When will we ever learn...to listen?

Makinti Minutjukur

Today the Indigenous Affairs Minister makes a flying first-time visit to the Pukatja Community in South Australia's APY lands. This is an open letter to the Minister from Anangu woman

12 August, 2008

Dear Minister

We welcome you on your first visit to our community at Ernabella/Pukatja.

We are happy to hear that the Government will pay for the repair of the Ernabella Church. That church is part of our present day heritage. Our fathers and grandfathers built it with their own hands. It is a place that helped to keep our community strong.

We are also happy to hear that the Commonwealth and State Governments will help the Amata community to have a new art centre building for Tjala Arts. Community art centres are like the hub of a wheel. They are a fixed point where people work and make money to feed their families; pass on their knowledge to young people; get training in art skills and business skills; and have a quiet safe place to be where they make beautiful things that make them feel proud and happy, as well as giving pleasure to the people who buy their work.

We are also pleased to hear that both your Government and the South Australian Government will do something to help with more houses in our communities.

We appreciate the help the governments are giving with these things. We believe that you know that they are the tip of the iceberg. Hiding under the water are the same old problems - bigger than ever.

First though, step back 30 years. In those days we had a community garden supervised by Ungakini's husband, and which supplied our fresh fruit and vegetables. The community bakery run by Peter Nyaningu supplied all our bread. Rodney Brumby ran the building projects, supervising the brick making for houses and community buildings in which my father also worked, just one of several of his community jobs. My mother worked in the women's learning centre where she and other women made clothes, home furnishings, and all sorts of practical goods which people bought with the money they earned from their employment in the community.

I worked in the clinic and was trained there by Robert Stephens and others. Many Anangu received health worker training then; few do today. We had the responsibility of doing the jobs that made our community. We earned our living and we did work that was interesting and worthwhile. We were learning in a good way how to be together in one place all the time, and how to start making so many changes in our lives. All this was new, since as you know, only 30 years before that most of us were still living in the bush and living from the land.

I believe the reason why all our lives out here have become so difficult and painful over the last 30 years is that governments, who have the power over us because they have the money we need to make the changes from old ways to new ways, have stopped listening to us. Listening properly. Taking the time. Working with us. Trusting us to be responsible for our own lives - since we know them best.

It's true that many people have come from government for visits: politicians like yourself, very senior and important public servants from Canberra and Adelaide, and all sorts of other experts and advisers. That's good of course - but not one of them has ever stayed long enough, or come back often enough so that they can really understand, and so that we can help them understand what is the reality here - and the other way, so that they can help us understand what the government can do.

You know and I know what some of the problems are: not enough money for people to live and eat properly, and so an increasing health crisis because of bad diet; no proper work for most adults and so a rising sense of hopelessness from young people who can see no future; a terrifying marijuana problem (since Opal fuel it has replaced petrol as the substance abuse of choice) which is a main factor in most suicides among its many other destructive effects; many old "slum" like houses, and not enough houses anyway, so babies, children, everyone gets sick.

The strength of Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara is in our relationships with each other. That is how our society and our communities work - through our relatedness. Our communities can remain strong only as long as our relationships can be strong, instead of melting away because of no work and no meaning, sickness and sadness. We need to build up those relationships again and we need a different relationship with governments.

I want to ask you, for all Anangu: will you listen to us? As a participant in the 2020 Summit I felt very hopeful that your Government might listen to us.

I understand that governments change, that politicians come and go and so do public servants. We've been here all along, and long before that. Our lives were much better 30 years ago. In the years since there have been many changes, some big, some little. Our money has gone up but mostly down; the places we could work in the community changed, and/or disappeared - that is, they weren't funded any more (such as Wali K which only two years ago employed young men making building products). This is just one example of all the changes that are imposed on us in which we have no part, and no choice. Part of the reason is that the various groups, committees and individuals who make the decisions that affect us all are not properly representative of Anangu tjuta - all Anangu. This is a serious problem and needs urgent attention with full Anangu participation and understanding every step of the way.

Surely we can work together to understand each other properly, to make good plans together that will last, and not change every few years when governments change and officials change. I don't believe it has to be like that. We are a very patient people but none of us has much more time to wait before our communities disappear under the sea, with the rest of the iceberg.

Yours sincerely
Makinti Minutjukur

Disability Support Worker,

DFS Pukatja Community (formerly Ernabella Mission)

Source from New Matilda: http://newmatilda.com/2008/08/13/open-letter-jenny-macklin via Dale Hess's Newsletter

~~~
When you can do nothing else: bear witness.

Another piece of the pie?

Photo: The Age

The Wall Street Journal now dedicates a full-time beat reporter, Robert Frank, to cover what he calls Richistan. Richistan did not suddenly appear on the American scene. Our top-heavy era has evolved from a heavily bankrolled effort by conservatives and corporations to instill blind faith in the market as the magic elixir that can solve any problem. This three-decade war against common sense has preached that tax cuts for the rich help the poor, that labor unions keep workers from prospering, that regulations protecting consumers attack freedom. Duly inspired, our elected officials have rewritten the rules that run our economy--on taxes and trade, on wage policies and public spending--to benefit wealthy asset owners and global corporations.

From The Rich and The Rest of Us in The Nation

That's the view from the USA. Meanwhile back in the Land of Oz, The Age has begun to-day a five part series titled The Sum of Us.

Like Margaret Thatcher in Britain and Ronald Reagan in the UK, Australia - under both Liberal and Labor Governments - took on Milton Friedman's monetarism as the western world moved away from Keynesian economics. Never no mind that the work of John Keynes had real runs on the board: extricating the world from the Great Depression as well as bringing post-World War II prosperity.



And where has it got us? More wars and less peace in spite of the end of the Cold War. More rich and more poor in the world - in spite of more nations getting autonomy across the world. Solutions to the chronic problems of our society have been consigned to the so called "trickle down effect" where the wealthy try to convince us that their wealth and their getting richer would be better for everybody because it would all magically "trickle down". Instead, the dollars moved another way.



What has really happened - and it is there for us all to see - is that there has been a "trickle up" effect as money is syphoned away from the poor and the slightly less poor and the not quite middle class to build a constituency of wealth supported by sufficient numbers of middle class people to provide a constituency within democracies for all this to happen. Please note that this does not take into account the state-sanctioned robbery of public assets, the massive social change, and the mass corruption in Russia and China.



And so to the picture of the pie. Paul Keating used to tell us that the solution to all this was to build a bigger pie: trying to tell us that as we built a bigger pie there would be enough for the rich and the rest of us to benefit. But pendulums have a habit of swinging. Balloons inflate and deflate. At the moment, pendulums are swinging enough to give one motion sickness and balloons are popping or about to pop across multiple sectors of the economy.



Don't let any one pull the wool over your eyes again. Too many politicians over the last thirty years have spoken as if economic laws are immutable. They are as sure and as certain as the sun coming up each morning. That is not true. Human beings make the economic laws as we know and experience them to-day. Human beings can make bad decisions and they can make good decisions. They can make decisions for sectional interests and in a corrupt manner and they can make decisions for the common wealth and the common good in a clear, unfettered and unbought manner.



So let's keep watch. Let's not allow all those hood-winkers to get away with it again. Let's hold them accountable: for their lies, their corruption, their kow-towing to the wealthy, and - above all - their incompetence against the common good. Let's build a society for all of us.

