As noted above it appears it would be applied to areas of land not to a specific race of people. Of course, as this land is owned and occupied by Aborigines, the effect is to apply the ban to a significant number of Aborigines.
I live in Western Australia, and worked for quite some time in the north of the state, where alcohol abuse amongst Aboriginal people is rampant.
The single biggest reason for me no longer working in that area is seeing what these people are going through. Children of all ages, drunk and abusive on the streets. Sniffing of organic solvents is also rife.
The recently released inquiry into the protection of Aboriginal children from sexual abuse (Link Here) was essentially the catalyst for these laws. If you don’t want to read the details, what is going on in that area this great country is horrific.
The laws not only outlaw alcohol in Aboriginal communities, they also:
-prohibit the sale of pornography
-include mandatory health checks of children under 16
-may include holding up to 50% of welfare payments, to only be spent on food and other essentials.
There is no doubt in my mind that these laws are blatantly racist. They should be directed towards any at-risk child, regardless of race. The vast majority of the issue is in Aboriginal communities, so the government has simplified the task of administration by targeting only these communities.
It should be pointed out that Aboriginal community leaders are themselves divided on these measures. Some are welcoming it.
I’m not sure about this stuff, but I think the definite cries of “Racism!” from people in North American living rooms may be premature. Heck, those calls may prove right in the end, but there are respected Aboriginal leaders at the front line saying the measures are good, so… well, just throwing that into the mix.
I don’t like the idea of black communities being targeted for some sort of paternalistic/ possibly racist reason, but if black communities have a higher rate of child abuse than other communities, then those black communities get targeted first. If they were ignored, there’d be hell to pay too.
I just don’t know. Something tells me this is worth a go, but something else tells me it’s an election year stunt. I do feel that doing nothing is not an option.
I’d go a step or two further than the government and physically remove every child under the age of 12 from these abysmally dysfunctional homes and communities in remote areas.
I would acknowledge that government policies and past history has failed our aborigines and destroyed their humanity. I would provide welfare payments and housing and health care for the current adult generation and allow them to live out their lives in whatever way they wish. If they want to drink, sniff petrol, look at porn all day long, then good on 'em. Realistically speaking, there isn’t anything much else for them to occupy their time with anyway.
The kids are another matter. In many of these communities there is not ONE SINGLE ADULT who is together enough to provide adequate care for any of the children living there, and because they are essentially ‘closed’ communities, nobody has been able to get in to see how deep the despair and depravation has sunk to.
If it were up to me, I would get the kids out and living in boarding-school type arrangements where they would be able to get adequate food and health-care, a decent education, and freedom from physical, emotional and sexual abuse. I’d locate these institutions in rural areas, but close enough to major metropolises so that the kids would have the opportunity to pursue real employment and real prospects, not just ‘work for the dole’ schemes. I would staff the centres with indigenous workers so that the kids have actual familial role-models who are sober, not brain damaged, and not abusive unlike those they have been exposed to until now.
It would give them a chance, and chances are pretty few and far between at the moment for kids in remote communities.
I don’t think the government’s proposals are going to work…I don’t think they go far enough.
Yeah, yeah, same issues here with the ‘Stolen Generation’ when indigenous kids were rounded up and sent off for assimilation and ‘whitening’ you might say.
I’m not talking about that though. Although the processes might sound the same to you, I believe that the ONLY chance these people have of surviving and passing on their aboriginal heritage and culture is if they get OUT of those communities that are killing them. Different motivations, hopefully different outcomes.
FWIW, I too am disgusted by the previous assimilation policies of our government. But just because they were wrong then does not necessarily mean they are wrong now.
Whaddayouknow - it’s been tried before - Stolen Generation
It didn’t work then, either. In fact, it contributes strongly to the deep divide in Australia today. :rolleyes:
There are no easy answers. There will be no quick solutions, either.
Si (who acknowledges that NZers are only marginally better than Aussies in the native peoples stakes)
I think there is no doubt that this is racist. A policy designed to apply to a specific race of people can only be racist. The bigger question though, is “is racism necessarily bad?” For example, many countries have positive racist policies such as preferential entry into university for the native population (bad/good?)
So, yes this is a racist policy. Is it a bad policy? Open for debate. Is it possible to make a similar policy that achieves the same outcome without being racist? Probably. Would that be “better?” Open for debate.
Welcome to the SDMB, West Aussie dweller.
TLG, you have no idea how familiar this
sounds to someone who was around north america in the sixties. similar cries were popular in the “Jim Crow” south to refer to “northern meddlers” who opposed their racist ways.
Being isolated doesn’t make a wrong right, nor does it make that wrong “nobody’s business”.
Right? 
Are all welfare benefits in Australia payed in cash? 
In the states while we have cash benefits, alot are in kind. Like rent or utility vouchers or Foodstamps (it’s like a debit card that can only be used for food).
