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IMPORTANT // Please look after your loved ones, yourself and be kind to others. If you are feeling that the world is too hard to handle there is always help - I implore you not to hesitate in contacting one of these wonderful organisations Lifeline and Beyond Blue ... and I'm sure reaching out to our PRE community we will find a way to help. T.
Indigenous Voice Yes or No?
- Thread starter eZyT
- Start date
Im not "opening a can of worms". a couple of posters have repeated the myths that indigenous people get loads of money that the rest of Australians dont have access to, and they havent returned to back up their claim. because they cant.
The problem is when they remember the source is "a bloke down the local told me the Abos get all this stuff for free" they realise how dumb they would look repeating that
I can help General out maybe?
- franking credits
- 50 % discount on real estate capital gains
- tax free superannuation contributions
- negative gearing
- private school funding
How else do you think our universities are so over run with Black Fellas?
how do they afford such long healthy luxurious lives?
How do they get such high numeracy and literacy rates, occupy all the positions of power, be so underrepresented in the prison system?
Its cause theyre on easy street: real estate investment, share portfolios, savings and large superannuations?
Oh, wait.
Tigaman, Linda Burney is indigenous and I have quite a lot of respect for her, but her primary role in parliament is to represent her electorate and the Labor Party and if she’s like the overwhelming majority of party aligned politicians, her party comes a long way before all else.
In fact, she can’t vote against her party and remain a member of it.
Yeh, when I worked for a Financial Advisor in the city all our indigenous clients wanted to know what to do with the handouts they were getting. They already had the investment property portfolio and a garge full of sports cars.
And really, who wouldn't want to identify as indigenous given all the obvious advantages?
So. My wife's workplace has jobs which are for indigenous folks only. Victorian government department.
They have several positions to fill.
No qualifications required. No experience necessary.
The exact same role, for a person of any other race, needs a degree as an entry requirement.
There's access to university degrees, which are reserved for indigenous Australians, with different entry criteria. Eg my neighbour said to me, "I hope to get into psychology. But if I don't get the grades, I'll just apply as an aboriginal and get in that way" - which she did.
There's many other "helping hands" that are offered. There's special tribunals that are run for indigenous offenders/parole where they receive different treatment/punishments than other offenders (Victoria).
There's government procurement rules where contracts and organisations are required to meet minimum procurement targets for indigenous run business and social enterprises.
The same projects also have minimum requirements for indigenous hiring. If those contracts fail to meet those quotas, they can miss out on revenue.
All those things are available based on race, rather than factors like socio-economic disadvantage (which would still capture a lot of indigenous folk, but also try to lift those from other backgrounds as well). My concerns are not that we help our indigenous Australians. I don't think it's going to "make it rain" for them. But there are other people who are disadvantaged in society as well. They don't get anywhere near the help they should.
1. i think you are concerned
Its 'what about'ism'
China emit carbon, so we shouldnt stop emitting carbon
All the data. ALL the data, shows aboriginal people are THE most disadvantaged in Australia.
If a problem is race-based, surely you see the solution is necessarily race-based?
We agree we should help the most disadvantaged first and most.
But this isnt how it currently works
2. Make it rain? Are you saying that policies designed to, for example, raise aboriginal literacy and numeracy, life expectancy, and reduce incarceration rates, havnt worked to date,
And so therefore we shouldnt have any policies, rather than make better policies?
Thats a tough argument to prosecute.
If you did want to prosecute it properly, i think youde need to go and live a year in a *smile* house in a remote indigenous community, drive a *smile* nissan pulsar, send your kids a thousand km's to a crap school, catch a price-gouged flight to have a nursing graduate attend your health needs, have a half dozen close relatives thousands of kilometres away in jail, have the graduate nurse alter your insulin levels to simulate type 2 diabetes and restrict your kidney function, attend about 10 funeral a year, half of which are suicides of young people,
All against the backdrop of having all your ancestors enslaved, raped, brutalised, hunted and murdered
And anything you own stolen.
Best of luck with that.