~~~
When you can do nothing else: bear witness.

Aboriginal peoples and issues - an abstraction for most Australians.

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

The words of Martin Luther King quoted by

Bev Manton, Chairperson, NSW Aboriginal Lands Council,

9 July 2007

In all the trials besetting Aboriginal Australians, Miss Eagle believes that the majority of Australians are of good will and want wrongs to be rectified and great strides to be made in bringing Aboriginal people into the same situation of the majority of mainstream Australians.

Miss Eagle also believes that most Australians are ignorant of how and where Aboriginal people live. They are not attuned to what Aboriginal people themselves are saying, what has been done, what has not been done. In short, Miss Eagle has come to the firm conclusion that, for most Australians, Aboriginal people are an abstract issue. Issues affecting them are somewhere out there in the ether. There is little recognition in reality that Aboriginal people are PLU - People Like Us; that we should obey the Christian commandment and love them in the same way that we love ourselves.

Here is a report on one Australian, the distinguished Fiona Stanley, who clearly finds the plight of Aboriginal people to be real - no abstract, not somewhere out in the ether.

Oh, that more could feel this way: that more Australians could be better informed and more active in listening to and working with Aboriginal people to demand greater accountability by governments and bureaucrats in spending our taxpayer dollars to provide citzens' entitlements to ALL citizens.

Rudd's ministerial list

Gee, thanks Kev for taking Miss Eagle's advice about that superhero, Senator John. Special Minister for State and Cabinet Secretary - that will keep him at every cabinet meeting. How sweet!

The portfolio distribution looks quite artful with some ministers having plural parliamentary secretaries - is this something like plural marriage and will it require the same amount of juggling?

Here, here and here are the reports of the moment on who will be taking home every night the precious red boxes. More when the official list becomes available.

Here is the full list.

Meanwhile, across on the other side of the trenches, Brendan Nelson has just squeaked it in to the Liberal leadership over Malcolm Turnbull after silly Tony Abbott (where is Costello?) scratched himself and declared himself a future starter all at the same time. And this man wants to be taken seriously? Or doesn't he?

The exquisitely groomed but ideological right-wing Julie Bishop (now I don't think she would tolerate an earring should Nelson resume a former sartorial habit) is deputy. None of this was really surprising. Old conservatives could not vote for Turnbull - and he'd only been there five minutes anyway and his personal fortune could be scary for some.

So Brendan was probably young enough and modern enough for the progressives and sufficiently tolerable for the conservatives especially when tempered with Julie Bishop's dowry of West Australian right wing money!

Andrew Robb's political insider insight would have been handy but AR does not have sufficient flair in spite of the value of his methodical and workmanlike nature. And Christopher Pyne? You are kidding!

The Battle for the Senate

Get Up! is masterminding the fight to keep the Senate out of the hands of one party, in particular out of the hands of the party which has control of the House of Reps. There's little doubt that Australians prefer the Senate to be a true house of review complete with Committee System (thanks and tribute to Lionel Murphy). The body politic is smarter than the major political parties give it credit for: they are able to vote one way in the Reps and vary their vote intelligently in the Senate. Long may they do so!

Family First has been reported as indulging in some classic dummy-spitting about the projected preference deal The Greens have stitched up with Labor (with the exception of Labor in Gunn's Tasmania). "Outrageous" cries Senator Fielding who holds his Senate seat on a primary vote of one point not very much per cent!

Fielding is in the Senate because of a cute preference deal at the last election and he says he's ready to talk to Pauline Hanson on preferences. Will the FF preference cuties try to come up with a deal whereby they can get anything Hanson has on offer without giving anything back? Talk about long spoons and supping with the devil!

But if venality re Hanson's preference is not enough to put FF colours on full display, get this:

"It is absolutely outrageous to think that Kevin Rudd would want to preference the Greens, knowing their stance on drugs, free injecting rooms in streets, free heroin," Senator Fielding told ABC television.

Clearly, a vote for Family First means voting for Chicken Little and his policy platform of the sky falling in. Certainly, harm minimisation is something FF finds intolerable. And injecting rooms in the streets! Well, whoda thunk it? A building with rooms in streets! Where else do rooms go? In the air so that the sky can fall on them?

But seriously, dear Reader. When all is said and done, a primary vote for The Greens in the Senate makes good sense for one very good reason - Rudd's industrial relations policy.

The electorate has not responded negatively to Rudd's "me too" political campaign. This probably means two things:

1. a lot of people swallow this and feel comforted by it
2. a lot of people don't believe the "me too" campaign and think he is doing it to get over the line and things will change in power - either of Rudd's own free will or because others will do the convincing post-election

To ensure that Rudd and Labor introduce an industrial relations program that is more accommodating to the wishes of the masses of Australians who have switched their votes to Labor on the strength of Howard's industrial relations legislation, the best bet is to vote The Greens 1,2,3 in the Senate.

The Greens industrial relations policy is more accommodating to those who have fought for the industrial rights of working people.

The best way to ensure Your Rights At Work is to have Labor in government and The Greens with the balance of power. In fact, The Greens are calling it "Third Party Insurance"!

Let Family First focus on the quality of mucus on their pacifier!

Howards's backflip? More a reverse triple pike with tuck and twist***

All of a sudden, out of the blue, John Howard has announced that within 100 days of being returned to Parliament and to the Prime Ministership that he will introduce a bill into Parliament of Australia for a preamble to the constitution in relation to Aboriginal people.

