination and land ownership issues are intimately linked with the immediate housing, health and other everyday issues which plague Indigenous communities. Just one example of this is that without a secure land title it is impossible for Indigenous people to get finance for a house.

Housing a measure of progress

The provision of adequate shelter, nutrition, sanitation, health, community and educational services is an extremely important part of the struggle of Indigenous people to obtain equity with other Australians. But before other Australians can claim that Indigenous Australians have received anything like equitable treatment there has to be an accommodation found between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians in relation to land rights, self-determination, reparation, sovereignty and a treaty.

Recognising Human Rights, Land Rights as the first step towards Self-Determination

All I can suggest is that somewhere in this section we refer to Bill Jonas’ Paper in Martin Nakata “Indigenous Peoples, Racism and the United Nations.

Drinking and Violence

Drinking does not occur in a social vacuum.
Petrol sniffing does not occur in a social vacuum.
Unemployment does not occur in a social vacuum.
Domestic violence does not occur in a social vacuum.
Equal employment does not occur in a social vacuum.
Economic development does not occur in a social vacuum.
Mickey Mouse training programs

Anthropologist Jeremy Beckett (1965) examined Aboriginal drinking in Western New South Wales and concluded “drinking and even drunkenness provide a means of obtaining certain ends which we know from aborigine’s own statements they value. Such means may not be the best imaginable, but they may be the most practicable in the given circumstances.(p.46)”

Existing structure/belief

Many accept the existing structures, beliefs and ways of behaving

Those who object to the existing structures, beliefs and ways of behaving may indicate this by: setting out their objecting in their home communities or they might just leave if they have the option.

Bibliography

ATSIC News (2001) “A Reconciliation Budget” ATSIC News Autumn pp.2-3.
ATSIC News (2001) “Work for the Dole.” ATSIC News Autumn pp. 8-17.
Bartlett, P. (2001) “Milking the CDEP cow dry.” ATSIC News Autumn pp.19-21.
Beckett, J. (1965) “Aborigines, Alcohol and Assimilation.” In Reay, M. (ed.) Aborigines Now. Angus & Robertson, London.
Crough, G. 1993 Visible and Invisible. North Australian Research Unit & the Nugget Coombs Forum for Indigenous Studies, Darwin.
Dickey, B. (1980) No Charity There: A Short History of Social Welfare in Australia. Nelson, Melbourne. Goodin, R. (2001) “False Principles of Welfare Reform.” Australian Journal of Social Issues. Vol.36, No. 3, August pp.189-206.
Goodin, R., Headey, B., Muffels, R. & Dirven, H. (1999) The Real worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Cambridge University, Cambridge.
Henderson, R. (1975) Poverty in Australia Vol I and II. Australian Government, Canberra.
Howard, J. (2000) “Quest for a decent society” The Australian 12th. Jan, p.11.
Howard, J. (1999) “Building a Stronger and Fairer Australia: Liberalisation in Economic Policy and Modern Conservatism in Social Policy.” Address to ‘Australia Unlimited Roundtable.’ 4th. May www.gov.au./media/pressrel/AustralaiUnlimitedRoundtable.htm
Kidd, R. (1997) The Way We Civilise. University of Queensland, St. Lucia.
Kahn, S. (1970) How People Get Power. McGraw-Hill, New York.
Latham, M. (1998) Civilising Global Capital: Allan & Unwin, St. Leonards.
Lerner, S. Clark, C. & Needham, W. (1999) Basic Income: Economic Security for All Canadians. Between the Lines, Toronto.
Lovejoy, F. (1971) “Costing the Aboriginal Housing Problem.” The Australian Quarterly. Vol. 43, No. 1, March.
McClure, P. (2000) Participation Support for a More Equitable Society. Final Report of the Reference Group on Welfare Reform. (July) Department of Family and Community Services, Canberra.
Martin, D. (2001) Is welfare dependency ‘welfare poison’? An assessment of Noel Pearson’s proposals for Aboriginal welfare reform. Paper No. 213, Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, Canberra.
Milner, D. (1920) Higher Production by a Bonus on National Output: A proposal for a minimum income for all varying with national productivity. George Allen & Unwin. London.
Newman, J. (1999) The Challenge of Welfare Dependency in the 21st Century. Department of Family and Community Services, Canberra.
Page, R. (1998) “The Prospects for British Social Welfare.” in Page, R. & Silburn, R. (eds.) British Social Welfare in the Twentieth Century. Macmillian, Basingstoke.
Polanyi, K. (1945) The Great Transformation. Victor Gollancz.
Reynolds, H. Why weren’t we told? Viking, Ringwood.
Roberts, J. assisted by Russell, B. & Parsons, M. 1974 The Mapoon Story by The Mapoon People. International Development Action, Fitzroy.
Rodgers, B (1968) The Battle against Poverty, Volume 1: From Pauperism to Human Rights. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.
Rowley, C. 1972 The Remote Aborigines. Penguin, Harmondsworth.
Stretton, H. (1996) Poor laws of 1834 and 1996. Brotherhood of St Lawrence, Fitzroy.
Tomlinson, J. (2001) Income Insecurity: The Basic Income Alternative. http://www.geocities.com/ubinz/JT/IncomeInsecurity/
Turnbull, S. (1980) Economic Development of Aboriginal Communities in the Northern Territory. AGPS, Canberra.
Van Dyke, L. (2000) Sugar Daddies For Corporate Australia – A Bitter Pill For The Environment. Bob Brown, Hobart.
Van Parijs, P. (1992[a]) “The Second Marriage of Justice and Efficiency.” in Van Parijs, P. (ed.) Arguing For Basic Income. Verso, London.
Van Parijs, P. (1992[b]) “Competing Justifications of a Basic Income.” in Van Parijs, P. (ed.) Arguing For Basic Income. Verso, London.
Van Trier, W. (1995) “Every One A King.” PhD. Thesis Department of Sociology, K.U. Leuven.
Universal Basic Income New Zealand web site
http://www.geocities.com/ubinz/

unpublished, circulated 2002

Dear Creina

The Greens Party in Australia has the closest political platform to Dr Philip Nitschke Director of the pro-euthanasia Exit International.
Philip Nitschke recently announced that he will be standing for the Senate at the forthcoming Australian elections for the Voluntary Euthanasia Party.
The Sea Shepherd organisation this year has prevented the Japanese Whalers slaughtering hundreds of whales in the Antarctic sanctuary.
I am hoping that the Euthanasia Party will join forces with the Sea Shepherd organisation then we will have the Right to Life for whales and the Right to Die with dignity for human beings.
until then be good
john

19/6/2012

Dear Minister,
Thank you for ending Jenny Macklin’s racist and self defeating “trial” of withholding parent’s social security payments if their child or children aren’t attending school regularly. There are many reasons why some children do not attend school regularly such as the way they are taught, learning difficulties, bullying, the approachability of the school, how welcoming the school is to children’s elders and more. It does nothing to help children who are not attending school to have their parents driven into desperate financial situations.

Whilst I would encourage every child to attend school and continue their education as long as is possible, forcing a child to attend school can do little to help a child attain learning. Part of encouraging a child to attend school is the removal of obstacles to learning.

Macklin claims to have “evidence” her policies are working. She is either just deceitful or she is confusing what she wants to believe is true with evidence. She is supposed to be running a 21st century social security system but her beliefs and attitudes are more in keeping with the manager of an 18th century Poor House.

Yours sincerely

Published in New Community Quarterly, vol 11, no 4. 2013

I have just been talking to Julie Bishop who assures me that David Hicks volunteered to go to Guantanamo Bay Cuba in the mistaken belief it was a Caribbean Holiday Resort.

Furthermore she told me that whilst the naughty Labor Party might have spied on Indonesia in the past, since that nice Mr Abbott assumed the reigns in our fair land all of the nonsense ceased. She tells me that now it is the Indonesians who are spying on us.

I have also been talking to that nice Mr Greg Hunt who let me into Labor’s dirty little secret about Ms Gillard’s Giant New Tax, apparently Ms Gillard on the urging of the naughty Greens undermined our economy for the next millennium by imposing a price on Carbon. Greg told me that the sneaky Mr Shorten and all the other faceless men in the Labor Party are planning to keep a price on Carbon. Greg said that once we’ve removed the price on carbon, poverty will be abolished and that we won’t have to sell our first born into slavery.

The Business Council of Australia today announced that the price of electricity may not be lowered after the removal of the Carbon Tax – in the short term. If we can judge from the past 50 years it definitely won’t come down in the long term. However my mate Greg Hunt told me that if the price of goods does not come down (after the removal of the Carbon Tax) it will be Labor’s fault and that you should blame Labor for not acting to remove a price on carbon before it was imposed.

Mr Morrison said today that “asylum seekers” by which he meant nasty illegal tinted coloured foreigners who had no legitimate claim to be here because they were economic migrants who faked the disappearances or murders of family members were cunningly faking their own deaths or detention once we had successfully returned them to Afghanistan and Sri Lanka.

My mate Tony Abbott said today that because the budget was an absolute Labor shambles he would scrap Labor’s plan to place a 15% tax on superannuation payments in excess of $100,000 per annum. In addition, in order to make up for Labor’s mismanagement of the budget deficit he would also scrap Labor’s plan to give low income earners $500 a year payment into their superannuation fund.

Tony told me that this was the Liberal Party’s understanding of equitable treatment for both rich and poor.

Welcome to Straya, a land of opportunity for the deserving few.

Sir,

The police shooting of two young Aboriginal teenagers and the subsequent bashing of one of the wounded lads reflects badly on your force. The inevitable delays, cover-ups and obfuscation which follow such events do nothing to enhance the reputation of the NSW police force. One of your deputies called on the relatives to trust the police to investigate the incident – this type of calculated call is not going to build bridges between the community as a whole and the Aboriginal community in particular. If there were going to be a believable investigation of the events it would need to be conducted by a separate authority entirely independent of the police. If you believe your officers have done nothing wrong then work with the government to develop an entirely independent authority to investigate all violent incidents involving police.

Written 21 March 2006

Dear Chris
I read with interest your speech to the John Curtin Institute of Public Policy. I was not surprised by Christopher Pearson’s “Shift in the right direction” The Australian 18/3/2006 allegedly supportive response or his slightly less obnoxious ABC Perspectives commentary 20/3/2006. Of course, if you are hoping to have a future as an after dinner speaker at the Bennelong Society then you are on the right track.

I agree with you that ideology should not blind us to evidence and that the right has cleverly portrayed Labor as obsessed by symbols, separation and impractical ideas. But this does not justify a move away from a deep commitment to Indigenous Australians.

The starting points you suggest that Labor is committed to are themselves imbued with ideology as are all social policy positions. The extent to which you desire to follow Noel Pearson policy prescriptions is also informed by your ideological position.

I would urge you to be careful in getting on the Pearson bandwagon – it is heading down a path that will further marginalise many of the poorest Aboriginal people. You may like to look at my critique of the Howard and Beattie Governments and Pearson’s policies in a paper given at International Conference on Engaging Communities which can be found at http://www.engagingcommunities2005.org/abstracts/Tomlinson-John-final.pdf

Yours sincerely

First published Al-Moharer 30/5/2006 Vol. 243
http://www.al-moharer.net/mohhtm/tomlinson243b.htm

also published Union Songs 16/6/2006
http://unionsong.com/u366.html

also published in the National Indigenous Times 5th September 2006 http://www.nit.com.au/TheArts/story.aspx?id=7181

Who wants to be a hooligan
when you can be a fool again?
Why would you be a ruffian
when you can be a Broughian?

Never have to think things through.
Just claim that your ideas are new,
that you are the first to see it true
and plagiarise what others knew.

