An Enormous Decision for Indigenous Australians. | PUNT ROAD END | Richmond Tigers Forum
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An Enormous Decision for Indigenous Australians.

Chelsea

Tiger Rookie
Mar 28, 2005
260
2
eight ace said:
Strange as it may seem, chelsea, I did not need to look hard to find that word to describe you. Such an outrage, I know. Surely, if anyone deserves to be in such high dudgeon, it is you. I won't do it again, my delicate little flower. Oh, and thanks for your advice on behaviour modification. It is so hard to get on in this funny old world sometimes, I just don't know where to turn.

Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. This is what Liverpool was accused of, but you seem to get away with it o.k. I don't doubt that you didn't need to look too hard to find the word you wished to use, as it seems that a lot of your vocabulary comes from the gutter anyhow.


eight ace said:
Professor O'Donohue is a person of considerable talent an energy - she achieved her position because of those qualities. Why is that so hard for you to understand? That you believe you can use her achievements to support your argument shows how little you understand about the issue.

I agree with you eightace on this part of your reply to Liverpool, because yes... she does have qualities, talent ,and energy, but she still needed the education, and opportunities that could only come from the Universities etc. that cater for ALL Australians... no matter what colour. To become a Professor, all the talent etc. won't do it without a formal education. Pretty good for someone from the 'Stolen Generation' don't you agree?
 

eight ace

I live a life of well fed idleness
Feb 24, 2004
902
0
So are you saying the stolen generation exists, or it doesn't? Get it together man.

What sarcasm? I really do care for you, petal.
 

Chelsea

Tiger Rookie
Mar 28, 2005
260
2
eight ace said:
So are you saying the stolen generation exists, or it doesn't? Get it together man.

What sarcasm? I really do care for you, petal.

No-one denies that Aboriginal children were fostered out, and the 'stolen generation' is the name that was given to these children at that time. Liverpool has covered this over many pages. How many more times do you need to have this explained to you? :help

As for your ridiculous comments ( as highlighted). You don't know me, or anything about me, so just stick to the topic.... if you can. ::)
 

Chelsea

Tiger Rookie
Mar 28, 2005
260
2
eight ace said:
Professor O'Donohue is a person of considerable talent an energy - she achieved her position because of those qualities. Why is that so hard for you to understand? That you believe you can use her achievements to support your argument shows how little you understand about the issue.

I agree with you eightace on this part of your reply to Liverpool, because yes... she does have qualities, talent ,and energy, but she still needed the education, and opportunities that could only come from the Universities etc. that cater for ALL Australians... no matter what colour. To become a Professor, all the talent etc. won't do it without a formal education. Pretty good for someone from the 'Stolen Generation' don't you agree?

As there's been no response from you re this post, I can only assume that you agree with me too... that Professor O'Donohue would not have been able to achieve what she did, without the education provided for ALL Australians.
 

eight ace

I live a life of well fed idleness
Feb 24, 2004
902
0
Don't assume anything about me. Don't assume anything you say warrants a response from me. Your post was a pathetic attempt to subvert Professor O'Donohue's achievements to your own ends and it and was treated accordingly.

That Professor O'Donohue had a law degree allowed her to become a lawyer. It did not mean she would become a respected magistrate and senior academic. One does not follow the other.

Oh - you called my comments ridiculous. Well they were clearly aimed at ridiculing you, so I assume that's what you meant.
 

poppa x

Tiger Legend
May 28, 2004
5,552
0
Mt Waverley
eight ace said:
Don't assume anything about me. Don't assume anything you say warrants a response from me. Your post was a pathetic attempt to subvert Professor O'Donohue's achievements to your own ends and it and was treated accordingly.

That Professor O'Donohue had a law degree allowed her to become a lawyer. It did not mean she would become a respected magistrate and senior academic. One does not follow the other.

??
Haven't got a clue what this means.
 

Chelsea

Tiger Rookie
Mar 28, 2005
260
2
eight ace said:
That Professor O'Donohue had a law degree allowed her to become a lawyer. It did not mean she would become a respected magistrate and senior academic. One does not follow the other.