This announcement has made headlines across the world: here, here

Howard's announcement is being portrayed as a backflip. In Miss Eagle's view, it is not so much a backflip as a reverse triple pike with tuck and twist.*** And because Howard seldom executes a backflip, let alone attempting such a dramatic one, Miss Eagle predicts a great splash and low, if any marks, from judges who know their stuff.

***Diving terminology: Straight - with no bend at the knees or hips; Pike - with knees straight but a tight bend at the hips; Tuck - body folded up in a tight ball, hands holding the shins and toes pointed; Free - Some sequence of the above positions.

The electorate is being taken for mugs once again. It is taken for granted that we have short memories - or, for that matter, no memories whatsoever.

So, dear Reader, let us take a little trip back in time. 9 years and 9 days ago, Australia elected the Liberal Party, with John Howard as Prime Minister, to its second term.

One year before, at the 1997 Reconciliation Conference during which the Bringing Them Home report brought out by Sir Ronald Wilson was launched, John Howard's reputation in Aboriginal Australia reached a, then, all time low. This was when Howard, most unusually, blew his cool in a speech and when Aboriginal people silently expressed their displeasure with John Howard by standing up and turning their backs on him.

This latter incident was to be repeated by many, many more people when John Howard spoke at the Sydney Opera House at Corroboree 2000. This happened the day before 250,000 Australians - with Peter Costello and without John Howard - marched across Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Bridge-marching in support of Aboriginal rights and asking John Howard to say sorry to the stolen generations took place for months to come across Australia.

So back to 1998. On election night in 1998, John Howard committed himself to achieving reconciliation by 2001. He failed. Last night he said:
"I recognise now that, though emotionally committed to the goal, I was mistaken in believing that it could be achieved in a form I truly believed in."

Again John Howard takes us for mugs with no memories. You see, Miss Eagle, for one, remembers Gatjil Djerrkura's invitation back then to John Howard to visit him in his home at Yirrkala in the Northern Territory. Gatjil was then the Chair of the Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC). John Howard accepted and went to Yirrkala.

Now, Gatjil's political views were not left of centre. He was a paid up member of the NT's Country Liberal Party. Gatjil's idea was a good one. An ignorant and powerful PM. Take him to the country of a powerful Aboriginal nation, speak to him privately, show him the culture, the people at a most personal and intimate level. But nine years later, Howard says that he was not emotionally committed to the goal of reconciliation.

It has been quite clear by word and deed that John Howard has NOT been committed to the goal of reconciliation in spite of his election night words - and it is clear that the visit to Yirrkala did not touch Howard either in heart or in spirit. He came the closest to Aboriginal Australia he was ever likely to get and he was untouched, unmoved, and unmotivated.

So what brought about the military intervention of 21 June 2007? A militarist Minister of Indigenous Affairs in Mal Brough; an election year; political point scoring; and the constitutional ability to give full rein to his centralizing views in the Northern Territory.

And what has brought about his announcement on a preamble?

History, dear Reader, history.

The Presidents of the United States of America always have one eye on history. One of their post-presidential entitlements is to the building of a library. Such libraries provide a rich resource relating to the individual president and his time in the White House. Documents and personal memorabilia are installed there and can provide rich pickings for researchers.

In Australia this does not happen. But Prime Ministers, like Presidents, do give thought to how history will view them. Howard has been particularly conscious of this. One of the reasons that Howard has hung on so long to power is because he has emulated, to some extent, and compared himself with Sir Robert Menzies whom some Liberals promote as a great Australian statesman. Therefore, if one has to be seen as distinctive in the eyes of history, length of office is not necessarily sufficient.

Howard launched a military adventure in the Northern Territory which is doing things - on a small scale. The fanfare and rhetoric have not delivered quickly and in spades what was promised. In fact, the whole thing could fail.

Miss Eagle's view is that it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good so there will be some good things to report - but how much and how long it will be sustained will have to be judged further down the track. And the discussion will always be about lost opportunity and how things could have been done better.

So the preamble announcement is Howard's insurance policy for history.

Parliament is scheduled to sit within days. This is unlikely to happen because a whole lot of goodbyes and farewell speeches might have to get a re-run! So it is likely that within the next 24-48 hours the 2007 election will be announced.

So last night was almost the last chance for Howard to do something positive in relation to Aboriginal issues. He has tried to make himself look sincere even if he has had to eat humble pie. If he loses his seat and loses government, both of which are distinct possibilities, he will look as if he has tried. If he is returned to government, he has guaranteed only to introduce a bill for a preamble. The preamble is only words. It has no legitimacy. It cannot be used as a constitutional amendment from which rights and entitlements might be derived.

And yet again we are taken as mugs without memories - because Howard has form on the matter of a preamble. In 1999, Howard presented a poorly imagined and drafted preamble to the people of Australia. It failed.

Sorry, John Howard. You won't say sorry - and now it's time to go. You have had eleven years to heal this country, to bring reconciliation, to advance some of the most powerless and poverty-stricken in this nation.

Instead, you have not only failed to take these things forward, you have taken back many things already in place and you have actively impeded good people doing good and valuable things. No, John. As this blog has said time and again, chickens are coming home to roost.

You have to face the consequences of your actions and inactions. You have to be held accountable by the people of this nation.

Miss Eagle hopes and prays that the Australian people are up to it - but the opinion polls are saying they are. Miss Eagle hopes and prays that when you go, John, we really do get a government that is up to the task ahead which will also be held accountable by the Australian electorate.

The meaning of Australian citizenship: Part 1

What does Australian citizenship mean? Can it be bestowed? Can it be taken away? Can its full entitlements apply to some and not to others? Is there mutual obligation within citizenship? What is the obligation of the citizen to the state? What is obligation of the state to the citizen?

Under John Howard, there are continued attempts to promote and coerce 'Australian values'.

There was the aborted attempt to have such a preamble to the Constitution. Les Murray, perhaps our greatest living poet, was hired to right such a preamble. But that did not suit. There is now a test of sorts to be placed before applicants for citizenship.


Many years ago, under a conservative political regime, Australia refused a passport for 17 years to a controversial citizen, Wilfred Burchett.


Under John Howard, there has been an attempt to deprive those confined in prison of their right to vote. It has not succeeded but has reverted to the previous situation whereby prisoners serving beyond a certain minimum term are denied the right to vote. The High Court has not yet published its reasons.