You won’t ever have to lift the veil.
Nor ever ask why some things fail.
Just say that it’s beyond the pale
and you have found the holy grail.

Aborigines are the ones to blame
and though it is an awful shame
that you alone can light the flame
and in the heat will anguish tame.

Say that the Land Rights cause is lost
and you’ve counted up the cost,
you’ve spoken to the Holy Ghost
and now it’s time to eat the host.

Ideas come and concepts go
just a part of the ebb and flow,
some never ask why it is so,
but their culture has to go.

It was not invasion but settlement
white civilisation – heaven sent
it could be a lasting monument
if Aborigines would just repent.

Who wants to be a hooligan
when you can be a fool again?
Why would you be a ruffian
when you can be a Broughian?

How JT saw it

There is a growing international apprehension about your law and order issues in the Northern Territory.

The Northern Territory Government has distorted and overblown a fear of crime in order to promote a law and order campaign. They consistently misuse and misquote statistics. They even suggest the “measures enacted including mandatory minimum sentences were key issues in our most recent election where the Government was returned with an increased majority.” They even suggest this is “Democracy at work!” eat your heart out deTocqueville and Michels, with democracy theorists of this NT calibre around you’d have no chance.

They evidence ” that figures just released indicate that property crime is down 14% over the past three years.” They of course fail to note that sausage meat sales in Uruguay went up by a corresponding amount.” The next thing they’ll be questioning is the assertion that most people have more than the average number of legs.

They assert that young people dying in custody is an unconnected issue to mandatory sentencing. They say “A quite separate issue, that of youth suicide, is a very serious and tragic situation across the country. No-one seems to have the answers yet but one thing the experts agree on is that publicity almost always produces a copy cat tragic result.”

Father forgive them they don’t read and won’t listen. Even the most uncaring has heard of the 12 Volume “Aboriginal Deaths in Custody Report” and the “Bringing them Home Report”. These reports explain the connection between imprisonment, being an indigenous person and being suicided by the corrections system.

As a cover for their wilful racism and ignorance they assert those who decry deliberate state killing of young people are opponents of democracy in the Northern Territory.

They assert “It is an obscenity that politically motivated opponents of democracy in the NT would cynically exploit this most unfortunate situation.”

So blinded by their own stupidity and ideological ranting they fail to see the inadequacies and contradictions in their analysis. They start by telling us that mandatory sentencing has brought down property crime, elsewhere their leader who recently asserted the “entire judiciary was corrupt” claimed that “punishment was an essential part of the mandatory sentencing process.”

They assert “It should also be noted that the Don Dale Detention Centre is more like a boarding school with a fence than the TV impression given by American movies. The Don Dale Centre is well equipped with a swimming pool, other sporting and recreational facilities and schooling five days a week.”

One would hope given the established connection between failing to progress at school and being caught up in the criminal justice process that education would be an essential feature of any corrective facility. The allusion to swimming pools and other sporting facilities is, I presume, designed to make us think that Don Dale is a cross between a Billy Bunter holiday camp and a home away from home where the screws tuck each child in bed of an evening.”

On the contrary it is a detention centre where young people are transported hundreds of kilometres from their home to be suicided

This CLP Government has used the racist card in every election since self- government, it relies on the fact that the Indigenous community is only about 27% of the population and the bulk of whites turn over every three years. I lived there for 15 years, I’ve visited their jails and detention centres, I played an important part in having one closed because it was worse than the adult jails in several regards. I regularly return and I keep in touch with developments.

How the Country Liberal party sees it

CHRIS LUGG MLA wrote

Dear Sir/Madam

There is obviously a serious misapprehension about our law and order issues in the Northern Territory. Please find attached a brief explanation of the facts.

The Northern Territory Government has responded to public pressure to act. The measures enacted including mandatory minimum sentences were key issues in our most recent election where the Government was returned with an increased majority. Democracy at work! It is interesting to note that figures just
released indicate that property crime is down 14% over the past three years.

A quite separate issue, that of youth suicide, is a very serious and tragic situation across the country. No-one seems to have the answers yet but one thing the experts agree on is that publicity almost always produces a copy cat tragic result. It is an obscenity that politically motivated opponents of democracy in the NT would cynically exploit this most unfortunate situation.

It should also be noted that the Don Dale Detention Centre is more like a boarding school with a fence than the TV impression given by American movies. The Don Dale Centre is well equipped with a swimming pool, other sporting and recreational facilities and schooling five days a week.

I invite you to consider the above and the attached facts and weigh up the issue fairly and objectively.

Yours sincerely

CHRIS LUGG MLA Mandatory Sentencing Juveniles

· Juveniles are young people aged 15 and 16.
· Mandatory sentencing only applies to juveniles who commit property offences.
· Property offences include unlawfully going into other people’s property and stealing other people’s possessions.
· Offences committed at age 14 or younger, do not count for the purposes of mandatory sentencing.
· In most cases, when a juvenile commits a minor property offence for the first time, the Police caution the offender and tell him or her not to do
it again. They do not go to court.
· When a juvenile appears before a court for the first time for a property offence, and is found guilty, the court is not required to send the offender to a detention centre. The court has a range of sentences available. These include sending the juvenile away without recording a penalty, requiring the juvenile to behave himself for a period of time, or making the juvenile pay a fine or work in the community.
· When a juvenile appears before a court for a property offence for the second time, and is found guilty, the court may require the juvenile to participate in a diversionary program as an alternative to spending time in a detention centre.
· If a juvenile satisfactorily completes a diversionary program, the court may discharge the juvenile without a penalty.
· There are many types of diversionary programs and they include training, employment and sports programs. They also include meetings where the juvenile meets the victim, listens to the damage that he or she has caused and decides how to make amends to the victim.
· If the juvenile does not want to participate in a diversionary program, or if the court thinks that the juvenile is unsuitable, or if the juvenile fails to satisfactorily complete the program, the court must order the juvenile to spend 28 days in a detention centre.
· When a juvenile appears before a court for a property offence for the third time or more, and is found guilty, the court must order the juvenile to
spend 28 days in a detention centre.
· An offender may be found guilty of one or more property offences on the same day, but the court is only required to impose one sentence of 28 days.
· The court may decide to sentence the offender for more than the mandatory minimum period.

Adults

· Adults are people aged 17 or over
· Mandatory sentencing only applies to adults who commit property offences, sexual or violent offences.
· Offences committed as a juvenile do not count for the purposes of mandatory sentencing.
· When an adult appears before a court for the first time for a property offence, and is found guilty, the court is not required to send the offender to prison if the offender can prove there were exceptional circumstances surrounding the offence and it was trivial. The offender must also have made an effort to make full restitution and have cooperated with the Police

Minister for Intervening in other people’s affairs,
Parliament House,
Canberra.

Madam,
There are some pretty incompetent ministers in the Gillard government but you are the stupidest. After reviewing your actions in relation to the NT Intervention since 2007 and your new policy of intervening in Indigenous communities announced on 14/11/11, the Deagon Institute has decided to award you the Institute’s prize for the Most Ridiculous Federal government minister for 2011.

The reasons the panel gave for selecting you is that you have gone on record as supporting evidenced based social policy yet refuse to listen to Indigenous people in the affected communities; you refused to listen to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, Professor James Anaya; you refused to listen to the Rudd government committee set up to review the Intervention; you refuse to listen to many Australian Indigenous leaders and human rights advocates such as the retired chief judge of the family court, you refuse to listen to progressive academics who have worked with Indigenous Australians throughout their life and you refuse to listen to any Territorians or other Australians who understand that the Intervention is an invasion of Aboriginal land which denigrates and demoralises many Indigenous people in the affected communities. The panel noted in passing that “There is none so deaf as those who do not wish to hear.”

There are many reasons for the poor attendance of Aboriginal children in Territory schools the primary one is the frequent racist nature of the Commonwealth and Territory governments responses to Indigenous children and their parents, the failure of the education system to provide a culturally appropriate curriculum and school environment, the failure to develop culturally appropriate teaching styles and economic pressures on Indigenous families. Threatening to withhold social security payments from Indigenous families if their children don’t regularly attend school solves nothing. As Professor Robert Goodin points out you stand in the same relationship to the highway man who says “money or your life”; you are saying “modify your behaviour or starve”. Your attempts to bludgeon the Indigenous community into compliance with your white agenda has been the problem in this country for 223 years.

The panel also noted that despite some cosmetic changes and some mean and tricky legal wording the Intervention continues to be blatantly racist and like all other policies that promote racism your current Intervention policy continues to erode the humanity of those who impose such policies on others. Your extension of racist policies onto other low socio-economic groups and individuals (in order to persevere with your original racist action, in maintaining the suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act, and continuing to impose particular penalties on Indigenous people) may allow you to proceed with unconscionable actions without those affected being able to invoke the protections of the Racial Discrimination Act but it does not make your actions honourable.

The Intervention was racist when Brough and Howard introduced it and it is still racist. The panel that awarded you the Institute’s prize for the Most Ridiculous Federal government minister for 2011 has suggested the Deagon Institute create a special award and has shortlisted you to be considered for the Most Racist Federal government minister for 2011.

I will advise you further on this second award early in December.

14/11/11.

* This song is based on Colum Sands’ song: “The last house in our street.”

Mulrunji was killed by a big burley bullyman.
Throw the ball against the wall and back to me.
The policeman who did it said it must have been an accident.
Open up your eyes and tell me what you see.

The Rainbow Spirit made the world and Palm is a part of it.
Throw the ball against the wall and back to me.
Sometimes I wonder if Palm Island was an accident.
Open up your eyes and tell me what you see.

Each house in the town has 20 people living there.
Throw the ball against the wall and back to me.
Except for the whites, who all have room to spare.
Open up your eyes and tell me what you see.

The flowers in our garden are made of broken promises.
Throw the ball against the wall and back to me.
Politicians’ plans seem to miss the opportunities.
Open up your eyes and tell me what you see.

The eyes of Queensland are blind to the truth of it.
Throw the ball against the wall and back to me.
Help restore their sight, do you want to see the end of it.
Open up your eyes and tell me what you see.

The flowers in our garden are made of broken promises.
Throw the ball against the wall, you only know the half of it.
What happened on Palm Island could not have been an accident.
Open up your eyes and you might see the truth of it.

Mark Gregory editor of Union Songs website added 12/2/2007

“John writes:

As I write the police are threatening to march on parliament to prevent their members being charged over this death in custody, the silly Nationals are arguing that the senior counsel who worked with Sir Lawrence Street to review the Public Prosecutor’s decision not to charge Chris Hurley should not be the crown prosecutor in this case. It is nice to be back in the land of the rednecks and racists with the backs of their white hands dragging on the ground.”

http://unionsong.com/u459.html
also published in Al-Moharer same day http://al-moharer.net/mohhtm/tomlinson254.htm

Paper given at International Conference on engaging Communities, Brisbane 14- 17/8/2005
also published by in New Transitions the Journal of the Youth Affairs Network of Queeensland, Vol.10 No. 1. pp. 3-16, 2006

This paper sets out to consider relationships between Indigenous and non- Indigenous people, particularly interactions with governments and their agents in Queensland. Many levels of government impinge on Indigenous communities and these will be examined to see if they are acting to enhance or control the interests of Indigenous communities. Issues such as the management of alcohol, mining leases on Indigenous land, land rights, employment and the Community Development Employment Program (CDEP), health, housing, infrastructure development, community governance, legal aid, incarceration and community services will be considered. The protection period, 1897 to mid-1970s, will be compared with the present to see whether the current arrangements demonstrate a major break with past administrations.