What a stupid comment. Of course she needed a Law Degree to become a lawyer. Nearly everyone knows that. ::) This then enabled her to further her career, but the Law Degree was gained from a University, which caters for ALL AUSTRALIANS. Simple.
 

eight ace

I live a life of well fed idleness
Feb 24, 2004
902
0
And you call my comments stupid. Do you get anything, einstein?

Just to clarify things for you, I understand your point. But it is a moronic one, so I ignore it. Do you understand now?
 

skybeau

Tiger Champion
Mar 19, 2006
4,320
0
Yarragon
Here's an idea!

How about, for at least a page or two, we have actually decent discussion...stuff like "here's my point" "good point, but because of this" "i understand, but according to this" etc etc...without any sarcasm, put-downs or anything negative like that...just as an experiment?

If it doesn't work, then you can all go back to your usual methods...

Is that too much to ask?
 

tigersnake

Tear 'em apart
Sep 10, 2003
23,481
11,627
we tried that for a few pages skyboy but to no avail. Better off pissing into the wind.
 

jb03

Tiger Legend
Jan 28, 2004
33,856
12,108
Melbourne
skybeau said:
Here's an idea!

How about, for at least a page or two, we have actually decent discussion...stuff like "here's my point" "good point, but because of this" "i understand, but according to this" etc etc...without any sarcasm, put-downs or anything negative like that...just as an experiment?

If it doesn't work, then you can all go back to your usual methods...

Is that too much to ask?

How about:

Yes the stolen generations exist.
Yes the extent of the stolen generations has been exaggerated.
Yes aborigines have been persecuted since white man came to Australia.
Yes the aborigines continue to be persecuted to a degree today.
Yes the aborigines in some instances should do more for themselves than play the blame game.
 

Lidsand

Chimp Mail - Delivering Since 2007
Oct 12, 2005
7,888
22
Melbourne
jb03 said:
skybeau said:
Here's an idea!

How about, for at least a page or two, we have actually decent discussion...stuff like "here's my point" "good point, but because of this" "i understand, but according to this" etc etc...without any sarcasm, put-downs or anything negative like that...just as an experiment?

If it doesn't work, then you can all go back to your usual methods...

Is that too much to ask?

How about:

Yes the stolen generations exist.
Yes the extent of the stolen generations has been exaggerated.
Yes aborigines have been persecuted since white man came to Australia.
Yes the aborigines continue to be persecuted to a degree today.
Yes the aborigines in some instances should do more for themselves than play the blame game.

jb, come on down.................you win
 

Rosy

Tiger Legend
Mar 27, 2003
54,348
31
Like you sky I'd like to learn more by reading other people's opinions but this thread is too hard going for me to take too much in.

I can see positives and negatives on both sides of the fence.  I don't think there's much doubt that Aboriginals have had a far harder life than white people and it saddens me that people would deny that.  I know it's a massive generalisation and there are exceptions both ways but am sure overall we've had far more privileged chances and the natives of this country have been treated far worse overall.

I am not the biggest fan of saying sorry just because it was requested.  I'd prefer everyone to move on towards a better future.  It's true University spots are available for Aboriginals now, in fact a certain number of places are reserved for them.  Hopefully more will take up the option each year but they haven't always had the same advantages we have.

I asked before if the Aboriginals given the traditional title to the land in Perth would be subject to general laws we all have to abide by but don't think I got a reply.

The reason I ask that is because of the protest in Melbourne, where there was an open fire allowed on a Total Fire Ban day for example.  I'm all for the preservation of heritage and sense of belonging but not when it's against any laws.

The Melbourne protest was one extreme and something I didn't like.  The Smoking Ceremony at Beechworth was quite the opposite situation where everyone respected the other's culture and worked together.

That's the ideal I'd like to see.  All Australians being equal, but I don't think we're on level footing yet and a lot of work and cooperation needs to happen before we will be.  It takes a lot of give and take on both sides and to me dwelling on past tragedy isn't the best way to go. There's no room for anyone to carry chips on their shoulders because in doing so we can never really move forward.  
 