However, the question needs to be reviewed and we need to ask again: should a citizen ever be denied the right to vote? If there is a case for denial, under what conditions should this be done? What does the limiting of citizens' rights in any regard mean? Can the State limit other rights of the citizen? But then we have to ask: as Australians how are our rights guaranteed without a specific charter, without a Bill of Rights? Are our rights to be held captive to politicized judicial appointments? But then are they to be held captive to the burden of lawyers' arguments?


On the matter of the State's obligation to citizens, Australia has seen its citizen, David Hicks, subjected to gross injustice at the hands of its powerful ally, the United States of America. We have cases in Australia where people who are convicted of crimes are deported to their country of birth. The highlighted cases are of of people who were born outside Australia but have lived here since infancy without formally taking out Australian citizenship. Australia has formed them. For good or for ill, their lives have been lived among us - in our society, under our government. Do we have no responsibility or recourse but to cast them forth to become strangers in a strange land, taking with them to a foreign land their troubles which were formed among us?


Citizenship can never be taken for granted. But the citizen must always hold the entitlement and obligation of citizenship up to the light. Unless this is done, encroachment on the liberty of any may mean encroachment on the liberty of all.

ALP : Think power. Ditch Local

It isn't in this morning's press but it appears Rodney Cocks is now, officially, the ALP candidate for the seat of La Trobe. Funny the things that pop into one's mind at times. I couldn't help thinking this morning of the environmentalist slogan "Think globally: act locally". Except. Except I altered it a bit. "Think power: ditch local". Because - unless the ALP and Rodney Cocks tell us where he lives and if he is on the La Trobe roll - Rodney Cocks has been appointed over and against the hard-working already endorsed ALP candidate, Greg Pargeter.

Of course, with Rodney overseas, is he on an electoral roll anywhere. Wouldn't be the first time a candidate has slipped up, would it?

Of course, in Queensland "Think power: ditch local" is being enacted on a broader scale in the battle to amalgamate councils and the consequent legislative battle between Peter Beattie and John Howard.

An old mate of Miss Eagle's, Brian Courtice - former ALP member for Hinkler centred on Bundaberg and who comes from a long and distinguished AWU and ALP lineage - has been vocal on Radio National's breakfast this morning outlining the federal seats which he believes the ALP has now no chance of winning when it needs Queensland seats stacking up to win government.

Courtice had a beaut quote: Beattie is Bill Clinton without the intellect. Not a bad description - but I am sure, dear Reader, you can think of a few question such a statement begs.

Kevin Rudd has publicly supported Howard against Beattie on the amalgamation issue. When the polls come in showing endangered seats endangering his Prime Ministerial challenge, will we at last see the colour of his money, the steel of his statesmanship. Will we be able to measure his true political stature? We wish. We wait to see.

This morning's The Age is related to celebrity candidature and, while not supporting the editorial in its entirety, I give it the last word with a worthwhile quote:

• The ALP does need to be mindful of the risks of parachuting in a candidate from outside the electorate. This can alienate party members who have worked for years on behalf of local candidates. The public may also see this as a trivialisation of politics.

Banduk Marika: a prophetic voice

Banduk Marika is a talented woman, an artist.

Her art speaks for her - most of the time. To-day, she speaks out. Here is a truly prophetic voice - but it is a voice speaking of history and experience, a voice well-founded in its own culture. Listen....please!

Howard's Government - unhinged...or unplugged?

Greg Barns's view.

Supersizing me where I live - Part 2

I - as I am sure you do, dear Reader - sometimes daydream about living in another period of human history. For Miss Eagle, her daydream is about time travelling to live as an Edwardian. Not a poor Edwardian mind you - probably an upper middle class Edwardian. So many things were happening then. New ideas, a new century and clothes were s-o-o elegant. But my daydream is tempered by the quote from John Rawls: The best measure of a just society is whether you’d be willing to be thrown into it at random.

That, dear Reader, is the crunch - is it not? I certainly would not want to be thrown at random and willy-nilly into Edwardian society. Would you, dear Reader, wish to be thrown random and willy-nilly into the first decade of 21st century Australian society? Before you give an unthinking yes to that question or reply that if you could come back as a miner in the Pilbara, let's pause for thought. Perhaps randomness and willy-nillyness would see you come back as a traditional Aboriginal person in a remote community in the Northern Territory. Or you might come back as a woman of Islamic faith who wears a hajib speaking with a broad Australian westie accent. Or a young man of middle-eastern appearance in Lakemba with a similar accent. Are you still willing to subject yourself to such randomness and willy-nillyness?

If your answer is no then Australian society in the first decade of the 21st century is not living up to the best measure of a just society as defined by John Rawls, the great moral philosopher of the 20th century.

As Australia heads for an election and the possibility of electing John Howard (who is in his sixty-ninth year) as Prime Minister for a fifth term heading for twelve years in office (the President of the USA can only have two terms of four years each), the question we should ask - as we should always ask of our nation - is: is Australia a just and fair society?

And, Miss Eagle has discovered, we give ourselves away on the justice issue in one crucial and historically verifiable way: our height. Now I am not clear where Australians are on the height table in relation to other nations but take a look at this article about the height of Americans vis-a-vis Northern Europeans. It appears that we write our communal and national history in our bodies and we can transcribe that history through our measurements, our personal vital statistics. We can match those vital statistics to historical events, to economic data like GDP and we can see what we are doing and have done to ourselves and to others.

Similar measures are outlined in the WHO Issues New Healthy Life Expectancy Rankings. Japan is top of the list and Australia is No. 2. The USA is not in the top ten. It rates 24th. Miss Eagle wonders if Australia might have topped Japan if mainstream Australia had been as concerned for Aboriginal health and well-being as it is for its own. Certainly, in the USA, efforts are poor at having an inclusive attitude to national health and well-being. Let's take a look:

1. You die earlier and spend more time disabled if you’re an American rather than a member of most other advanced countries.
2. Some groups, such as Native Americans, rural African Americans and the inner city poor, have extremely poor health, more characteristic of a poor developing country rather than a rich industrialized one.
3. The HIV epidemic causes a higher proportion of death and disability to U.S. young and middle-aged than in most other advanced countries. HIV-AIDS cut three months from the healthy life expectancy of male American babies born in 1999, and one month from female lives.
4. The U.S. is one of the leading countries for cancers relating to tobacco, especially lung cancer. Tobacco use also causes chronic lung disease.
5. A high coronary heart disease rate, which has dropped in recent years but remains high.
6. Fairly high levels of violence, especially of homicides, when compared to other industrial countries.
7. Lack of universal access to medical insurance thus limiting access to health care.
8. Eight million Americans are without a job.
9. Forty million Americans are without health insurance.
10. Thirty-five million Americans live below the poverty line.