Various community work traditions will be analysed in an attempt to suggest a form of community work likely to lead to Indigenous self-determination. This analysis will compare previous community work with current efforts and will concentrate upon the period between the early 1970s and the present. The “social entrepreneurial”, “social capital” and “community capacity building partnership” arrangements of current State, local and Federal Governments will be considered with a view to determining whose interests are being served.

Structure of paper

This paper begins by surveying major issues confronting Indigenous people in Queensland. It attempts to place those issues in their historical and current contexts. Current approaches which governments and others have applied or proposed for Indigenous communities are examined before proceeding to set out progressive alternative solutions.

MAJOR ISSUES:

Health

No-one comparing the morbidity and mortality of Indigenous and non- Indigenous Australians could fail to be appalled by the continuing government neglect of the health needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. Indigenous infant mortality may no longer be in the order or 400 to 500 per thousand births as it was in many remote parts of Australia in the early 1960s and 70s (Moodie 1973); yet it is still 4 to 5 times that of non-Indigenous infants (ABS and AIHW 2003 Ch. 9, Jonas 2003 Appendix 1, pp 8). In 1989, the first priority identified by the National Aboriginal Health Strategy Working Party was clean drinking water, yet there are over 100 remote communities in Australia still without it (Jonas 2003 Appendix 1, p 17) – after water; nutrition, sanitation, housing and health services were identified in descending order of importance. The Australian Medical Association, relying on the Access Economics Report (2004), believes that a huge cash injection is needed if the health of Indigenous Australians is to approach that of non-Indigenous citizens.

Indigenous Australians are dying on average 20 years younger than other Australians and this statistic has remained virtually unchanged for two decades (Jonas 2003 Appendix 1, Table 5). In Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory, three-quarters of Indigenous male and two-thirds of Indigenous female deaths occurred before the age of 65 years compared with one-quarter of male and one-sixth of female deaths of all Australians (ABS and AIHW 2003, p183). Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation (ANTaR 2004) points out that “the Indigenous health crisis is both solvable and preventable. In similar countries, such as New Zealand, the US and Canada, the health of Indigenous peoples has been rapidly improved by determined government action over the last 25 years” (See also Jonas 2003 Appendix 1, p 5). Research in the Northern Territory (Condon, Barnes, Cunningham and Smith 2004) in the period 1967-2000, demonstrates the gap between the average age of death of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people is widening, particularly for those in their middle age. Henry, Houston, and Mooney (2004) writing in the Medical Journal of Australia assert that the Australian healthcare is institutionally racist (See also Taylor 2001).

Employment: Frontier economy to a mission economy to a surreal economy

Idleness is not the problem. Impoverished, depressed, meaningless, optionless idleness is the problem. The level of exclusion from award wages is demonstrated by ATSIC News 2001 p.17 “only three of 102 adults in Kuranda …received a non-CDEP wage.” Phil Bartlett notes:

that the CDEP has been going for 23 years…CDEP provides activities, training and employment to about 33,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people throughout Australia. CDEP has allowed withdrawal of government services in rural and remote communities, the downsizing of government departments…CDEP is far cheaper to run than other programs of a similar nature such as Work for the Dole” (2001 p.19).

Unemployment is much higher in the Indigenous population than in the non- Indigenous population throughout Australia. In most rural and remote areas real unemployment levels among Aboriginal people is between 40 and 80 percent. The Bureau of Statistics does not count participants in “work for the dole” schemes as employed but does count Indigenous Australians involved in CDEPs, the Indigenous “work for the dole” scheme, as employed (Altman and Hunter 2003 [a], Tomlinson 2003, Ch. 6).

Housing: A measure of progress

In 1971 Frances Lovejoy estimated the cost of providing adequate housing for all Indigenous Australians at $3 billion. The Whitlam Labor Government in 1973 promised $30 million dollars a year for 10 years. The Aboriginal Development Commission and the Department of Aboriginal Affairs 1988/89 survey of Indigenous housing needs found that 31 per cent of Aborigines were either homeless or living in inadequate accommodation (National Aboriginal Health Strategy Working Party 1989, p 109). In 2001, Geoff Clark (Chairman of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission) pointed out that additional funding in the 2001/2 Budget “will make little dent in the $3 billion deficit in this area” (ATSIC News Autumn 2001 p.3, see also Jonas 2003 Appendix 1, pp16-17). “Eighty percent of houses that are home to 10 or more people are occupied by indigenous Australians” (Savage 2004). Obtaining adequate nutrition and decent sanitation are major problems confronting many Indigenous communities. The standard of housing occupied by nearly half of Indigenous families is inadequate (ABS & AIHW 2003, Ch. 3). Overcrowding is a major contributing factor to the spread of disease, the prevalence of violence and strained interpersonal communications.

Stolen wages

Dr. Roslyn Kidd (1997) and the Foundation for Aboriginal and Islander Research Action (The Consultancy Bureau 1991) have recorded how the government and protectors controlled Aboriginal workers’ bank accounts and helped themselves to approximately $ 30 million from these accounts. The failure of the Queensland Government to make a decent reparation offer has invigorated the Stolen Wages Campaign (2004).

The continuing stolen generations

The heartbreaking story of the stolen generations is described in detail in the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Bringing them home Report (1997) and dramatically told in biographical works like The Rabbit Proof Fence. Unlike the Howard Government, which was only prepared to express regret, the Queensland Parliament has issued an apology to the stolen generations. Government agencies have not stopped stealing Indigenous children. Many of the same players are still involved: the courts, police, white “saviours” and a children’s department using alleged neglect or abuse as grounds for removing Indigenous children from their families and communities by placing them in white foster homes or institutions (Jonas 2003 Appendix 1, pp 21-22). Indigenous children in Queensland are 32.8 times more likely to be in detention than non-Indigenous children (Cunneen 2001, p 23) and the incarceration rate for young Indigenous people is rising (Jonas 2003 Appendix 1, p 19).

Adult incarceration

Cunneen estimated that “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were 27 times more likely to find themselves in police custody than non-Indigenous people” (2001, p 18) and that “when Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal offenders were matched by prior record and offence, a greater proportion of Aboriginal people were sentenced to imprisonment – irrespective of the offence or the level of prior record (2001, p 35). Such a disparity has a long history in Queensland (McCartney, Lincoln and Wilson 2003, Ch. 3). “The Indigenous female prison population increased by 262% between 1991 and 1999 (compared with an increase for non-Indigenous women of 185%). In June 2003, Indigenous women were incarcerated at a rate 19.3 times that of non-Indigenous women” (Jonas 2003 Appendix 1, p 19).

Betrayal of Indigenous land rights aspirations

In the wake of the High Court’s Mabo Judgement No.2 came the Wik Judgement which held that Native Title and pastoral leases could co-exist and in Queensland this led to a delay in granting some 4,000 mining and pastoral leases. The Howard Government’s 10 point plan introduced in its 1998 amendments to the 1994 Native Title Act were designed, in the words of the then Deputy Prime Minister, to “provide bucket loads of extinguishment” (McKenna 2004). The Beattie Government which formed a minority government in June 1998 rushed to placate pastoral and mining interests by granting the overwhelming majority of the 4,000 outstanding leases. It aped the Howard Government with its Queensland native title legislation (Bartholomew 1998, Saunders 1999, 1998, Lavalle 2001). Les Malezer (1999) in his aptly title article “Beattie sustains 100 years of Queensland racism” pointed out that the Queensland laws were in breach of the Racial Discrimination Act (1975). The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination came to a similar finding.

Alcohol restrictions

Widespread substance use exacerbates social tensions, interferes with labour productivity and can contribute to an increase in incidents of domestic violence. Wilson (1982) recognised that in many communities in the Cape region excessive drinking and associated problems have a considerable impact on the quality of life. It is imperative that the Indigenous community be assisted to deal with the causes of such symptoms of social dislocation (McCartney, Lincoln and Wilson 2003, Cunneen 2001).

Government agents have been present on the Cape for well over a century. They forbade substance use for 80 years but government and church prohibition did not solve the problem of social dislocation nor its associated excessive alcohol consumption. “Protection” did not solve the problem. Run-down community health, housing and educational facilities did not solve the problem. Dispossessing Indigenous people of their land did not solve the problem. On the 15th November 1963 an armed police party shifted the Mapoon people from their land and burned their houses to facilitate bauxite mining (Roberts, Russell and Parsons 1975). Allowing multinational mining conglomerates access to whatever part of the Cape they wanted, despite Aboriginal protest, did not solve the problem. Given the longevity of government intervention on the Cape, one possible explanation is that the present social problems are, at least in part, caused by the way governments have intervened in the past. Governments are reluctant to accept any blame for present failures. The rebuttal often is that governments “acted with good intent” – therefore the blame must lie with the Aborigines: “Can’t be the Government, therefore it must be the grog and welfare dependency”.

Bonnie Robertson’s Women’s Taskforce Report on Violence (2000), which looked at the connection between drinking and domestic violence in Indigenous communities, drew attention to the prevalence of internecine violence on many Indigenous communities. Noel Pearson’s 1999 report entitled “Our right to take responsibility” focused on “welfare dependency”, “the grog problem”, unemployment and the need to impose “mutual obligation” in the absence of a real economy on many Indigenous communities. Tony Fitzgerald’s (2001) three volume report recommended restricting alcohol on communities where social dislocation and domestic violence was occurring.

In April 2004 a plane carrying Libby Clark, the Queensland Indigenous Affairs Minister, was found to have a bottle of wine on board when it landed at a “dry” community (CMC2004). No one was charged. The 2004 alcohol bans on Indigenous communities have resulted in the criminalisation of many Indigenous people for alcohol offences, such as bringing alcohol onto a closed community (Wallace 2004). Not only does the Queensland Government know what is best for those carrying “the white man’s burden” but best for “the burden” as well.

Welfare dependency and mutual obligation

Noel Pearson (1999) and Tony Fitzgerald (2001) share similar views about the causes of problems on Cape York and, as a consequence, identify remarkably similar solutions. The identified problems are “the grog”, violence and unemployment. The solutions that such an analysis demands is to control “the grog” and to end “welfare dependency”. Implicit in much of the “welfare dependency” rhetoric is the suggestion that those who impose the obligations on others are “being cruel to be kind”. There is no evidence which suggests that such imposition of obligations makes people better citizens, helps them escape poverty or provides any beneficial outcomes. Those who impose the “obligations” are the sole beneficiaries of such policies (Tomlinson 2004[a]). Allowing a white government or a department of a white government, to impose Europeanised “mutual obligations” upon Indigenous Australians privileges the hegemonic white view of the world. Imposing so-called “mutual obligation” upon Indigenous citizens extends the oppression of the colonial invasion, aspects of which have endured for the last 217 years. It does not provide Indigenous people with real opportunities to improve their social and economic situation. People freed of behavioural constraints will willingly choose those social obligations to others that they regard as reasonable. Only when Indigenous people’s right to be self-determining is recognised will non-Indigenous Australians be freed of their compulsion to impose obligations. Then Indigenous people will be in a position to effectively address the social and economic questions that confront them.

Policies of “mutual obligation” are also imposed on the poor in white society allegedly because they decrease “welfare dependency”. In part, the attractiveness of the “welfare dependency” rhetoric is that it justifies (or rather rationalises) reductions in welfare spending. Such rhetoric has a sanctimonious aura allowing the better off to justify a meanness of spirit under a cloak of benefaction. The logic underlying the “mutual obligation” rhetoric also led, in 1977, to the imposition of the CDEP on Indigenous communities. “Mutual obligation” has been tried (Tingle 2004): it has not solved the very problems which the current round of imposed “mutual obligation” is supposed to solve.

THE HISTORICAL AND CURRENT CONTEXTS:

The background

Much of the current debate about income security, unemployment and social dislocation as they affect Indigenous communities fails to address the real issues confronting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in Queensland. Assertions made about “welfare dependency”, domestic violence, unemployment, economic underdevelopment and drunkenness have come from a Eurocentric understanding (Tomlinson 1975, 2003 Chs. 5 and 6) and address white agendas.

