`Spare us a wailing wall'
29.08.2009
By: Tony Koch
THE national Aboriginal representative body proposed by Social Justice Commissioner Tom Calma would not tackle the real crises in Aboriginal affairs, and would be little more than ``a blackfellows' wailing wall''.
Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson said the complex committee proposal outlined by Mr Calma, which includes an eight-member executive and a 128-person national congress, would be ``just another forum for victimhood''.
And he said it had become clear that, since the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission was disbanded in 2005, government departments that were supposed to deliver services to indigenous people ``are just as helpless as ATSIC''.
``Mr Calma has got it wrong because what is required is not just a matter of representation of indigenous people,'' Mr Pearson said. ``The crisis in Aboriginal affairs involves answering how we make government work for Aboriginal people, deliver the services and provide the things our people are desperately needing. Having people to just voice those issues is not what is needed.
``Aboriginal people need a relationship with government that works: delivers the houses, delivers the jobs, educates our children. I clearly remember 10 years ago we were complaining ATSIC was not delivering houses to overcrowded communities, even though there was money allocated in government budgets. They were not being built.
``Now we are complaining that government departments, state and federal, are failing in exactly the same area. I think the crucial issue here is to decide how we make partners accountable for upholding their responsibilities. We have to demand outcomes from the respective government and Aboriginal people who are responsible for the delivery of these things.''
Mr Pearson said the worst outcome and the one likely from the Calma proposal would be the establishment of an organisation ``that has no power and no responsibility but that has every right in the world to complain and point out what is failing''.
``It is only when you give people responsibility that they stop complaining,'' he said. ``They have to look at themselves because the results are something they have to account for -- whether it is housing, employment, education. We have to wear the results of failing.
``So you put blackfellows in the position where they have to wear the results, or you will not get the change needed.''
Mr Pearson said Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin needed to ``take a deep breath and have a discussion within government instead of grasping a quick-fix response''.
``This example of Aboriginal representation will lead to nothing. Over the next 10 years we will have a form that is just a blackfellows' wailing wall -- a regular get-together to decry the failure of government to improve the lives of Aboriginal people.
``We have seen reports lately about Aboriginal kids being taken from families and put into foster homes and it is occurring at rates higher than used to be the case when the Stolen Generations were happening. Everybody has to look at themselves and the responsible organisations and start addressing the reasons for this happening. It is because of a failure of leadership at the community level to get on top of the matter -- to hold the parents responsible as parents, manage the household money, look after the kids. If we stopped neglecting the kids, they would not be taken from their families. These are the things that government alone cannot solve. It requires blackfellows to get up and take charge of their problems.''