So, dear Reader, next time rich, famous, and infamous Americans catch your attention and life looks great over there, please remember these ten points. Next time an American celebrity gives away lots of money and looks good doing it, remember the unfairness of those ten points.

Ask yourself, dear Reader: if you were one of those people in the statistics quoted in these ten points, would you rather have fairness and equity brought to you by public policy voted on by every citizen entitled to vote or would you rather be one of the deserving poor dependent on the selectivity of a rich person?

Now look at the Australian picture:

1. 1.05 million households have been classified as having "low economic resources" by the Bureau of Statistics. To fall into that category households had to have low levels of both income and wealth.
2. More than 820,000 children aged under 14 live in the 1.05 million households that have been classified as having "low economic resources"
3. After adjustment for family size and composition, the disposable income for low economic resources households was $262, less than half that of middle-expenditure households.
4. One in every eight of people living in "low economic resources" households are saying they gone without meals in the previous 12 months because of a shortage of money.
5. Almost one-third of the households said they spent more than they earned, suggesting they were either running up debt or drawing on meagre savings to make ends meet.
6. The number of sole parents who receive a pension is on the decline for the first time since 1997.
7. The proportion of lone mothers in the labour force - either in work or looking for work - grew from 49 per cent in 1997 to 60 per cent last year

The last two items need to be look at more closely in relation to income, child care costs, who is looking after the kids and in what circumstances?

Our national government has neglected Aboriginal voices for more than a decade. State and Territory Governments records are not good either. And the Australian voter has not given a sufficiently high priority to Aboriginal health and well-being - instead focussing on its own income and tax-cuts - to impress politicians with a demand for urgent attention. There is a lot of goodwill out there towards Aboriginal people and their concerns but mainstream Australia is not prepared to forego its own financial well-being or do without a tax cut to bring others, black or white, into a position of equity. Please read this speech by Lieutenant General John Sanderson and have a big think.

And what evidence do I have that mainstream Australians are prepared to put themselves and their own well-being ahead of other citizens? I give you the saga of the Merseyside Hospital in Devonport, Tasmania. This is a town with a population of just over 20,000 souls which has access to two nearby hospitals within a half hour and an hour's drive yet has demanded that its own hospital be kept open to the tune of at least $45 million in spite of the difficulty of attracting highly skilled staff and maintaining their skills, in spite of the fact that the hospital itself may not be able to operate in a manner in which safety is guaranteed.

A venal Prime Minister desperate to advance his election prospects has met these demands and thus encouraged a queue of similar demands to form.

It is not only our bodies that are getting fatter and taller, our minds are becoming sloppy and unreasonable and more grandiose.

Supersize me, Prime Minister, some citizens are saying - and do it right where I live.

Supersize me - but do it where I live

Miss Eagle seldom is on message with Paul Kelly of The Government Gazette. However, his analysis yesterday of what Howard is up to at the moment - and it is a moment by moment policy roller-coaster ride - is sound. Governance, not only under Howard but under any future Federal Government, is the issue.

Australia has a three tier system of governance: Local, State, Federal. Governance is on a declining scale of parochialism from Local up to Federal. Until now, when a Prime Minister who has been able to gain neither traction nor momentum against Opposition Leader, Kevin Rudd is becoming desperate. Howard has long demonstrated a bottomless capacity for buying votes but this attribute has now reached proportions which are both grandiose and parochial.

The Shock and Awe intervention appears to have some sort of policy identification and the place, the Northern Territory, seems to have been merely the place over which the Commonwealth had power to intervene easily.

John Howard, with Member for Braddon Mark Baker, make the most of a celebrity welcome at Mersey Hospital, Devonport as part of their Stick it to the States Campaign

The Shock and Awe modus operandi has continued week by week. Last week, it was the intervention in Tasmania singling out one hospital in one small community (the 70,000 population figure by Abbot is a blatant lie and does not describe the population of the community serviced by the Mersey hospital). This week it is offering disaffected local councils in Queensland funding for plebiscites in their municipalities on amalgamations proposed by Peter Beattie's Labor Government after long consultation with local government.

The ACT is the latest government in Howard's "Embarrass a Government To-day" program. This time he is offering to fund timber mill employees' entitlements to the tune of $5 million on the condition that the NSW Government issues the mill with a long-term licence. Now, there appear to be a number of interests coalescing here.

1. Most of the employees are resident in the electorate of Eden-Monaro. Eden-Monaro is known as a bellwether seat. Eden-Monaro, since 1972, has been held by whichever party forms government.
2. The purpose of the proposed funding and the request for a long-term licence is that the mill can be sold as a going concern. So, while employees may benefit and continuing employment in a marginal electorate are supported, the main beneficiary could well be the employer/company. Another case of business welfare?
3. The relevant union is the CFMEU. This union is a blessing and a curse to the constituency of the Federal Government. Its members employed in the timber and forest products industry cost Labor two Tasmanian seats at the Federal Election of 2004 and have forced the ALP this time into a me-too Howard-image policy which dares not deviate in any environmentally responsible way or it will pay dearly in Tasmania. On the other hand, Howard and Co loathe the CFMEU's members employed in building and construction and have done everything they can to legislate against and prosecute the CFMEU's officials and members in this industry. But...timber and forest products industry union members appear to be a well-beloved species!

So since the Shock and Awe Campaign, Howard has struck at two states and two territories. Three states if one considers the position of the NSW Government in relation to a long-term licence for the ACT timber mill. So WA, SA, and Victoria are still to come. WA is open to vilification because they were the one stand-out state against Howard's armed intervention in Aboriginal affairs. Victoria has been a stand-out on the Howard Government attempt to nationalise water policy with all its private sector market-driven consequences. So there is room for Howard nastiness and meanness to operate against WA and Victoria.

So what will happen in SA? Undoubtedly, somewhere along the line will be incursion into Pitjantjatjara lands. And, just as certainly, the excuse will that Pitlands cross the border of South Australia and the Northern Territory.