The antecedents of current Australian Governments use of ‘welfare dependency”

The Howard Government’s concept of “mutual obligation” is a more pervasive version of the previous Labor Government’s policy of “reciprocal obligation”. Elements of “mutual obligation”, driven by the fear of “welfare dependency”, were present in the consolidation of the Federal social security legislation of 1947. They are most obvious in relation to the treatment of unemployed people. The CDEP and people’s compelled participation in “work for the dole” schemes are latter-day equivalents of the 1930s Depression “Susso” scheme’s forced labour programs. Fear of “welfare dependency” is revealed in Parliamentary debates that occurred in 1908 at the time of the introduction of the first Commonwealth social security legislation. Policies were implemented in the Australian colonies from the early 1800s which aimed to deny assistance to the “unworthy poor”, “malingerers”, and the “work shy” (Dickey 1980).

Such policies were adaptations of the British Poor Law system of welfare relief. The revised Poor Law of 1834 enshrined the concept of “less eligibility” which discouraged people from applying for welfare relief by ensuring that anyone assisted would receive less than the lowest paid worker and that those assisted were stigmatised. The first legislative enactment of the Poor Laws was in 1601. This act was the English Parliament’s attempt to pull together the practices of the previous 70 years (Rodgers 1968 p. 12). [Fuller accounts of this welfare history can be found at Polanyi (1945), Tomlinson (2003)]. Joel Handler (2004 Footnote 217, p. 56) traces the English legislative origins of such policies to the 1348 Statute of Labourers with its concern to avoid assisting the “sturdy beggars”. The modern incarnation of such concern can be identified in the Howard Government’s attempts to force one-third of disability support pensioners onto unemployment benefits or into employment (Galvin 2004).

This brief history shows that it is possible to observe clear links between the Howard Government’s policies of “mutual obligation” and “welfare dependency” and similar policies in Britain circa 1348. Links between current Australian Government welfare policies and those of church and parish welfare policies would stretch back even further into antiquity. This raises a number of central questions:

• What is it that makes such outdated social and moral concepts acceptable to Australian governments in the 21st century?
• Why are present welfare policies so closely linked to 14th century views of welfare relief rather than to understandings provided by modern social science research?
• If such antiquarian views are to be forced upon Indigenous citizens, what regard is to be given to traditional Indigenous views about appropriate reciprocal relationships?
• What value is to be given to the self-sustaining system of Indigenous reciprocity which has evolved on the Cape in the post-invasion period?

Some connections with the past

Pearson’s (1999) paper and his continuing denunciation of Aboriginal people of Cape York (2004), for “substance abuse” and “welfare dependency” (Koch and Emerson 2004), has a familiar ring to it. Such an analysis formed part of the stated justification for Archibald Meston’s advocacy that led to the 1897 Protection Act in Queensland (Rowley 1970). Opium and alcohol were the offending substances at that time. The Queensland Aboriginal Protection Act continued to control the lives of Indigenous people living on missions and reserves until 1975. Professors Rowley (1970) and Reynolds (1981, 1998) demonstrated how the containment of Aborigines on missions and settlements assisted farming and mining expansion onto land previously controlled by Aboriginal people. The police invasion of Palm Island following the police killing of Mulrunji Doomadgee is well within the tradition of the 19th century policy of “Dispersal” of Aborigines (Walsh 2004, Robertson 2004).

Hal Wootten succinctly sums up the Indigenous / non-Indigenous history: “Since the settlement of Australia, the colonisers have repeatedly diagnosed and found solutions to ‘the Aboriginal problem’ by reference to a prevalent western narrative of the world, rather than to the specific situation, needs or wishes of Aboriginal people” (2004 p.16). He acknowledges the move (at a Federal level) from the protectionist era to a dialogue based on universalism, human rights and reconciliation which informed much of the debate from the early 1970s to 1996 and notes that, in the late 20th Century, there emerged a new conservative agenda out of the bowels of the Bennelong Society and the Institute of Public Affairs. Wootten asserts that “Stripped to its bones, it is a narrative of the triumph of capitalist individualism” (2004, p.18). He describes the debate at a Federal level but his comments apply to Queensland State and local governments.

William Jonas and Darren Dick (2004, p 11) deplore the Howard Government’s abolition of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission and the replacing of national Indigenous elected representatives with an appointed advisory body as being in breach of Article 5 of the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination which Australia has signed and ratified. Apart from human rights issues, “what is of particular concern is the significant shift away from the recognition provided by the ATSIC Act in 1989 of the appropriateness of representative structures to maximise Indigenous participation in government decision making processes” (Jonas and Dick 2004, p 10).

In Queensland, the Beattie Labor Government attempted to silence Indigenous critics when it abolished direct funding to the Aboriginal Coordinating Council for Deed of Grant in Trust (DOGIT) Community Councils (ACC 2004) as a way of promoting the Cape York Partnership scheme (Cape York Partnerships 2004). This was only a short term victory as the Aboriginal people from DOGIT communities relaunched the organisation as the Aboriginal Local Government Association Incorporated of Queensland in October 2004 (Message Stick). In Hal Wootten’s words:

In the end the emerging conservative narrative is little more than a return to assimilation, although it usually declares its allegiance to the more humane version espoused by Paul Hasluck. Essentially it regards Aboriginality as a deficiency, a burden that handicaps Aboriginals in the modern world and should be shed. But for most Aboriginals it is a central feature of their identity, a source of pride (2004, p 19).

Queensland police powers to restrict drinking in public places and the use of “move-on” powers by local governments, such as the Townsville City Council, are most frequently directed at itinerant Indigenous people. Such actions are the most obvious examples of this new conservative narrative at the local level. In many parts of Australia where large Indigenous populations exist there are frequent calls made for youth curfews to get young Indigenous people off the streets (Townsville Bulletin 2004). The local “notables” who make such calls are usually blissfully unaware that Aborigines had to be outside of many Queensland town boundaries by nightfall well into the 20th Century.

Running along side the new conservative individualistic narrative is an equally conservative, albeit communal, dialogue of “Whole of Government”, “Partnership”, “social entrepreneurial”, “social capital” and “community capacity building”. Beattie (2000), Howard (2000, 1999) and Latham (1998, 1999) are all singing from the same song sheet. They embrace Pearson’s (1999) version of participation income. Whether it is Howard’s “Social Coalition” or “Mutual Obligation”, Pearson’s “Scourge of welfare dependency” and the “need to take responsibility” or Latham’s choice of “Learning or Earning” (ALP 2004, Tomlinson 2005) there is the suggestion that those who are given a poverty line income must “give something back”.

CURRENT APPROACHES OF GOVERNMENTS AND OTHERS:

“Practical reconciliation”, “social entrepreneurs”, and “community capacity”

The Howard Government has emphasised what it terms “practical reconciliation” as its “solution” to the issues that Indigenous Australians face. The essence of “practical reconciliation” is the provision of at least basic health, nutrition, sanitation, education and community services. No non-racist would oppose Indigenous Australians being assisted to gain access to decent shelter, nutrition, clean drinking water, safe sanitation facilities, appropriate community and educational infrastructure. Such a happy outcome has not occurred, however, despite 8 years of Howard’s “practical reconciliation” policy (McMullen 2004, Savage 2004 Tomlinson 2004 [b]). Altman and Hunter (2003 [b]) compared Indigenous employment, education, income, housing and health in 1991, 1996 and 2001 and concluded that the position of Indigenous Australians relative to other Australians has hardly altered except that they were doing better prior to 1996 when John Howard imposed his “practical reconciliation”. If mutual obligations were really mutual then it would be incumbent on a Government to ensure Indigenous and non-Indigenous health profiles were on a par.

“Social capital, social conservatism, social coalition, mutual obligation and participation income” themes of the Howard Government all undermine the concept of universal rights and erode previously established social security entitlements. McClure (2000) attempted to legitimise the extension of the breaching of 300,000 plus Centrelink clients annually (ACOSS 2001). Initially those breached were mainly young unemployed people and, to a lesser extent, single parents. The Howard Government has signalled its intention to extend its imposition of mutual obligation to single parents and those with a disability and has also announced it plans to impose increased obligations on those who participate in CDEP projects (Karvelas 2004).

In 2004 the Howard Government announced its intention to abolish the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission and to “mainstream” Indigenous service provision. It also tried to contract out all Indigenous legal aid in order to dismantle the Aboriginal Legal Aid network. Vanstone’s more virulent form of “mutual obligation” imposed on Indigenous communities, in November 2004, through her “shared responsibility agreements”, is just a more vicious form of white paternalistic interference (AAP 2004).

The unifying constant in “social capital, social conservatism, social coalition, mutual obligation and participation income” is the replacement of rights with a benefit /obligation compact. The techniques the Howard Government uses to delegitimise the entitlements of people with a disability, refugees, migrants, asylum seekers, Indigenous people, unemployed individuals or single parents are remarkably similar. The task facing community organizers is to alert members of each group to identify the similarities and to confront the issues they have in common. A mechanism the Government often uses to suppress dissent is to employ “social entrepreneurs” who are charged with the task of riding into the community’s “bad lands” under the guise of increasing that community’s capacity (Tomlinson 2004 [c]). Many social entrepreneurs claim to draw their inspiration from “Third way” political pundits. Guy Standing (2002 Chs. 7 and 8) demolishes the myth that the “Third way” is a significant departure from the economic fundamentalist prescription for welfare cutbacks.

Social entrepreneurs often reiterate the diatribe about ending welfare dependency and the need to be self-reliant (contra Goodin 2001, Goodin, Headey, Muffels and Dirven 1999, Tomlinson 2003). Ex-Labor leader Mark Latham has also adopted this rightwing version of self-help. Pearson is the Howard Government exemplar of this approach on Cape York. I have criticised the Latham / Pearson line elsewhere (Tomlinson 1999, 2005). Many social entrepreneurs seem oblivious of the fact that many of the creative approaches to community work, which they claim for themselves, have been part and parcel of the practice of community work at least since the 1940s (Alinsky 1969, Gandhi 1965). There have been many examples of progressive community work being undertaken by and with Indigenous people in Australia since the mid 1930s, in the run up to the 150th anniversary of the invasion (Tomlinson 1974, 1985, Day 1994, Fabb, Murray, Todd and Mackenzie 2003).

Turning our back on our history

The first principle of community work is to help remove the obstacles preventing community members doing things for themselves. Alinsky and Gandhi use the concept of self-help in a quite different way from that of today’s social entrepreneurs. When Alinsky or Gandhi accentuated self-help it was in the context of mutuality underpinned by communal solidarity. Today the purveyors of social entrepreneurial thought want to impose self-help in the context of individualized self-reliance. From the 1950s to the early 1980s community workers relied upon widespread respect for the concept of solidarity. But now, in the days of “community capacity building”, “social capital accumulation”, “social entrepreneurs” and “social coalitions”, solidarity seems outmoded. The community is not conceived of as a caring communal hearth that sticks by people who are down on their luck, rather it has become a debt-collecting agency to which those who receive government-provided poverty-line income assistance “are expected to give something back” (Tomlinson 2004 [d]).

From “Our right to take responsibility” to “mutual obligation”: Some questions?

When Noel Pearson produced his discussion paper entitled “Our right to take responsibility” his views were presented in much of the mainstream media as the Indigenous view. The complexity of the issues which he was addressing escaped many. They needed to, but did not ask “Are Pearson’s views the Indigenous view or are they simply the views of an Indigenous person?” It is important to know if Pearson’s views reflect a wider Indigenous perspective or part of a conservative Christian world view. David Martin who has worked extensively on Cape York makes the important point that; “it cannot be assumed that the pejorative view of dependency advanced in the welfare debate, grounded as it is, in no small part, on an ideological construct of the moral worth of the productive individual within the market economy, is necessarily shared by all Aboriginal people” (2001, p 6).