3. Have you ever missed out on a government contract, or anything for that matter, because it was preferrentially awarded to aboriginal person or organisation?
Where are these hordes of Aboriginal service providers?
Why am i not the only white fella in the room when iengage with a Govt. agency?
4. Gina Rhinehart pays no tax - its preferential treatment for billionairrres. She earned $3 Billion last year.
The fed Govt spends about $20 million a year on indigenous health.
We preferentially let Gina Rhinehart off about $1.5 billion of tax a year.
Thats a hell of a lot more than the black fella spend.
And if you want to look at every day australia, there are shitloads of initiatives and spends aimed at correcting disadvantage that isnt race based. A *smile* tonne.
Rural initiatives, refugee initiatives, gender initiatives, disability initiatives, health initiatives, domestic violence initiatives, disaster relief initiatives, returned servicemen initiatives, sports initiatives.
I could write all day
5. Your neighbour must be aboriginal in order to gain special entry into psychology. She needs to identify as aboriginal and be accepted by an aboriginal community as aboriginal. Then if she gets a psychology degree she otherwise wouldnt have got, its a great outcome for her, and for her clients, surely?
And finally,
6. The 'special treatment' you argue that indigenous offenders receive is what?
They make up 1/3 of our prison population.
Theyre 10 times more likely to go to prison than any mob of Australians.
Because they're 10 times as bad as white people?
How could a culture of inherently bad people possibly last 60,000 + years?
Special treatment alright.
summary
You are wrong General. Empirically and morally wrong.
Like i said, its not a can of worms at all,
Its a tired, lazy, cliche, big,
box of bullcrap
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People like Craig Foster don't follow a party line. There is no doubt he is left leaning but he is not party affiliated and goes after everyone if necessary. It is hard to be an independent thinker like him and be in parliament unless you are an independent candidate. Maybe he might run for a senate spot if he is so inclined.
The thing I like about him is that he doesn't just talk, he turns his views into actions
So no actual money? Which was what the other posters stated, and I stated was wrong.
General I can't comment specifically on the Dept your wife works for but I am aware of the procurement rules. There are lot of rules designated by the Victorian Government Procurement Board and they include not just general probity type rules but they include things like the Local jobs first program (Victorian employers get extra scores in tenders of a certain size or above) but the Social procurement program. That program lists about 10 types of social procurement and one of them is indigenous run organisations or those who employ indigenous people but it also includes things like diversity, people with disability etc. The individual government agency can decide how they want to implement that within the framework.
In my involvement what I have seen is that tender evaluation positively prejudices the social program those agencies pick. Not all are picking indigenous employers as their main focus. Those organisations don't always win the tenders either.
Personally I am not against it if it is run well. It is not a handout, it is a positive move to get disadvantaged people to be gainfully employed, including indigenous Australians
In the public hospital system there are jobs designated for indigenous staff mainly focused at treating indigenous patients but there are also others who work in areas to provide socially sensitive treatment for migrant populations as an example or patients who don't speak English as a first language.
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I try and stay out of these conversations because I'm a financially comfortable white man so what the *smile* would I know.
Having said that I recognise the need for First Nation Australian people to be supported in ways not applicable to other Australians because my ancestors destroyed their civilisation.
The land I own and the prosperity I enjoy is only possible because my ancestors destroyed theirs and I recognise that there is a restitution needed to try and heal those atrocities.
At that point people usually say something like it was a long time ago and we shouldn't be held responsible etc but to that I ask them if China rolls in tomorrow and takes Australia, rapes, murders and pillages us all, would we expect our great, great, great, great ancestors whose lineage exists because they survived all sorts of unspeakable abuse, to wave China flags on 'New China Day' on February 3rd, 2222?
I don't know how long it takes to repair the damage my ancestors did to First Nations people or if it is even possible but I am sure it needs to be supported for as long as it takes and in as many ways as possible.
Having said that I recognise the need for First Nation Australian people to be supported in ways not applicable to other Australians because my ancestors destroyed their civilisation.
The land I own and the prosperity I enjoy is only possible because my ancestors destroyed theirs and I recognise that there is a restitution needed to try and heal those atrocities.