Tigerdog

Tiger Legend
Dec 18, 2002
9,776
77
First payout deal for stolen children
Matthew Denholm
October 18, 2006
18oct-stolen

Path to forgiveness: Elders of the stolen generation Annette Peardon, Eddie Thomas and Heather Brown. Picture: Dale Cumming

THE national debate on the "stolen generations" will be reignited today by the unveiling of the nation's first compensation package for Aborigines taken from their parents under assimilation policies.

Tasmania will today announce a government apology and a $4 million compensation scheme for members of the stolen generations.

The Australian understands the scheme will involve the appointment of an independent assessor, who will judge individual cases against set criteria.

The assessor will consider individuals' testimonies and examine government records to test claims of wrongful removal by welfare agencies, mostly from the 1930s to the 1950s.

A compensation funding pool - to be capped at about $4million - will then be distributed among those found to have genuine cases.

While the number of potential applicants is unknown, the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre has already identified 40 individuals with "solid claims" for compensation.

The scheme - hailed by Aboriginal leaders yesterday as a model for other states to follow - will be advertised nationally to invite applications from those who may have left the state.

Premier Paul Lennon will sell the package as lifting a key barrier to reconciliation between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Tasmanians. Yesterday, Aboriginal leaders praised Mr Lennon's "leadership" and "courage" and expressed hope it would rekindle national debate on the issue.

It is nine years since the release of the Bringing Them Home royal commission report into indigenous children removed from their families.

TAC legal adviser Michael Mansell said he hoped other states would examine and adopt the model and that the Prime Minister would reconsider his opposition to an apology for the stolen generations.
"This is a very groundbreaking decision and not just the other states but John Howard also should ... take a very close look," he said.

Official reasons for the removal of Aboriginal children to institutions or foster homes included maternal "neglect" or "waywardness". However, many Aborigines believe these were often groundless excuses to suit a policy of assimilating black children into white foster families wherever possible.

Some claimants told The Australian the scheme would allow them to "begin to forgive". Eddie Thomas, 70, believed to be the oldest surviving member of the stolen generations in Tasmania, was taken from his grandmother when he was six months old. He and his brother and sister had been placed in her care when his mother died after his birth on Cape Barren Island, northeast Tasmania, in 1936.

He believed his grandmother was duped into signing a consent form. "She couldn't read or write, so she couldn't have been in agreement," he said. His life with white foster families on mainland Tasmania was unhappy and his grandmother was prevented from visiting the children, he said.

"There used to be this old lady come to the gate and our foster mother would say, 'That's just a silly old black woman', and take us inside," he said. "It wasn't until I was old enough to go to work that I met up with an uncle who told me that was my grandmother. She wanted to talk to us, to cuddle us, but she wasn't allowed. She died of a broken heart.

"I've felt for a large part of my life so much anger, but this (an apology and compensation) will allow me to move forward and to forgive those people."

Heather Brown, 63, broke down as she recalled the day she and six other children were taken from her family home.

"Those people just came through our home and got me - I ran, there were children running everywhere," she said. "It happened all at once. I was dazed. I didn't talk for months afterwards."

She still does not know why she was taken from her parents at Wiltshire Junction, northwest Tasmania, or why she was not allowed to see them or her siblings while she grew up in a succession of foster families. "I'll never forget," she said.

Annette Peardon, 57, said she and two siblings were taken from their mother on Flinders Island, because of maternal "neglect". She disputes this, remembering a clean home with sufficient food.

The childhood that followed was marked by "physical, emotional and sexual" abuse at institutions and foster homes, she said. While she found her mother after turning 21, her sister and brother were never reunited with her.

"It broke her spirit - she had three children taken away and only one went back," Ms Peardon said.

Many of those affected have since died, but the TAC has identified 27 individuals it believes have an "extremely strong" case for compensation.

The scheme fulfils a commitment first made by Mr Lennon in The Australian two years ago and repeated at the March state election this year.


http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20600691-2702,00.html
 

Liverpool

How did that Julia and Kevin thing work out? :)
Jan 24, 2005
9,054
1
Melbourne
Tigerdog said:
First payout deal for stolen children
Matthew Denholm
October 18, 2006
18oct-stolen

Path to forgiveness: Elders of the stolen generation Annette Peardon, Eddie Thomas and Heather Brown. Picture: Dale Cumming

THE national debate on the "stolen generations" will be reignited today by the unveiling of the nation's first compensation package for Aborigines taken from their parents under assimilation policies.