Had observers asked what was driving Pearson’s analysis, then it may have allowed commentators to identify the antecedents of Pearson’s views. Pearson uses the words “reciprocity” and “mutuality” often in ways compatible with Prime Minister Howard’s (1999, 2000) Patrick McClure’s (2000) or Mark Latham’s (1998, 1999) usage. Ray Cassin (2000) attacks such usage,

You can be ‘on’ social security in the literal sense of receiving benefits, but this usage does not carry the pejorative flavour of being ‘on’ welfare. The reason is not mysterious: we do not talk about social-security dependency, or social-services dependency because ‘social security’ and ‘social services’ are bound up with an older notion of entitlement, and an understanding of mutual obligation that goes beyond tit-for-tat reciprocity.

The ideal of mutual obligation underpinning a system of social security is not one of reciprocity, but of obligation borne by all of us to contribute to the support of people who would otherwise be destitute.

Pearson (2004, 1999) has spent much effort condemning the social security system for undermining Indigenous society. He wrote of welfare:

• it is invariably a poor substitute for a fair share. Welfare is never enough to properly live on. Rather than provide the opportunity for a proper place in the wider economy and society, the cheap option of welfare is provided instead;
• it kills initiative and breeds dependency. It discourages people from self-providing and taking their fair share through engagement in the real economy;
• it promotes wrong and destructive values in the recipients and the society at large – namely that life can be sustained through perpetual dependency, when the truth is that it never is;
• it undermines self-esteem and promotes a sense of helplessness and hopelessness in people;
• it pacifies recipients rather than invigorating them into social or political action to secure a better deal for themselves and their children;
• it reproduces these same problems in following generations. (The 1999 original monograph did not have page numbers).

Clearly, Pearson is drinking from the same cup as ex-Minister Jocelyn Newman who, when commissioning the McClure Report (2000), set the context in which the report was to be written with her paper entitled The Challenge of Welfare Dependency in the 21st. Century. Despite the ardour with which Pearson, Latham (1999), Newman (1999) and other conservatives regard the unerring propensity of social services to increase dependency, weaken initiative and destroy society, they are simply wrong. Professor Robert Goodin and his colleagues (1999) refute the suggestion that generous welfare provision invariably leads to the outcomes that Pearson asserts. Anthropologist David Martin (2001) agrees with Pearson that Indigenous people on the Cape are experiencing increased social problems but says that Pearson “is not correct in positing access to welfare incomes for Aboriginal people as contributing to this social breakdown in a direct and causal sense (p.11).”

Pearson (1999) speaks as if “mutual obligation” has a specific Indigenous flavour. “Mutuality” and “reciprocity” have clearly defined, locally specific meanings in traditional society. They have a more generalised meaning in modern Indigenous society – certainly one that goes beyond “tit-for-tat reciprocity”. The problem that then exists for any agency wishing to impose “mutual obligation” is: what do such words mean within the cultural context of a particular community or a specific clan group living in a community? If a department cannot clearly articulate what concepts such as “mutual obligation” mean in the context of specific Indigenous communities then it will not be in a position to evaluate the effectiveness of its program. When the views of members of an Indigenous community about appropriate obligations clash with a department’s interpretation of obligations, they will be forced to choose between their culture and compliance with departmental dictates, undermining their sense of community, culture and society (Keen 2004). If specific Indigenous interpretations of concepts such as “mutual obligation” are not heard, it is possible that “mutual obligation” on Cape York will simply come to mean what John Howard (1999, 2000) intends it to mean.

In search of the real economy

Pearson is correct when he points out there are few viable enterprises owned by Indigenous Australians. But his analysis misses the mark when he asserts that the absence of “a real economy in these regions” can be attributed to either substance abuse or reliance on welfare payments. Throughout much of Australia the only “work” on offer to 80 percent of the Aboriginal population is a form of ‘work for the dole’ called the CDEP. For Pearson to claim that passive welfare is the problem denies the everyday experience of people in Aboriginal communities, where they work for their social security and have done so since the late 1970s. Before that, many worked on settlements or missions at welfare rates of pay, euphemistically called training wages. The majority of those who worked away from missions and settlements had the bulk of their wages stolen by their “protectors”, if indeed they were paid wages.

Pearson (1999) realises that “Aboriginal people participated in the real economy for most of Australia’s colonial history, and we did so at the lowest end of the scale. Engagement in the real economy was quite degrading and involved tragic exploitation.” He accepts that “the impact of the equal wage decision (1967) on Aboriginal labour in the cattle industry was decisive. People lost their place in the pastoral economy and returned to the increasingly welfare-based economy of the settlements.” A reading of Rosalind Kidd’s (1997) The Way We Civilise should give the lie to any suggestion that the pastoral industry was a real economy unsubsidised by Aborigines, rural labour and governments. Queensland governments were involved in enforcing the system of indentured Indigenous labour (setting wage rates and periods of employment). They kept the lease rental for cattle stations artificially low and provided other subsidies to the pastoral lessees. Police and mission protectors controlled [and often misappropriated (Kidd 1997)] the income of Indigenous workers. Queensland governments set the rates of training wages paid on settlements and missions – the major form of alternative work available to Aborigines.

A reading of The Mapoon Story (Roberts, Russell & Parsons 1974) demonstrates the extent to which the Queensland Government was prepared to disrupt entire Indigenous communities on the Western side of the Cape in order to facilitate the development of Comalco’s alumina mining operation. Nearly 6000 square kilometres of Aboriginal reserves were transferred to Comalco’s control (Kidd 1997 p.204). Comalco, like many other mining companies, does not conform to Pearson’s definition of a real economy.

Industry subsidies provided to primary producers during most of the 20th Century, the publicly provided transport infrastructure (rail, ports and roads), tax subsidies and emergency assistance available to primary producers do not meet Pearson’s definition of a real economy. The forestry industry has been heavily subsidised and no Australian forestry company, operating in state forests, pays anything like the replacement costs of the wood it logs or woodchips. In 2001 the Federal Government provided massive assistance to housing, airline and tourism industries to prop them up during a lean period. Subsidies provided to Australian ship builders, foot wear and clothing manufacturers, steel industry and others have decreased substantially in recent years, but car manufacturers continue to demand and receive subsidies worth hundreds of millions of dollars. These and other industries are assisted by existing tariff protection. Senator Bob Brown estimates that Australian Industry received $14 billion annually in government-provided assistance (Van Dyke 2000). Again these industries would not meet Pearson’s real economy test. The public service, the parliament, the community, education and health systems, all receive massive subsidies from the public purse; thus they would not qualify as being part of Pearson’s real economy.

The reality is that, in Australia, an economic enterprise that operates without any direct or indirect assistance from government is a rarity. Why then would one expect community enterprises on Cape York to be any different? Pearson (1999) himself suggests “The geographical remoteness of the communities of Cape York means it is nigh on impossible for Aboriginal people to engage in the real economy”. He points out that colonial dispossession removed the possibility of Aboriginal self-sufficiency. Thus people were forced to choose between taking jobs at exploitative wage rates in the pastoral industry or living on a mission or settlement. Pearson points out that until the 1970s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders seldom received social security payments but today these payments are widespread and this, plus the assistance community government or community enterprises receive from governments is, he suggests, “the welfare problem which is undermining Aboriginal society”. This remarkable conclusion cannot be supported by the facts (Martin 2001, p.11).

In section 6 of his 1999 report Pearson asserts that there were/are three types of real economy on the Cape, namely the traditional subsistence economy, the mission or modern subsistence economy and the white fella market economy. Each of these economies is real, he suggests, because in them “If you don’t work, you starve”. Yet seven pages later he contradicts this assertion in relation to the traditional subsistence economy when he writes “prior to the impact of welfare, the exchange of resources within the community followed these traditional patterns of rights and obligations between people who were socially connected. ‘Cadging’ – borrowing food from people when one is out – was common and occurred on a reciprocal basis between community members.” On Hopevale Mission, where Pearson grew up, the ration system may have encouraged self- provision and work, yet people who were unable to provide for themselves were not allowed to starve. In Australia the market economy is underpinned by welfare system for those unable to maintain themselves. So the “starvation” test for real economies does not have practical utility.

Welfare provision at community or individual levels is a strange place to start if the aim is economic development. If, on the other hand, economic development is the desired outcome on the Cape, then the necessary infrastructure would need to be put in place to allow such development. Large-scale economic developments have taken place on the Cape since the 1960s, but Indigenous people have only been involved at the periphery. Usually when economic development has been undertaken, in places such as Weipa, the Indigenous owners have been considered an encumbrance rather than partners. The real resources which Aboriginal people owned (land and mineral resources) were just taken from them.

SOLUTIONS:

A start

There are, however, solutions which Australian governments in partnership with the Indigenous people could implement. These solutions will vary from community to community but will have some similar components, such as the provision of adequate housing, education, health, sanitation, water, transport and power infrastructure as an act of reparation for past injustice and neglect. Employment at decent wages, in socially and environmentally meaningful occupations, needs to be created. People and their culture must be respected. Social security needs to be provided for those unable to work. Adequate funding needs to be provided to ensure appropriate municipal government functions are carried out. These solutions cannot be implemented without significant expenditure but such expenditure will provide improved outcomes for Indigenous people. Government will benefit by not having to waste money in future addressing social problems which are the result of present inadequately- funded policies.

Reparation

The prevailing view on ownership of minerals in Australia is that it resides in the Crown. Professor Rowley points out that this was not always the case: in South Australia, “proprietors of land grants made before 1880 have retained mineral rights alienated from the original grants” (1972 p. 280). The South Australian legislation and the NT Land Rights Act have been the vehicle by which Aborigines in these two regions have recovered ownership of considerable areas of land and have consequently been able to start to develop a secure economic future (Crough 1993). The ceding of mineral rights on Indigenous land to local Indigenous communities is occurring in other parts of the world. It would be a significant step towards reconciliation were the Crown (State and Federal governments) to restore the ownership of mineral rights to Indigenous people, at least in relation to land where native title has been held not to have been extinguished. This would substantially change the capacity of Indigenous people to control the pace and direction of mineral extraction on their land.

If the ownership of minerals were to reside with Indigenous communities it is likely that minimum requirements would need to be met before a mining operation could go ahead namely: all sites of significance would be protected, the quality of life in the affected communities would need to be safeguarded if not improved, enhanced environmental protection systems would need to be in place prior to the commencement of mining, Indigenous people would have a minimum of 50% ownership of projects (their ownership of the land on which the development takes place justifying their 50% equity), work for all local Indigenous people who required it would be found, training would be provided to Indigenous local people to assist them with careers in the operation and imported staff would undergo training in relation to local Indigenous culture.

The Crown’s conceding Indigenous ownership of minerals would be one way to transfer substantial resources to Indigenous communities without affecting any non-Indigenous person’s individual interests. Howard’s 10 point plan took property rights from Indigenous people that the High Court had found them to have retained and gave those property rights to leaseholders whom the High Court had found did not have such rights (Reynolds 1999 Ch.14). Such responses towards perceived gains by Indigenous people are fuelled by a downward envy promoted by the same politicians who set out to diminish poor people’s access to welfare services in recent years. There has been a conscious drive to replace concepts such as entitlements and rights with ideas of obligation and duty. Alongside this debate have been attempts to deflect Indigenous Australians from their efforts to gain land rights, self-determination, reparation, sovereignty and a treaty.