At that point people usually say something like it was a long time ago and we shouldn't be held responsible etc but to that I ask them if China rolls in tomorrow and takes Australia, rapes, murders and pillages us all, would we expect our great, great, great, great ancestors whose lineage exists because they survived all sorts of unspeakable abuse, to wave China flags on 'New China Day' on February 3rd, 2222?
I don't know how long it takes to repair the damage my ancestors did to First Nations people or if it is even possible but I am sure it needs to be supported for as long as it takes and in as many ways as possible.
Good post, except for 1 thing- it is not only the abuses perpetrated against Indigenous Australians a long time ago- there are still people alive who were used as guinea pigs for nuclear testing at Maralinga, or at least their children are, there are still people alive who had to take the Queensland government to court for not paying them an equal wage, and for putting wages into trust funds that people couldnt access, somewhere between 30 to 300 Indigenous Australians were massacred less than 100 years ago in the NT- grandparents of people still living today.
There are many reasons while Indigenous Australians experience the conditions that many do, and many of those reasons are the direct result of actions and policies affected by Australian governments (at all levels) and Australian people. That is why there are now specific schemes and efforts to redress the disadvantage.
To add to SinTiger's comments.
I work at a university, I am involved in admissions for some courses, there is no quota for indigenous students, they have to qualify for entry like everyone else. There is account taken for provable disadvantage, but like SinTiger's examples above, this applies to more than just indigenous applicants.
The myth of handouts is just that, a myth, as Ezy so thoroughly pointed out.
Indigenous Australians are disadvantaged in this country, the only way to start to fix this is to have schemes which attempt to remove the disadvantage. Without those schemes Indigenous Australians will continue to be at a disadvantage.
DS
I work at a university, I am involved in admissions for some courses, there is no quota for indigenous students, they have to qualify for entry like everyone else. There is account taken for provable disadvantage, but like SinTiger's examples above, this applies to more than just indigenous applicants.
The myth of handouts is just that, a myth, as Ezy so thoroughly pointed out.
Indigenous Australians are disadvantaged in this country, the only way to start to fix this is to have schemes which attempt to remove the disadvantage. Without those schemes Indigenous Australians will continue to be at a disadvantage.
DS
The Australian survey on gay marriage asked just one question. "Should the law be changed to allow same-sex couples to marry, Yes or No?
In regards to the question in the referendum for the Voice to Parliament, keep the question simple, and if the vote is yes, let the workings of it be decided in Parliament.
There could be a very brief history of previous attempts from both sides of politics to support our First Nations people........Whitlam’s National Aboriginal Consultative Committee got axed by the Fraser government, Fraser's National Aboriginal Conference got axed by the Hawke government, Hawke's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission got axed by the Howard government.
A very simple question could then be asked in the referendum...........Should our First Nations people have a Voice to Parliament, Yes or No?
In regards to the question in the referendum for the Voice to Parliament, keep the question simple, and if the vote is yes, let the workings of it be decided in Parliament.
There could be a very brief history of previous attempts from both sides of politics to support our First Nations people........Whitlam’s National Aboriginal Consultative Committee got axed by the Fraser government, Fraser's National Aboriginal Conference got axed by the Hawke government, Hawke's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission got axed by the Howard government.
A very simple question could then be asked in the referendum...........Should our First Nations people have a Voice to Parliament, Yes or No?
It could also include Morrison's appointment of Abbott as "special envoy"
Why Tony Abbott's appointment as Indigenous envoy was a diplomatic blunder and policy failure
The proposals Abbott has pushed as envoy - more police in Indigenous communities and learning in English - demonstrates his ignorance and unsuitability for the job.
theconversation.com
perhaps the question should be "Should our First Nations people have a Voice to Parliament or should we continue to allow right wing government to appoint people like Tony Abbott and Mal Brough control their voice?
Not to mention there are still many people alive who were specifically affected by the stolen generation or were part of it themselves.
I would encourage everyone to read Archie Roach's book, it gives a great perspective on the ongoing trauma of that time