I can’t speak for all Canadians, of course (they haven’t voted in that power for me yet), but I’m watching this with interest because, as I mentioned earlier, the current situations parallel what is going on with Canada’s Native communities to a shocking degree. Racism is a big bugaboo here, though. I wasn’t even comfortable posting about Canada’s Natives here for fear of being called a racist for stating the obvious. That’s part of the problem, in fact - no one wants to stand up and admit that there is indeed a problem.
I happily concede that point, and would even add “Sydney living rooms” to it - I can go weeks without seeing any Aboriginal folks, and those I do are urban people, so it’s not like I’m front line here either. Though you could also apply it to outsiders not meddling when they should too - in demonstrably non-racist ways like providing health care, education, and clean water in remote communities. Or rather NOT providing them.
It think Death Ray makes a good point in raising the difficult idea that this might conceivably be “good” racism. I do think that there is a broader US/Australian cultural divide here though: in Australia (and this is a VERY broad brush I’m applying here), we tend to be not quite as hostile to giving up certain civil liberties as are Americans (guns, for example). We grumble and mutter about it when we do, but usually we won’t protest too much if we can see a potential greater good, so we’re probably slightly more European than American in this (maybe in the middle somewhere). This is evidenced by the fact that this thread is almost exclusively debating the racism angle, whereas the debate in the Australian media has also discussed the racism angle, but the primary debate is “is this going to work or not?”
As far as I am aware, yes. There are things like rental assistance, concessional public transport fares, cheap or free medicine and dental care (if you can wait), but the general rule is that money is whacked into your bank account every second Wednesday, for use as you see fit. I have only a vague notion of what food stamps are from US media and from this board. Go to any suburb on pension day, and you’ll see the old folks lined up outside the bank at 10am, and at 10:30 at the club next door, you’ll be hard pressed to find a vacant slot machine.
Moving thread from IMHO to Great Debates.
Actually, it does. What you are proposing is a complete repeat of the policy that led to the “stolen generation”. How is your motivation different? It would still be whitey government doing what it believes is best for Aboriginal children by removing them from their homes/culture/land - and will result in the same outcome - massive long-term harm via cultural/familial displacement. It is still assimilation and “whitening”.
As an aside, it’s great to see a few fellow sandgropers* at the Dope.
- I moved from Perth to Melbourne in 2001.
How much difference is there in income from all the welfare stuff and working a minimum income job? Around here it’s not always that much. Especially for a single person with no children. A full-time worker can easily be in pretty dire straits, and not qualify for any help at all.
Are there living wage jobs available to these people that will enable them a standard of living better than the dole?
In general, social problems lessen as living standards rise. There are several countries that have demonstrated this.
Anyway, I feel that the root causes of the social problems in Australia (and the US + others) are economic rather than genetic.
But who wants to, or can, pay for it, eh?
Peace,
mangeorge
Yeah, but it may be possible something could be finally done that has actually learned on experience gained since the 1950s. You might have Aboriginal boarding schools with Aboriginal teachers and an Aboriginal curriculum, Aboriginal language studies, visits from elders, you name it. And on top of that, you could make it voluntary, or offer enticements for parents to enrol their kids in these programmes, which would be a lot different from the… well kidnapping that took place in the middle of last century. You could argue that an Aboriginal school is much less “white” than some of the remote communities where traditional ways are not observed, but the white man’s bottle is.
If these were white kids, they may well have been taken away already. It’s not like there aren’t plenty of white alcoholics or drug addicts that haven’t had the Department knock on their door for their kids.
(bolding mine)
Here, you might say it is the opposite. A single person with no kids is much better off stacking supermarket shelves than they are on the dole. Well, financially, that is - but if they are willing to take a drastic cut in income, then they can. Some people do just that, and will decide they would rather be lazy than eat properly. Some go and move to the tropics in a shared house with others doing the same thing, and surf all day. But most don’t. Most people find work is the better option. Anyway, the people who really start to face an equal choice in income between work and welfare are those with kids or other dependents (the more, the better). Walfare payments go up significantly, and you don’t have to pay for expensive childcare while you’re at work. I’m a single guy with no kids, and in a shitty job - I wouldn’t dream of going on welfare, but if I had a couple of kids, I’d probably not only want to, but I’d have to.
Of course, there are no jobs available in the communities that are being targetted by the new enactments, so whether the individual would be better off on the dole/parenting payment than getting paid work is rather moot.
When the alternative is children regularly going hungry, suffering from acute and chronic diseases, bearing witness to and being victims of violence on a daily basis, and watching their families and communities disintegrate leaving THEM no hope for their own futures but a repeat of the same…then I’ll take the long-term/displacement option thanks.
As Loaded mentioned, the only ‘culture’ being passed on in these environments is a malignant one. Get the kids out, leave the current generation to do what they want to do and hope like hell we get it right this time.