Reconciliation / treaty

Indigenous Australians survived invasion, dispossession, genocide, protection, exclusion, assimilation, integration, self-management and even the promise of self-determination (which was held out by the Keating Government as part of its plans for reconciliation). The Howard Government has relentlessly opposed Indigenous self-determination on the grounds that it undermines “national sovereignty” (contra Daes 2004, Tomlinson 1996). Indigenous people have instead been offered the Howard/ Herron/ Ruddock/Vanstone prescription of “practical reconciliation” provided they are quiescent about Indigenous sovereignty and land rights.

The provision of adequate shelter, nutrition, sanitation, health, community and educational services is an extremely important part of the Indigenous people’s struggle to obtain equity with other Australians. It is as important to reach an accommodation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians in relation to land rights, self-determination, reparation, sovereignty and a treaty (Daes 2004). Sanitising the history which accords Aborigines passive civil rights, but denies them self-determination, cannot and should not be used as a convenient ploy to justify “new age” mutual obligation ideology.

A treaty is central to any move towards a just accommodation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. The claim of non-Indigenous peoples to sovereignty of this country, in the absence of a treaty, relies on the right of conquest (Daes 2004). If a treaty can be agreed then, and only then, would non-Indigenous Australians be able to claim their continuing right of residence and shared sovereignty of the nation as treaty partners (Snedden 2004). A treaty is simply a road map to the future. It is difficult to conceive a just accommodation (treaty) being reached until Indigenous Australians are allowed to exercise self-determination. This requires substantial reparation being made to Indigenous Australians in order that they can pursue their aspirations without being dependant upon “handouts” from the far more affluent non-Indigenous population. Providing secure land title (land rights) would secure partial reparation and be a step on the road to both reconciliation and a treaty.

Secure income guarantee

Since 1986 Australian governments have reduced the generosity and comprehensiveness of social security provisions (Tomlinson 2003). From 1999 on Noel Pearson has expended much effort condemning the social security system for undermining Indigenous society. I am not suggesting that the existing system of social security in Australia is without flaws. Rather, this is an argument to move towards a generous universal system of Basic Income rather than reduce people’s access to social services (Standing 2004, 2002, Van Parijs 1992, 1997, Murray 1997, Lerner, Clark and Needham 1999, Tomlinson 2003 see also Basic Income Guarantee Australia web site 2005, Basic Income Earth Network 2005). Essentially a Basic Income is a universal payment made to each permanent resident of a country, irrespective of his or her economic or social status. The relevance of this model as an alternative is that it demands no readiness to seek employment as a condition for receiving income support.

Conclusion

There are many similarities between the days of the “protection” system (1897- 1975) and the behaviour of the Howard and Beattie Governments. The Queensland Government no longer steals Indigenous workers’ wages but it still refuses to make proper reparation for the monies stolen by previous government agents. It disproportionately jails Indigenous offenders and takes Indigenous children from their communities. Both Governments grossly under-fund Indigenous health, housing and community services and this is killing Indigenous people.

The failure to pass Commonwealth or Queensland legislation providing secure land rights to Indigenous Australians guarantees that whenever white interests want Indigenous land they will be able to take it, admittedly they might have to pay some token compensation (if Aboriginal people have native title rights in respect of the land). The failure to grant mineral rights to Indigenous people ensures that they will remain poorer than other Australians.

The Howard Government has not negotiated a reconciliation agreement between Indigenous and other Australians. It has impeded Indigenous self-determination at every turn. Its “10 point plan”, its refusal to say sorry to Indigenous people for the “Stolen Generations” and its incapacity to respond positively to the symbolic issues at the heart of the Indigenous struggle for justice and self-determination impede its working alongside Indigenous communities. When the Beattie Government’s plans have been opposed by Indigenous leaders, ministers often attempt to marginalize them and promote the interests of other leaders. These are some of the obstacles to either of these governments engaging co-operatively with Indigenous communities. The term “community partnership” as it is used by the Howard or Beattie Governments is misleading – neither attempt to develop a shared vision with the communities on which they are attempting to impose their policies (McDonald and Zetlin 2004).

Australian Governments (State and Federal) are incapacitated by two major impediments to working cooperatively with Indigenous people. First, they operate from an invader’s perspective – they are blind to the important cultural and political contexts of Indigenous people. It is as if they are trying to work at a community level whilst ignoring the socio-historical context of Indigenous people. These Governments claim they want reconciliation but are incapable of coming to a treaty which is just to both invader and invaded. The modus operandi is – what is currently in white hands stays in white hands and what Indigenous people have is open to expropriation. Second, current governments in this country are ideologically obsessed by seven century old moral imperatives that have long outlived their usefulness. Together these two obstacles combine to ensure that, as far as governments are concerned, only conservative assimilationist programs will be tolerated on Indigenous communities.

Acknowledgment

I thank Penny Harrington for her generous editorial assistance.

Key Words

Indigenous, Government, Obligation, Self-determination, Welfare.

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Much has been written about the Northern Territory Intervention, in its various manifestations, since Mal Brough announced, on 21st June 2007, that he was sending in the army and was going to ensure that Aboriginal children would be examined by doctors, with or without their parents consent, to see if they had been sexually abused. Brough’s outburst came in the wake of The little children are sacred report co- authored by Rex Wild and Pat Anderson (2).

In less than a month 500 pages of legislation was rushed through the Parliament. It was supported by the Labor and Coalition Parties. It contained no mention of children even though Minister Brough had claimed there were pedophile rings preying on Aboriginal children in remote communities. The legislation did though contain the suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act, income management of Aboriginal social security, compulsory town leases massive changes to the permit system and other neo- conservative policies.

The difficulty of understanding across cultures

We only see those things for which we have concepts. When some people see the Min Min lights they believe they are seeing spirits of the Aboriginal Dreamtime, others think they are witnessing unidentified flying objects and still others consider they are observing a rare meteorological phenomenon. We have great difficulty describing sounds we hear for the first time. When Captain Oates left the tent indicating that he “might be some time” … was it a loose tent rope flapping in the blizzard or someone trying to get back in?

When Captain Cook returned to London he presented a stuffed platypus to the Royal Society where the eminent scientist considered it to be a taxidermist’s hoax (3). I have just returned from Lake Eucumbene where it is possible to observe Musk Ducks but very few visitors see them. I had been visiting Eucumbene for a decade before I saw one. They dive for long periods and hide near trees, rocks and any other available cover. They rarely fly, are uniformly black about the size of a black cormorant and sit low in the water like a cormorant. During the mating season the male thrusts jets of water into the air and squeals like a little piglet in an attempt to attract the attention of a potential mate and to ward off competing males. Still most visitors to the lake think they’ve only seen black cormorants.

Taking Minister Jenny Macklin to Central Australia and plonking her down in the sand in Yuendumu or Papunya for a day achieves nothing. Her ears are not attuned to understand what Aboriginal people are saying to her, her eyes are not equipped to see what Aboriginal people are seeing. This is not Macklin’s fault. One only has to read Altman and Hinkson’s (4) collected essays of anthropologists to understand that what each of them sees is a product of their individual experience in a variety of Indigenous communities – there is little consensus.

What an anthropologist might understand from one community differs from that which another anthropologist observes in another community. The major weakness of the Intervention is that it does not allow each community to address their particular difficulties in their own way and work with government in a consultative manner as The little children are sacred report argued was absolutely necessary. The intervention is a one size fits all solution for the 73 Indigenous communities affected.

Boring as the internecine dispute amongst the assemblage of anthropologists played out in the pages of Altman and Hinkson’s Culture Crises was to read, I found it pertinent not for what it said about Indigenous society but for what it said about the cultural pretentions of university educated mainstream

Australian society. There were those who found Noel Pearson’s condemnation of “passive welfare” such an important intellectual breakthrough that they could support the income management provisions of the Intervention. They were happy to go along with taking half of Aboriginal people’s social security or Community Development Employment Program monies and placing it in a Basic card system (thus greatly restricting the goods which can be purchased).

These anthropologists demonstrate their ignorance of the attitude of European society to welfare. Pearson was not the first to discover the dreaded evils of “passive welfare”. In 1348 the Statute of Labourers warned against assisting “sturdy beggars” (5). There were many others who warned against providing too generous assistance to the poor leading up to the Poor Laws of 1601 and 1834.

Left wing protagonists are not averse to getting stuck into those without work or other means of support. The sweaty brow is an old socialist icon. Karl Marx railed against the lumpen proletariat – that class of people who are reliant on social security. The class hatred of the lumpen proletariat has a deep and abiding history.

It is our cultural blinkers rather than the culture of Aboriginal people which causes the angst about “welfare dependency”. Mary Edmunds in her Whitlam Institute address (6) points out that Aboriginal people relied on reciprocal assistance or co-dependency as a very useful way of managing during the 40 to 50,000 years before the invasion. The best friendships and marriages have interdependency at their core. We know that the more egalitarian a society is the happier and healthier are its citizens (7). Such societies develop social protection or social insurance systems rather that poverty alleviation measures. Attempts to assist only the poor invariably become burdensome because of the means testing and reciprocal obligations which are associated with assisting only the “truly needy”.

Those anthropologists who are preoccupied with perceived failings in aspects of Aboriginal culture and the dangers of “welfare dependency caused by passive welfare” are blind to the possibility that it is something else which is the problem.

Dennis Walker on numerous platforms declared “There is no Aboriginal problem there is only a white problem.” It may well be that it is the excessive acquisitiveness of non-Indigenous people which exacerbates Indigenous people’s health and socio-economic position – compare the returns which Lang Hancock received from Pilbara iron mining with the rewards the traditional owners received. It may be the failure of non-Indigenous society to come to a just accommodation with Indigenous Australians which is the problem. It may be the sheer bloody mindedness of politicians and their public servants which is at least part of the problem. But integral to how this all plays out is the way mainstream Australians regard the provision of social security, health and educational services. In particular the way in which politicians happily attach a range of obligations to any assistance provided.

Some of the written contributions to the debate about the Intervention

Russell Skelton (8), a contributing editor to The Age Newspaper, says he set out to write a book about Papunya (one of the 73 communities swept up in the intervention) not from the perspective of an Anthropologist but that of a “foreign correspondent” (p.218). The resulting disappointing King Brown Country: The Betrayal of Papunya is certainly written in the “ain’t they strange and not even fascinating” mode does ask one question which all the apologists for the Intervention fail to ask. That question is:

How was it, then, that the Hawke, Keating and Howard governments, with billion-dollar budgets devoted to indigenous programs, had been unable to lift a group of people the size of an MCG football crowd out of the morass of poverty, addiction, disease and social dysfunction? (p.155)

He could have added the Rudd and Gillard Government to those governments that have been found wanting. Perhaps Jon Altman (9) comes closest to answering Skelton’s question when he suggests that despite the current government’s assertion that they are implementing evidenced based policies, there is something insidiously ideological being foisted upon Aboriginal people. For over a decade governments have linked Indigenous violence to economic marginalization, inadequacies in aspects of Aboriginal culture and “passive welfare”. Altman further insists that right wing think tanks, such as the Centre for Independent Studies, are closely linked to senior public servants driving the Intervention and that this in turn leads to the imposition of neopaternalistic welfare coupled with the assimilationist valorization of the free market and private property (pp. 266-267).

Mary Edmunds addresses in detail the way the Intervention erodes human rights. Retired Chief Justice of the Family Court, Alastair Nicholson (10) in a less nuanced manner denounces the Intervention in both its original Broughian form and its current manifestation as unjust and racist. Both Edmunds and Nicholson point to the Howard Government’s actions of trying to enforce Town Camp 99 year leases in Alice Springs and other neoconservative agendas in the years prior to the Intervention. Both look at the timetable leading to, and the motives behind the Intervention.