So Back to Reality.Yesterday, the Northern Territory National Emergency Response Bill 2007 [NTMERB] passed through the House of Representatives in spite of Labor attempts to amend the legislation and in spite of the difficulties faced by Warren Snowdon and Senator Trish Crossin.

CEO of NITV, Pat Turner AM, at the Indigenous leaders press conference in Canberra yesterday.
Valda Shannon, a significant Aboriginal woman from Tennant Creek, at the press conference
Bill Heffernan, Homo Horribilis, puts in an appearance and an interruption at the Indigenous leaders press conference in Canberra yesterday

And who should raise his head above the parapet but that shameless and nasty old homo, Bill Heffernan. Homo, you ask? Homo Horribilis, don't you think Dear Reader? Aboriginal leaders came to Canberra yesterday to discuss the NTNERB and held a press conference. Bill the Buzzard came along, clearly seeing fresh meat to pick over, more dreadful people to put on his hit and smear list. He had the hide to interrupt. But good manners have never been the hallmark of of our hero, Homo Horribilis.

But perhaps I sell him short. Perhaps he only wanted to see what Aboriginal people look like. Maybe there haven't been many around his property in Junee lately. Maybe Bill just wanted to get to know some Aboriginal people before he sunk his ploughshares into their land as he farms Northern Australia!

Anyway, they told Bill where to go. Miss Eagle loves the photograph of Jack Ah Kit eyeballing him.

So, if Bill Heffernan was shameless yesterday, another Senator, Stephen Parry of Tasmania, found himself feeling shameful. Stephen, it is now believed, has learned not to open his mouth in lifts when uncertain of the discretion of all present. Parry has thought about this. So have the clinicians who have resigned from Mersey at the prospect of a Howard take-over. And then there is the Tasmanian Labor Government and its view.

So John Howard has let it be known that, if anyone anywhere in the nation has a proposal which is believed to have been neglected by a State Government, get in touch and they will put it on the list. Word has it that people are queuing up.

Parochialism across the nation is standing up and demanding to be supersized by superhero government. Damned is good governance.

Thoughtful policy is for the birds when making it up on the run and trying to shaft Labor is much more fun.

And Mal Brough is expressing concern about whether his legislation can survive a Federal Labor government. Well, Mal, when you carry on like this why would you expect the legislation produced to stand the test of time? When you expect everyone to toe the line when you say the magic words "child abuse" because they fear being labelled as unsupportive of efforts to combat it, why should you be surprised when more considered opinion will want to override your legislation? And when people realise that you have lead them up the garden path by failure to implement the recommendations of the very report you have used to force action after a decade of neglect, you still expect them to say you did the right thing?

Miss Eagle wonders what the so-called committee hearing will produce on Friday. What can it produce that will be meaningful? Some sound grabs?

And, dear Reader, if you are still not clear about what good and sound governance in this nation might look like, you can get an idea of it here. Whatever happened to this process, Miss Eagle wants to know? Buried between the manila folders and red tape of bureaucracy or withering for lack of funding by a grandstanding Prime Minister and his political, advisory, and bureaucratic lackeys?

What we haven't learned

This afternoon, I have been watching the 1985 television movie, The Dunera Boys. Now, movies based on true stories can be heavily fictionalised for dramatic impact and my guess is that this is the case with The Dunera Boys.

But the real story of the Dunera boys is cemented in Australian history and is legendary.

It is the story of Jewish men, refugees in England, who were victims of an overzealous government who forced them to endure horrors and indignities that they never should have suffered when they were rounded up by the British government and transported to Australia to be imprisoned on the stark, bare plains of western New South Wales.

The picture below, from the National Library of Australia, is a photograph by Henry Talbot taken at a re-union of the Dunera boys in 1997. Read more here.

Of those Dunera boys who, on release in 1942, opted to remain in Australia, many went onto become distinguished, even famous, citizens. We might have locked them up as we went along with Britain's error, but they generously paid Australia back many times over by their contribution to building a young nation.
Otto Marx, Fred Gruen, Felix Behrend, and Leonhard Adam provide an idea of the brilliant minds rounded up in the Dunera Affair and we thank them for becoming part of Australian life and culture with such outstanding contributions.

But, oh, how we forget.

We made a grave mistake then. We continue to do so in modern times as Phillip Adams reminds us.

Chester Porter QC reminded us again on Radio National to-day.

Chester is a proponent of continual improvement in investigative policing. Police, Chester warns, will always seek increased powers. Incompetent police are most likely to ask for increased powers. Executive government, he reminds us, can abuse these powers: in World War II, Labor rounded up right wing people, the United Australia Party rounded up communists. None of these people committed an offence.

The case of Dr Mohamed Haneef and its legal fall-out has called into question what Australia's government is doing in the name of terror. Many citizens are questioning what the limiting of democratic freedoms is doing to us, will do to us.

We have become a nation that is not afraid to use concentration camps for refugees, immigrants, and its own citizens. We have become a nation that is not afraid to use high security imprisonment and deportation - even without speedy trial - for suspicion with little real and admissible evidence.

It would be good if The Dunera Boys could hit the television screens again - particularly the tabloid type screens of Channels 9, 7 and 10.

Australians have to question who they are as a people and a nation and who are they electing to office to govern in their name.

Scoring National Security, Howard, Rudd and Public Opinion

There are two areas of public policy which conservative parties are usually held to do better than the social democratic side of politics. These are the economy and national security. The Liberal-National Party Coalition under Prime Minister John Howard is suffering from its implementation of draconian wages policies, an integral part of the economy. Now, in to-day's The Age, the Coalition's management of security issues and even Howard's reputed personal rapport with servicemen and women is called into question.

While 77% of Australians were supporting the Prime Minister on "border security" and the children overboard affair in the lead up to and at the 2001 Federal election, the 77% were actually supporting the oppression of sailors who didn't sign up to be cruel and heartless to women and children while being forced to be away from their wives, partners and children for unhealthily long periods of service.

So where are the 77% now? The polls favouring Labor seem likely to be garnering a host of the "border security" proponents of 2001. But then Labor itself under the slack leadership of Kim Beazley was in there supporting the government too. This is why Miss Eagle is insistent on knowing the quality and firmness of Kevin Rudd's backbone. X-rays, MRIs, CAT scans, PET scans, lumbar punctures - but give us something Kevin!

