Author: Kev

QUEENSLAND PREMIER Anna Bligh has labelled the National Party racist after the state opposition refused to support an apology to the stolen generations made by state parliament nine years ago.

As the nation stopped for Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s speech, Queensland Parliament descended into furious debate when Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg said the state government should apologise to Aborigines for failing to make inroads into indigenous issues. The opposition also used question time to attack the government on its record on issues such as child safety, including the gang rape of an 10-year-old girl in Aurukun, indigenous infant mortality rates, education and alcoholism.

Left wing Anna doesn’t disappoint – whenever you question a lefty they retort with personal attacks. They never, ever answer the question. I guess I’d be furious too if some inconvenient MP pointed out the obvious truth that Queensland apologised to the Aborigines nine years ago and if anything, their situation is worse post-apology than it was before. Particularly when it was done on the day that the Country was all a flutter about an apology from Canberra.

“What followed this morning was the most graceless and mealy-mouthed excuse to avoid the issue,” Ms Bligh said. “There was an opportunity there to rectify the failure of 1999 and it was comprehensively missed.”

Right, so what she is saying is;

The 1999 apology has failed so what we will do is exactly the same and you’re a racist for not complying.

Makes sense in a lefty sort of way. Bloody Nationals, they demanded actions instead of words – how racist is that.

Whenever someone had an occasion to apologise to me for some error I would always say” Don’t go on about being sorry for what you did, just tell me what you are going to do to ensure we don’t arrive at this set of circumstances again. When I had to apologise to Army superiors I would, in my more mature years at least, admit to stuffing up and quickly follow up with an outline on what steps I had taken to ensure it wouldn’t happen again. Disarming and constructive. I would like to think Rudd would have done something similar with his apology in the house. If he had spent one paragraph saying sorry and the rest of the ninety minutes outlining what he is going to do to prevent a re-occurrence then there would have been some merit in the occasion. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen happen. It turned into a frenzy of wailing and teeth gnashing with a song and dance act choreographed for TV. I’m also afraid that some of the factors that have lead us to this frenzy will be reestablished in the not to distant future as the left gain ascendancy in the ALP. The Sorry business is being handled poorly. I would want a Task Force, an enlargement or follow up to Mal Brough’s plan, to move into the areas and clean it up in all the interpretations of the word. Swamp the problem – overkill ..gives kids with new medical, health and education degrees HECS payback for one or two years commitment. Call on the Grey Nomads (look at that huge source of experience) Call for volunteers to help – I would put my hand up, but lets not go back to the land rights, sit-down money, isolated outstations, no education, no discipline, access (hide the problems) by permit only, noble warrior bullshit of the Left. As a matter of interest, how are we going to handle the fact that hundreds, if not thousands of kids need to be removed from their dysfunctional families right now – today. Should we set a date in our calendars, say twenty years hence, to apologise to them? And who actually should be apologizing and to whom? David Moore ex chief of staff to former Liberal Aboriginal affairs minister Mal Brough expands on this;

The confusion starts at the top. Last week Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said we needed an apology before we could tackle the problems. But the people to whom he is apologising are a small proportion of the Aboriginal community. The majority weren’t part of the Stolen Generations and they have entrenched problems. The assumption that an apology to the minority will fix the entrenched problems of the majority is misplaced.

David thinks a lot of other people should be apologising and I can’t help but agree with him. Every Premier for not providing infrastructure; every Education Minister for not insisting black kids have an education; every Attorney General for not applying the law equally to all; the Hawke Keating government for handing the problem over to the dysfunctional ATSIC and the Whitlam and Fraser governments for burying the issues in outstations and hiding them with permit-only entry. Not to mention the Left wing academics for screaming every time governments tried to do something constructive and the public service chiefs who allowed the circumstances to exist where abused kids were not removed from dysfunctional families due to fear staff had of being accused of starting another Stolen Generations. Go ahead, have your warm and fuzzy day. You mob in the suburbs who have never been west or north and seen the real problem, roll around in an ecstacy of righteousness but for Christ’s sake, tomorrow, let’s get on with fixing the problem. As an aside, how would you like to be the first person who recommends, post Sorry Day, in the face of overwhelming evidence of child abuse, that a child be removed from the parents care, or lack of it?

I have included a link on the left bar to a speech Mal Brough gave to the Deakin Institute. It paints a terrible picture of the situation that exists in Aborigine settlements and outstations and you should go and read the piece.

It has been our responsibility, as legislators over the last 30 years, starting with sit down money with Gough Whitlam and land rights under the Fraser Government. Those two single things did more to harm indigenous culture and destroy it than any two other legislative instruments ever put into the Parliament. And people look at me and say, land rights. Let me explain. You see, you can be land rich but be absolutely poor in every other way.

I have always argued Land Rights do nothing for the dispossessed. It is often argued that the key to western civilization was the Title Deed. Only when you actually own a piece of land can you value it, borrow on it or just enjoy it. Everything else is dreamtime

A reader gives an insight into the political make up of the Public Service. She, and all other staff at a Brisbane office have received this email with a pdf attachment from Reconciliation Australia

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will deliver an apology to the Stolen Generation in Parliament next Wednesday 13 February 2008. This is a significant event in Australia’s history and I encourage you to acknowledge it in your workplace. The apology will be broadcast on ABC television from 7.55am. It is expected to go for approximately 90 minutes. I encourage Managers to allow staff to watch the broadcast if at all possible. In addition you might like to organise a special breakfast, morning tea or other function in your workplace to commemorate this event.

Is this rife across the board, I wonder? Are tens of thousands of government employees going to down pens and keyboards for 90 minutes on Wednesday? Why does Gorge Orwell spring to mind. Did his novel 1984 just miss the mark by 24 years? And what happens if my reader doesn’t join the party or the celebratory morning tea – is she marked down as a racist? Government by symbolism certainly has some converts who think words will help turn back the years of apartheid that came from the H.C.Nugget Coombs/Whitlam days of outstations and noble savages. They need a lot more. Keith Windschuttle suggests the government gives them $50 billion if all of what is claimed is true. That might be tongue-in-cheek but he has other thoughts that are worth reading For myself I am sorry that people think saying sorry is an answer and I wont be sorry when Thursday comes around – maybe Rudd can get on with running the country for all of us instead of just the Greenies and the Aborigines. That is of course, after his 1000 advisors tell him what to do.