The little children are sacred report was handed to the NT Government at the end of April 2007 and publicly released on 15th June. On 21st June Brough announced the Intervention with its suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act, income management, compulsory school attendance and health checks, compulsory town leases and so on. Then on 7th August the legislation was introduced into the parliament and given Royal Assent 10 days later. Nicholson notes “It is an Act of 500 pages in which the word children does not appear and Brough as the responsible Minister admitted he had not read it before it was passed (p.7).” It would seem that the little children are a convenient stalking horse. The act was passed without amendment demonstrating the compliance of the Labor Party.

Five hundred pages of legislation could not have been prepared between the 15th June and the 7th August 2007. And even if by some miracle it had been, what in heaven’s name would induce the Labor Party to instantaneously turn its back on its once proud history of defending Indigenous human rights and self- determination and support such obviously neo-conservative and racist legislation. Clearly Altman is correct. There is a group of neoconservatives in the public service, on both sides of politics, in the media and right wing think tanks who are working hand in glove. Alistair Nicholson suggest “ as time passes it becomes clear that the intervention was an exercise in social engineering to destroy Aboriginal culture and Aboriginal attachment to their traditional lands and to force Aboriginal people into suburban agglomerations and adopt a white life style (p.9).”

Bibliography

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-nee1.htm

http://www.pommiejackeroo.com/pages/section.php?section=34

When it comes to asylum seekers
I don’t want to talk to people who hear.
I really want to speak to the deaf.
I don’t want to point the way
for those who see.
I want to sign for the blind.
As a country we’ve lost it.
As a people we’ve blown it.
Humanity is despairing,
our naivety appearing.
It’s not too late to end the hate
admit we got it wrong
we should release them
apologies are for the strong.
Only the fearful toe the line
when we could put it straight.
We should learn to love
bury our shame and hate
smile and welcome those
who are at our country’s gate.

Written 2013 not published

Unpublished letter to the Courier Mail written in the aftermath of what Yanks call 9/11

Dear Editor
After the bombings of the World Trade Centre, American commentators claimed the world had changed forever. Unfortunately, the desire for retribution, the threatening of small impoverished nations, the refusal of many countries (including our own) to accept people fleeing persecution and the world system of economic distribution is remarkably similar to what went on in the past. Forty thousand people die each day from malnutrition or starvation.
Dr. John Tomlinson
Senior Lecturer
Social Policy
School of Humanities and Human Services
QUT

January 2008

Re: Intervention in the Northern Territory and Queensland.

On the 17th January 2008 you claimed that the intervention under Labor would only utilize techniques which had been shown to work.

The first question that must be asked is “worked for whom?”

There is no evidence that using racist income support policies does anything to promote the self- managing capacity of any group of Indigenous people in the world or assist the individuals of that group to manage their affairs better.

There is evidence from South Africa during the Apartheid era that such policies worked a treat for the Apartheid Government and their nice white supporters. I have seen similar benefits accrue to whites in the NT and QLD flowing from state and federal Aboriginal policies.

I began working with Indigenous people in the 1960s and am still taking an active interest in the Indigenous struggle today so I have seen lots of stupid government policies come and go. I worked with Aboriginal people in the NT for 15 years. I have even seen some sensible government policies come and go particularly during the Whitlam Government.

I realize that the Rudd alternative Government in the run up to the last election did not want to make Aboriginal affairs a political issue and so you went along with Howard and Brough’s racist policies. You are probably frightened that if you revert to sensible policies now you will look as if you are reneging on what you said in 2007.

I urge you to adopt sensible non-racist policies immediately before any more harm is done. I congratulate you for reinstating the permit system. The intervention task force should be advised that although the Legislation allows the bypassing of the Racial Discrimination Act that they must comply with the RDA now that Labor is in power. Just because there is a legislative provision which allows racial discrimination against Australia’s Indigenous people does not mean the Labor Government has to continue to act in a racist manner.

In relation to quarantining 50% of welfare payments in order that children are fed and housed that can be done in a non-racially discriminating way. Such provisions have always been part of the Social Security legislation. That is quarantining of welfare payments must only be undertaken after it is established that particular parents have failed to make adequate provision for their children. It is racist to say all Aboriginal people will have their social security quarantined in a particular area irrespective of how adequately they provide for their children.

You only have to see the work of Dr Ross Kidd in Queensland on stolen wages and social security to see the outcomes which occur when you let nice white people control Aboriginal people’s money. The nice white people eventually work out ways to steal Aboriginal peoples’ money. In fact the Queensland Government itself stole much of Aboriginal peoples’ money.

The only way you will solve the issue of alcohol addiction, family violence, child abuse and other social problems in Indigenous communities is by working with the communities on their terms. There is a need for sufficient decent houses to prevent overcrowding, job creation, properly funded clean water, nutrition, sanitation and health programs. Yes, children must have access to education which is culturally appropriate and delivered by skilled teachers. You can’t do that on the cheap as past governments have done.

I was glad to see you have said that Aboriginal people will be involved in building the new houses you have approved. They need to be if houses in remote areas are to be maintained. There aren’t hardware stores where building supplies can be purchased in much of rural and remote Australia

I urge you to have as many of your senior staff read:
Professor Jon Altman and Melissa Hinkson’s (2007) Coercive reconciliation. Arena, North Carlton.

And Professor Guy Standing’s (2002) Beyond the new paternalism. Verso, London.

You may have time to read my critique of the Howard intervention in the Northern Territory” http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=6046
written on the 29/6/2007 for On Line Opinion

Further information can be found at the Basic Income Guarantee Australia web site at QUT, particularly Chapter 6 on Income Insecurity
http://www.basicincome.qut.edu.au/interest/e-books.jsp

In relation to alcohol problems you or your officers might also like to read my paper:
“Must be the grog can’t be the Government: Relationships between Government and Indigenous people in Australia.” YANQ new transitions Volume 10, No 1, 2006  Tomlinson, J. Queensland University of Technology, Carseldine, Queensland, Paper given at the International Conference on Engaging Communities Brisbane 14-17/8/2005

For nearly 20 years I was a member of the ALP, resigning when Paul Keating signed a secret security pact with Indonesia. For some years, probably out of a misguided sense of loyalty, I continued to vote Labor. In recent times, I have voted Greens 1 but have ensured my preferences went to Labor. At the next Federal election I will certainly vote Greens 1 and am no longer certain how I’ll direct my preferences. My reason for this is that the Labor Party under your leadership has become a party which “Stands for nothing and so falls for anything”.

After you went to water on the Tampa, the Party was unwise to let you regain the leadership. As each day passes you continue to miss opportunities to outline a picture of a decent Australia to which ordinary people can aspire or even demonstrate that you are a credible alternative leader of this nation.

Your dance with John Howard on “Australian values” was stupid enough but the two of you getting into bed on the Noongar Native Title victory in Perth exemplified just how racist you both are. If you had half a backbone you would have spent the airtime explaining to voters just how limited are Native Title rights. You should have reinforced Mr Justice Wilcox’s statement that Native Title cannot override freehold title nor influence what people do in their own back yards.

Gough Whitlam’s 1972 slogan “It’s Time” has relevance now. As Gareth Evans would say, “Hey Kim, even the dogs are pissing on your swag”. You started this “small target” strategy a while ago but I urge you to massively expand it. Resign from the Leadership thereby making yourself not just a small target but an invisible one.

May every Israeli soldier die a slow and painful death,
may this day bring Zionism’s final, dying breath.
May Mossad’s Gestapo holocaust in Palestine and Lebanon,
which is shattering the fragile ceasefire,
and imposing its own brand of Nazi style state terrorism
with its US supplied killing technology,
be emasculated by everyone’s common sense.
May the time come when Jewish girls can lie in the arms
of Palestinian men
and Arab women fondle the chests of their Jewish lovers.
May the racism of the Israeli state wither
like the impotent dick of George Bush.
May the children of the Middle East embrace each other
laughing, crying, singing – holding each other in love.
May the bombs and the rockets rain down on those who fire them,
may the people in need be fed and sheltered.
May peace reign and the sun shine in a world united
combined together by brotherly love.
May sisters join hands and dance.
May the tears of the past be a distant memory.
May countries’ borders become like decorated garden borders,
and as insignificant in the scheme of things.
And when people cry may it be the gentle weeping of lovers
whose emotions have overflowed with too much love.

First published Al-Moharer Vol. 246 5/8/2006 http://al-moharer.net/mohhtm/tomlinson246.htm

First Published Green Left 5/4/2006 p.22

also published Union Songs 3/4/2006
http:unionsong.com/u343.htm

also published New Community Quarterly, Vol.4 No.1 Autumn 2006
also published in The Word 2006.

From Pig Iron Bob to Yellow Cake John
the story’s been the same
it’s the rich who take the profits
and the poor who end up lame.
Tycoons own the mining shares
they own the rich ore lode
the poor just labour in the mines
and tramp the dusty road.
The rich want to cut conditions
workers’ wages are fair game,
the hours are getting longer,
it is all a bloody shame.
Bosses demanding increased profits
they think they’ve got us in the frame,
the economy’s going backwards
the mob from government claim.

From Pig Iron Bob to Yellow Cake John
the story’s one of shame,
it’s the rich who get the payoffs
and the poor who get the blame.
No radiation in the boardrooms
you won’t find asbestos dust
except in the lungs of workers
who’ve got a bankrupt trust.
The rich are money grubbing
demanding wealth and fame
workers struggling for a living
it’s time that we took aim.

From Pig Iron Bob to Yellow Cake John
many chances have been lost,
the rich and poor together
should count the social cost.
Uranium could light the night
so could a solar tower
wind energy drive the turbines
and so might tidal power.
Let’s make the world a greener
place put an end to this disgrace
by letting justice set the pace
and so advance the human race.

First published by Union Songs 16/10/2006
http://unionsong.com/u422.html

also published by Al-Moharer 15/11/2006
http://www.al-moharer.net/moh249/tomlinson249.htm

also published in New Community Quarterly Vol.4 No. 3, Spring. p.30

They say Pine Gap’s top secret
but we know where it is.
They say Pine Gap’s a defence base
but they won’t say who it’s protecting from what.
They say Pine Gap’s an Australian US joint facility
but you can’t smoke cannabis there.

They say Pine Gap’s maintaining democracy
but they won’t let Australian civilians walk around its grounds.
They say Pine Gap’s part of Star Wars
but we aren’t at war with the stars.
They say Pine Gap was originally code-named Merino
they must think we’re all sheep.

It’s a ground station for intercepting telephone, radio and data links.
It monitors all sorts of military manoeuvres.
It’s controlled by the US with some Australian collaborators.
I’d feel safer if we let Australian peace activists visit.
I’d feel less terrorised if we told the Australian people what it really does.
I’d feel happier if we thanked the four Christians Against All Terrorism
for having the courage to enter the Pine Gap Base instead of charging them.

in 2007.

We might all laugh at the anarchist slogans

“Don’t vote for them it only encourages them”
“Guy Fawkes was the only man to enter parliament with honest intentions”

But if you care about what happens to your family, your street, your neighbourhood, your community and are prepared to do things which might assist each or all of these then you should be active in politics at the local, state and federal levels because each of these levels of government impact upon your community, your neighbourhood, your street and your family.

Each of these levels of government can supply funds that might assist your community to provided services, etc

John Locke in The Second Treatise of Civil Government 1690 suggested:

Should a robber break into my house, and, with a dagger at my throat, make me seal deeds to convey my estate to him, would this give him any title? Just such a title by his sword has an unjust conqueror who forces me into submission. The injury and the crime is equal, whether committed by the wearer of a crown or some petty villain.

The system of social security is being demolished.