Because you see, dear Reader, Kevin is right behind the Prime Minister on the Haneef Affair - every bit as much as Beazley was behind Howard on the children overboard affair. And look where that is going and what a laughing stock that is making of our national security and the powers the Federal Government has taken to itself. National security - heading downward. Mos Australian's wages - heading downward. Roosting chickens are in the offing for John Howard and the wood is on Maxine McKew to defeat him in his seat of Bennelong. It's your national duty, Maxine. National security and the economy depend upon it.

But, Maxine, can you ask Kevin to show us the colour of his money?

Howard's Shock and Awe Campaign: planning and evaluation

The days when organising anything from a street stall to the implementation of The Grand Plan, there are two key axes: planning and evaluation. In to-day's Crikey: Bob Gosford from the metropolis of Yuendemu writes of LGANT's concerns about plans for local government in small communities:
Local Government in the NT – Howard & Brough’s plan for privatisation by stealth?

Local Government in the NT has been in a mess for decades and Howard and Brough’s intervention is about to make it a lot worse. The six "municipal" councils of Darwin, Palmerston, Litchfield, Alice Springs, Tennant Creek and Katherine are the subject of separate parts of the Local Government Act to the 57 or so other small remote Councils. These small Councils are mostly on Aboriginal land and vary from well-run and effective local administrators to grossly dysfunctional centres of corruption, nepotism and benign neglect and it is they that are in the sites of Howard and Brough’s intervention.
Clare Martin’s Labor administration inherited the legacy of poorly-run local government from the 26 year reign of the Country Liberal Party. To her credit she has decided to bite the bullet and implement long-overdue reform of the sector. Whether Martin’s reform proposals are appropriate or not will be left for another day.
What is of greatest concern at the moment is the cumulative effect of a number of recent decisions by the Howard and Martin governments that have and will negatively affect the administrations of local government in the NT. Of particular concern are a raft of recent decisions relating to the Howard & Brough intervention in the NT.
Crikey spoke to Kerry Moir, a current Darwin City councillor and President of the NT’s Local Government Association (LGANT) – the peak-body for all NT local government authorities. Alderman Moir has lived and worked extensively throughout the NT and she is intimately familiar with and concerned for the future of many of the small councils scattered across the NT.
Moir is particularly concerned that the Commonwealth intervention has been so poorly thought out that it will only worsen the current situation. She is particularly concerned that there appears to be no effective coordination between the NT Government’s Local Government Reform program and the elements of the Commonwealth intervention that will affect local community administrations:
I don’t believe that the people the Federal government will send up here will have any idea of what they are going to do or where they will be going. It won’t be like working in their nice air-conditioned offices down south. I don’t believe they will know anything of how remote community Councils work and the constraints they work under. They will have no understanding of local Aboriginal cultures.
Moir and LGANT argue that the formulae used to calculate the Financial Assistance Grants that the Commonwealth provides to all local governments have particularly disadvantaged small community Councils in the NT:
There’s never been enough money provided to communities to do the sort of jobs that have been expected of them. Some communities are dysfunctional, but there are others who struggle, with good people in charge, to try and do something about the housing, do something about the infrastructure. They’ve just never had enough money to do so.
Moir has grave concerns about the uncertainty created by the lack of information provided by Howard and Brough:
Have you seen a plan? No – there isn’t one, at least that they are releasing to the public and my members. At least the NT government has prepared some information on its website about its role in the intervention. My members are fearful for their jobs, they are incredibly worried about their own circumstances and for their communities. I mean, imagine how you would feel if you saw a statement from the NT government that it ‘…will seek to use the Commonwealth appointed administrators to deliver its programs’ – that is the jobs of my members that the government is talking about. Of course there is fear and uncertainty.
But her biggest concern is for the continuing existence of LGANT’s member communities. She is particularly concerned that services currently provided by remote councils will be contracted out to private service providers and that Howard and Brough’s intervention might be an attempt at privatisation by stealth.

And then there's the process for evaluation so that an assessment can be made about how things have gone, how effectively policy has been implemented:

No signs of benchmarks in NT intervention
Health journalist Melissa Sweet writes:

Let’s assume, for argument’s sake, that the Federal Government’s foray into the NT is more about achieving policy goals rather than political objectives. In which case it’s timely, four weeks after the Government announced its "national emergency response" to s-xual abuse of Aboriginal children, to ask: how will we know what difference the initiative has made? More importantly, how will we know that any potential harms -- and it’s hard to think of a health or social welfare intervention which doesn’t involve risks -- outweigh the benefits? Harms are particularly likely when policy is being made on the run and without consultation, careful planning or drawing on the evidence base about what interventions are most likely to be helpful. (If you doubt that’s what’s been happening in the NT, check the Government’s statement of June 21 announcing plans, which were quickly shelved, for "compulsory health checks for all Aboriginal children.") These are important questions, deserving serious attention. But there are no signs the Government has any intention of putting in place an independent, credible evaluation process. Professor Ian Anderson, Director of the Centre for Health and Society and the Onemda VicHealth Koori Health Unit at the University of Melbourne, is one of the country’s gurus of Indigenous program evaluation. If any evaluation was planned, he would likely know about it. But he hasn't heard a whisper. Anderson supports some of the Federal strategies, including ensuring a police presence in remote communities, but worries that pressing children to disclose s-xual abuse without providing long term follow-up may lead to harm. "Any focus which brings a child to disclosure without having in place adequate and sound referral and follow-up services is quite risky," he says. "Children are at risk of suicide for some time after disclosure. "Suicide is one of the extreme consequences but there is a whole range of possible emotional harm that results from well-intentioned interventions by people without the appropriate experience." Anderson says enforced alcohol bans are "bad policy" when they are not linked to a more comprehensive strategy and are likely just to transplant problems -- he has already heard of groups of people moving across the NT border -- rather than solve them. They also encourage sly grogging and more risky forms of drinking, and many also encourage the use of other drugs, such as cannabis. Evaluating the initiative wouldn’t be easy -- an increase in child s-xual abuse notification rates in the NT might be a positive development if it means, not a real increase in cases, but an increase in children and families getting help. But Anderson says there are plenty of existing health and criminal justice data systems to provide a basis for evaluation. The main problem in evaluating the initiative would be its lack of forethought, he says. "In evaluation we identify program logic and the over-arching goals of a program," he says. "This is a policy initiative that doesn’t necessarily have a coherent program goal." If the Government really wants to understand the impact of its initiative, it should be speaking to people like Ian Anderson. But he’s not expecting that call anytime soon. "There’s been no talk of evaluation at this stage and, to be frank, I’m not sure the Australian Government is that interested in it," he says. Which suggests that the opinion polls may provide the only measure that really counts in the current political climate.