---------

The childhood that followed was marked by "physical, emotional and sexual" abuse at institutions and foster homes, she said. While she found her mother after turning 21, her sister and brother were never reunited with her.


http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20600691-2702,00.html


It will be interesting to see now that some of the so-called 'stolen generation' people are receiving compensation for them being removed from their parents, how many of the "unstolen generation" children of today, will receive compensation in the future, for the Government NOT acting.
All the 'stolen generation' has done, is scare non-Aboriginal people away from helping Aboriginal children in need of help, due to the fear of legal action and accusations of racism and genocide.


Girl, 11, easy meat for rapist, court told
Lindsay Murdoch in Darwin
November 22, 2006

NORTHERN Territory health workers and police ignored the plight of an 11-year-old indigenous girl who a man raped in public and then took as his so-called "promised wife" for nine years under the guise of traditional Aboriginal law.

The treatment of the girl, who a judge described as "easy meat" for the man with a long criminal history, is the latest in a series of crimes where authorities have failed to protect Aboriginal women and children in remote areas.

These include the bashing to death of a 27-year-old pregnant woman after 11 years of abuse and a succession of alleged rapes of an 11-year-old boy by 10 males.

In the Northern Territory Supreme Court, Justice Dean Mildren said nobody on Groote Eylandt, including white people, stepped in to help the girl, identified in court as LM. She was only 12 when she was forced to live as the wife of the man, Owen Bara, who fathered her three children, one a five-year-old girl whom he brutally assaulted.

Justice Mildren told the court in Darwin that "perhaps in some cases they may have thought this was a traditional marriage and it was perfectly okay and lawful, but of course it was not a traditional marriage, nothing like it and not put up as such".

The practice of Aboriginal elders taking children as "promised wives" has been under scrutiny since another judge in the territory last year sentenced a 55-year-old man to one month's jail for raping and bashing a 14-year-old girl, saying he took into account the man's belief that he was within his rights to violate the girl because she had been promised to him when she was four.

After an outcry, appeal judges increased the sentence to three years.

Bara, 34, admitted in court to maintaining an unlawful relationship with the girl after grabbing and raping her while she was walking home from school just before her 12th birthday in September 1995.

She was forced to live with him as his wife until she was 20 when she managed to leave him "because of domestic violence issues", the court heard. Justice Mildren said Bara's relationship with the girl was open and not even health workers involved in the birth of her children, who "would have known surely" how old LM was, stepped in to help her.

Justice Mildren said the "police who know everything on Groote [Eylandt]", relatives and teachers also failed to intervene. "Some may have thought this was a traditional marriage and therefore none of their business," he said.

At the time Bara took the girl to live with him she was not in the care of her parents or any adult "so she was easy meat".

"She had motherhood thrust upon her when she was too young," Justice Mildren said. "She was easy pickings," he said. "She had no one to look after her."

On November 17 Justice Mildren sentenced Bara, who is unemployed and has more than 90 previous convictions, to 10 years' jail with a non-parole period of seven years for rape and three counts of aggravated assault. He had pleaded guilty.

The territory's coroner, Greg Cavanagh, last month urged urgent action to stop what he called gross violence against women in indigenous areas after inquiring into the death of Jodie Palipuaminni, a 27-year-old pregnant woman who was bashed to death on Coburg Peninsula by a man she had been promised to under Aboriginal law.

The murder had been predicted by a psychologist two years earlier but authorities failed to protect Ms Palipuaminni despite a long history of domestic violence against her.

This year sexual assaults against an 11-year-old boy continued in Maningrida, 500 kilometres east of Darwin, after he had gone to a clinic with injuries and a sexual disease.

A Darwin magistrate described the offences against the boy by 10 males as the worst he had seen.

The NT Government has set up an inquiry into the sexual abuse of children in remote communities. The inquiry's findings are expected in April.


http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/girl-11-easy-meat-for-rapist-court-told/2006/11/21/1163871403177.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1