Aborigines are having their land seized their visitor entry permit system smashed.

We saw Dr Mohamed Haneef incarcerated on the flimsiest of evidence.

Refugees are being detained indefinitely.

Timor’s Oil is being stolen by our federal government.

Forced council amalgamations are occurring around the country.

Mary River Dam is being proposed to flood the breading grounds of the Lungfish, the endangered Mary River Cod, and the unique Mary River tortoise.

Hospital waiting lists are blowing out.

As the old Red Gum song says “If we don’t fight – we lose”.

First published 30/4/2007 Jenny’s Red News
http://jennysrednews.blogspot.com

also published Al-Moharer 2/5/2007
http://www.al-moharer.net/mohhtm/tomlinson256.htm

John Howard wants his worst choices preserved.
So I’m sending him – a bottle of formalin.
John Howard wants his place in history observed.
So I’m sending him – a bottle of formalin.

We will keep him in a museum of the past
because we know worst choices will not last.
He’s a troglodyte who leaves all of us aghast.
He’s cold and mean, just a tired has-been,
a could-have-been with plans obscene
and when he goes we’ll all feel serene.

John Howard wants his worst choices preserved.
So I’m sending him – a bottle of formalin.
John Howard wants his place in history observed.
So I’m sending him – a bottle of formalin.

He knows what he can do with his AWAs.
We’re not signing all our rights away.
The boss can stick it where the sun don’t shine.
He can have one, the union’s sorting mine.
Our grandfathers fought for the 8 hour day
for decent conditions and honest pay.
Today the fights are for workplace rights,
though the struggle’s long we’re here and strong,
together we we’ll sing our union song.
We’ll stick with our comrades come what may
the union, in the end, will hold sway.
So tell the boss to shove his AWA,
individual contracts and lower pay,
that is not the real Australian way.
We’ll make sure that this job is completed
the workers united will not be defeated.

John Howard wants his worst choices inured.
He thinks the country rides on his back.
John Howard wants his bastardry obscured
but, this time round, we’re giving him the sack.
Yes, this time round, we’re giving him the sack.
He’ll cry unfair dismissal – you can’t do that.
But, this time round, we’ll sack the little brat.

The saga of Dr Mohammed Haneef’s 12 days detention for questioning under Australia’s terrorism legislation, following his second cousin being implicated in an attack on Glasgow Airport in England, has become widely reported around the world. On 1 August 2007 an amazing confluence of events occurred. Each of them, seemingly insignificant, will in a few weeks have disappeared from the public mind only to merge into a subterranean climate of fear. It is well worth laying down exactly what happened.

On August 1 Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty was continuing to incorrectly assert that an old mobile phone SIM card which had been owned by Dr Haneef was found in the vehicle used in the failed attack on Glasgow airport. British Police maintain the SIM card was located in Liverpool. Keelty was subsequently forced to recant. Dr Haneef was eventually charged with supporting terrorism by leaving his SIM card with one of his second cousins in England. He was granted bail after three days. A couple of hours later, Minister for Immigration Kevin Andrews revoked his work permit on the grounds that he ‘has or had had an association with people involved in criminal conduct’. At a hearing to appeal the cancellation of Dr Haneef’s visa the Federal Court judge commented that he too would fail Andrews’ character test as he had defended murderers in the past.

Andrews indicated that Dr Haneef was to be incarcerated in Villawood. However, the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions reviewed the evidence and dropped the charges. Haneef was eventually allowed to return to India to be with his wife and recently born baby daughter. On the night that Dr Haneef returned to India, Minister Andrews asserted that he was even more convinced that he was correct to suspend Dr Haneef’s visa because Haneef had ‘hastily’ left the country. Andrews’ actions came under criticism from lawyers and commentators. They noted it was strange for a minister of a government which loudly boasts its pro-family values to criticise Dr Haneef for ‘hastily’ returning to his family, after being incarcerated in Australia for two weeks.

Andrews eventually released what he maintained was part of the information given to him by police which had led him to decide that Dr Haneef was not ‘of good character’. He claimed that, on police advice, he could not release any more information as it could compromise ongoing investigations, despite the assertion by Dr Haneef’s lawyers that the information conveyed to the public had all been available to the magistrate who had granted Dr Haneef bail.

Two other things happened on August 1. The first was a Dateline interview on SBS in which a reporter described his meeting with an unnamed Indian police officer. This police officer had given him a copy of a le which alleged that because Dr Mohammed Haneef had been educated in Karnataka State in India ‘he must have come into contact with terrorist entities’. SBS has placed a warning on its website stating: ‘It is not clear whether the purpose of this dossier is to set out mere suspicions to be investigated by the Indian police or actual allegations. Dateline has seen no evidence in support of any allegations in this document’. Nothing further has come of this Indian police leak. It raises questions as to why a respectable public affairs program such as Dateline would beat up such an insubstantial story.

The second strange event was an announcement by David Johnson, the Minister for Justice, that legislation would be introduced in the Federal Parliament to allow for secret surveillance of individuals and organisations. It would also allow the secret copying of computer les by police who would be entitled to enter buildings without the owners’ knowledge. He told the ABC’s The World Today that it was not desirable for police to get a warrant from a judge because someone in the support network surrounding judges might leak information. The failure to successfully prosecute Dr Haneef, he argued, underlined the need for the new legislation. Later, on the PM program he amended his earlier statement to say that the police would need to get a warrant from a judge or a member of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. This legislation was supported by both the Government and Labor in the Senate on August 8.

Comment

Throughout this sorry saga there has been a concerted attempt to drum up a prejudicial climate of fear in the public’s mind. The federal police have selectively leaked to sections of the media. They have interfered with evidence. When Dr Haneef’s barrister gave a copy of the first record of interview to the media the Attorney-General Phillip Ruddock claimed that he would be prosecuted and had behaved unethically. Several ministers have made assertions about the motives of Dr Haneef which would make it virtually impossible for him to obtain a fair jury trial in Australia. Kevin Andrews continues to assert that he has more evidence against Dr Haneef. The Prime Minister claims it’s better to be “safe than sorry”.

All Australians’ human rights are under direct challenge. Due process, just dealing, the presumption of innocence and freedom of movement are being undermined. There is an attempt to replace them with trial by administrative or ministerial at. The only things which have saved us from this, have been some outspoken lawyers and judicial officers, some very good reporting and some Australians’ sense of decency.

First published in Union Songs 9/8/2006
http://unionsong.com/u378.html

Workplace rights are not for sale
Howard and Co are going to fail
worst choice jobs – beyond the pale.
We are workers, not crims on bail.

Profits first and people last
is an idea whose time has passed.
We’ll fight for workers’ dignity
with a quiet serenity,
for a fair day’s work and a fair day’s pay
with arbitration holding sway.
We’ll hold out come what may
worker’s rights are here to stay.
Though the mighty would betray,
workers together will hold the day.

They can stick their pomp and ceremony
workers united will be free.
This unjust system they’d disguise
with half truths and bare-faced lies
by which they hope to sanitise.
But it’s dead – we see the flies.

Workplace rights are not for sale
Howard and Co should go to jail
worst choice jobs – beyond the pale.
Together we will never fail.

Published in Australian Journal of Social Issues 37.4 (2002): 467

Will Hutton is best known for his text The State We’re In. His latest book is a polemic designed to convince British Euro sceptics that Britain is culturally and socially part of Europe. Integral to his analysis is the proposition that Britain’s 25 year flirtation with the US conservative style of business and its associated social agenda was and is a mistake. Australia is not mentioned once in this book but as I read it I felt as if I were listening to a parable. The lessons in this book are as pertinent to Australia as they are to Britain for we too have blithely wandered down the yellow brick road of financial deregulation, privatisation, labour market flexibility and lower taxation towards the economic fundamentalist preoccupations of US conservatism.

The World We’re In is a timely book, coming in a period when the United States is increasingly adopting unilateral military and economic solutions in the wake of September 11 and in the face of a severe stock market down turn. Hutton ruthlessly criticises the prevailing US conservative agenda whilst praising the “best of American universities, culture and business” – presumably he wants to sell some books in the United States. He is at pains to disassociate himself from anti-Americanism and socialism.

At one level this book is a committed critique in support of the public sphere of life. If he were writing a slogan for the 1789 French Revolution it would go something like ‘Liberty, mutuality and public rights’. Whilst he abhors the increasing inequality, poverty and maldistribution which the US conservative agenda foists on its own and other world citizens, he shares a dislike for full blown equality. The closest he comes to equality is a Fabian style equality of opportunity.

This well written book is essentially compares European and US capitalism yet it is delightfully devoid of economic and other social science jargon; it will be read and understood by the average educated reader. Considerable research has gone into this publication and it combines case studies of firms like Nokia, Volkswagen, European Airbus and Boeing with broader social, political, economic and cultural analyses of Europe and the United States. It examines the culture of such businesses, noting the current US business propensity to be driven by short-term shareholder value and corporate executive share options compared with a European tendency to take guidance from a broader stakeholder group which includes workers, consumers, the environment and society. Hutton believes that this leads European companies to develop longer-term business viability strategies than do their US counterparts. He also presents evidence that US business productivity figures are overstated and that European productivity is achieved without many of the social costs experienced in the United States.

Hutton draws attention to increasing workfare and inequality and consequent income insecurity. He explains that “the charge that welfare creates dependency is only the old Confederacy assumption that blacks are inherently lazy dressed up in modern guise. If the US possesses the best doctors, hospitals and medical technology in the world, forty-three million of its people remain without any form of health insurance (p.32)”. Yet US health costs amount to 14% of gross domestic product compared with approximately 8% for Britain and Australia which provide universal cover. Hutton notes that “The US has 5 per cent of the world’s population but 25 per cent of the its prison population …Because most southern states disenfranchise convicted felons, there are now 4.2 million (p.33)” prevented from voting. In this share owning society “64 per cent of American households own less than $5,000 worth of shares (p.124).” The “richest 1 percent of the population holds 38 percent of its wealth (p.149).” Increasingly many are working long hours in low paid jobs – “Americans, in short have created a treadmill for themselves and hailed it as an economic miracle (p.169).”

The World We’re In contrasts this socially unequal country with European countries. Hutton points to the fact that even in Europe “Civility is under siege as a market economy makes strangers of us all (p.7)”. As he did in relation to the United States, he looks to the historical philosophical basis for developments in each country and notes the importance of Catholic humanitarianism in the development of social welfare in much of Europe. He argues that “It is only when there is strong social solidarity and a powerful collective conscience that individuals have a platform on which to express their individualism (p.73)”. He considers the different attitude to property ownership, in Europe and the United States, an important determiner of the form which the welfare system takes “Aristocracy contained the notion of noblesse oblige – literally, ‘nobility obliges’ …their privilege (is) subject to their recognition of their obligations to the social whole (p.69)”. Hutton quotes the French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin “being for a market economy but against a market society (p.73).”

This book argues the importance of providing an adequate basic income backed by decent public health and educational services as the foundation on which to build a productive civil society. I found The World We’re In a compelling text; whose arguments were well supported and cleverly written providing a comprehensive synthesis. I could not put this book down – I hope you pick it up.

The rich can never be taxed to death.
But the poor starve and freeze to death everyday.

You speak of law and order
and we get a police state.

When people assert their right to do something it is often demanded they provide evidence of the international instrument, national legislation, or other basis for their claim to have a ‘right’ to act. The Howard Government simply asserted the poor who received welfare payments had an obligation to ‘work for the dole’ or meet some other ‘mutual obligation’. The mechanism of downward envy was employed to assist in the acceptance of such claims to obligation.

###

A most objectionable assertion of rights occurs in relation to rights which are for most people uncontested but for some groups, say people with disabilities or people who are unemployed, are contested.