So, dear and gentle Reader, had Howard and Brough any idea what they were going to do and where they were going to go? And will they be able to recognise when they have done it and when they have got there?

Tennant Creek, Night Patrol, and Thirsty Thursday

Logo: Julalikari Council,

Tennant Creek, Northern Territory

So you, dear Reader, are a bit non-plussed about Mal Brough's apparent about face on grog access for Aboriginal communities? Get a dose of reality on the whole Shock and Awe Campaign.

Howard and Brough are strutting the national stage as if they are the only ones with ideas, the only ones to think of solutions. No, they are not. But they are part of the problem - the problem that has cut funding for Aboriginal initiatives, refused to listen to Aboriginal people making their needs known, failing to fund their reasonable and justifiable proposals.

Aboriginal people - particularly the women and, of them, the grandmothers - have strong views about alcohol and access to it. Most Aboriginal people, in spite of white views to the contrary, do not drink. Survey after survey outlines this. Some believe that alcohol and the way whitefellas make money out of blackfellas by selling it to them legally or illegally is nothing less than genocide.

This means that Aboriginal people, as a generality, are highly motivated to do something about alcohol usage and access. Tennant Creek, arguably, has been the place of the most creative attempts to combat grog and its effects. The Aboriginal community in Tennant Creek established the very first Night Patrol in Australia. The Night Patrol - largely staffed by women - drives around at night and picks up alcohol affected people. The violent, obstreperous ones are left for the police who take them to the local watch-house. The others are either taken home or to the shelter/drying out place.

Night Patrols have been established in numerous Aboriginal communities. They are a success story of Aboriginal Australia. For more information on the Night Patrol experience in Tennant Creek please read here and here.

But the Tennant Creek story does not begin and end with the Night Patrol. With the idea that was to become known as Thirsty Thursday, Julalikari Council - the energetic, creative, and involved Aboriginal organisation in Tennant Creek - suggested closing down the liquor outlets for one day to make the significant point of the impact no grog could have on Aboriginal communities. Read this description of Julalikari's radical proposal and its implementation by a former resident of Tennant Creek, Paul Cockrem.

Julalikari Council commissioned Miles Franklin Award winner, Alexis Wright, to document the history of the closure of the Tennant Creek pub's and the changes to licensing laws in Tennant published in Grog War.

It was good to hear Peter Dabbs on The World To-day this afternoon. Peter used to be in the Northern Territory with the Menzies School of Health. He was part of the team from Menzies who surveyed the residents of Tennant Creek as we tried one set of liquor laws for three months and another set of laws for another three months. Go here for a number of publications by Menzies relating to alcohol and Aboriginal communities. Peter Dabbs co-authored a report on the Tennant experience - d’Abbs P, Togni S, Crundall I. The Tennant Creek Liquor Licensing Trial, August 1995 – February 1996 : An Evaluation. Darwin: Menzies School of Health Research, 1996. Purchase price: AU$16:50 - which can be purchased from Menzies.

Collateral damage in Aboriginal Australia

Let's start putting together what the Howard Government is saying and doing about its 'initiative' on the State of Emergency into the Aboriginal communities of this nation. Almost immediately the plan was referred to as one of Shock and Awe: a fitting reference to the U.S. military doctrine of rapid dominance written by Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade which was so memorably implemented in the bombing of Baghdad.

If we had not had the modern phrase Shock and Awe to fall back on we probably would have used the word the Germans used for their technique of Blitzkrieg: the purpose of which was to avoid the stagnating tit for tat attrition of trench warfare.

Trench warfare is what so many people feel they have been in with the Howard Government as they have slogged away to build a better life in Aboriginal Australia while the Howard Government snipes at them on Mabo and Native Title, on funding cuts and refusals, on the autocratic abolition of ATSIC.

Miss Eagle suggests that, from the words of Generals Howard and Brough with a few comments inserted by Brigadier Abbot, we start building a picture of Collateral Damage. This is a term for incidental damage during a military campaign. While this definition has relevance to the Howard Government's state of emergency, perhaps an even more relevant usage of the term comes from the IT community where it is used to refer to the denial of service to legitimate users when administrators take blanket preventative measures against some individuals who are abusing systems.

So let's begin the list:

• Loss of control over decision making by Aboriginal people in Aboriginal communities
• Lack of Aboriginal involvement in consultations regarding their well-being
• Loss of Aboriginal and and control over that land which has been hard won
• Invasion. How many have there been? First settlers, squatters, miners, tourists....now the military are coming
• Invasion of privacy at community and personal level

Please send your additions. Miss Eagle apologises that she won't be able to moderate comments for a few days as she goes out of blogging range to immerse herself in the matters of rural communities.

Does Howard want the children or Uluru and Kakadu?

Why us? Why now? the people of Mutitjulu are asking.

The answer is not difficult and it comes in four parts:

1. Mutitjulu is accessible. It is close to an international airport.
2. Mutitjulu is visible. Visibile to tourists - particularly international visitors.
3. The people at Mutitjulu have the land on which Uluru is situated and a say in its management.
4. It is happening now because Howard has an excuse put in his hands.

Just as the Iraq War was planned by the neo-cons before George W Bush ever came to power but could be implemented with the excuse of 9/11, so Aboriginal control of land and, above all, Aboriginal control of Uluru and Katajuta, has been a sore point with conservative forces in this nation.

The former CLP Government in the Northern Territory resented Aboriginal ownership and control greatly. And it is not only Uluru/Katajuta that is at stake. Kakadu is as well. Whitefellas want to open Jabiluka. The Mirrar people fight against it - successfully, to date. The people at Mutitjula stop planes flying over Uluru. If they thought it possible without too much angst, they would stop people walking on it. At the moment, they just make do with advisory notices which large numbers of ignorant and arrogant whitefellas ignore.

If the Federal Government can regain control of Aboriginal land in the Northern Territory - and it can wedge its way in by taking hold of community land without compensation - it can take back control of Kakadu and Uluru/Katajuta National Parks. All in the name of child abuse. Then - after the nuclear waste dump issue is settled - the land councils will be razed. Whitefellas rule, OK!