• Crisis in Aboriginal communities

Unlike dalek, I don't claim to know what Pearson's position on this particular decision will be.

 But while checking around the net, I found this recent interview between Pearson and Kerry O'Brien, in which Pearson describes his broad criticisms of CDEP: 

KERRY O'BRIEN: There are very important elements of what you're putting up. One is to do with tenancy. You want to put Aboriginal tenants in Aboriginal communities on the same footing with the same rules as people who might be using public housing elsewhere in Australia. You're also demanding of Government that the whole process of CDEP, which is a kind of "work for the dole", be changed?

NOEL PEARSON: Yes. What's happened is that many CDEP positions in the communities are subsidising Government service jobs and other service industry jobs that really should be properly funded as Government jobs in health or education or land management and so on. Convert those positions into real full-time paying jobs and stop bludging on the CDEP as a source of subsidy for it. Secondly, we've got to get young people pursuing jobs in the private sector and elsewhere in the vicinity of the communities.

KERRY O'BRIEN: You used an illustration, and I think you said a nephew, who had the choice between taking a traineeship with Comalco, which would lead ultimately to a good paying job, or going on to CDEP and not having to do much work for it because - and in the short term, the choice would probably be for CDEP because it actually paid more. But how many Comalco traineeships really are going to be available for young people in Aboriginal communities around Australia, in depressed communities?

NOEL PEARSON: Um... It's not a complete solution to the employment challenge but geez, there's a lot of them going begging. There's a lot of full time jobs in these communities that are going begging. Why should we have 50 non-Indigenous people come into a community of 800 people and occupy all the full time jobs because there's no local takers for those jobs? We have in some communities, cleaners' jobs in schools, full-time paying jobs as cleaners in the schools, that can't be filled by local people. Now that's the effect of CDEP and the welfare system, that it's in fact easier to not take up those full-time jobs, it's easier to remain on the handout.

Click here to see a video of the interview.

If anyone has alternative policy proposals or is aware of others who do, now would be a good time to speak up.

I'm getting pretty tired of dalek's use of religious terminology in this debate: 'acolyte', 'raising Pearson to the sainthood', etc.

It's entirely possible to agree with someone's broad political stance without worshipping them or believing that they are right all the time. Dalek's arguments would be slightly more convincing if he didn't assume that everyone who disagrees with him is evil.

YM, maybe I should stop vilifying Pearson, maybe he's not a Capo. He certainly is playing into the hands of the racist's such as Howard. .

Sure CDEP is a flawed setup but Pearson is lying when he says that it takes jobs from the Aboriginal people. In the communities I worked in I was almost the only "white" guy, and then only because there were only a few people in Australia with my particular skill set that was needed at that time.  I would say that 98% the full time jobs were filled by Aboriginals under the CDEP scheme.

Thre is nothing intrinsically wrong with subsiding jobs; teachers, and such are massively "subsidised" or do you want to return to the 19th century?

Even the State Government agency who oversaw my work had mostly Aboriginal officers. Pearson is talking shite I'm afraid.

Dalek

FFS, dalek. Some questions about your claim that:

 "Sure CDEP is a flawed setup but Pearson is lying when he says that it takes jobs from the Aboriginal people"

1) How many indigeneous communities have you seen?

2) How many indigenous communities has Pearson seen?

3) Of the indigenous communities that Pearson has seen, which have you seen?

4) Can you categorically state that the conditions which Pearson describes do not exist in any indigenous communities?

5) If you can't answer 'yes' to 4), how can you possibly justify saying that Pearson is 'lying'? In fact, how do you have any base whatsoever for even criticising his facts, let alone libelling him?

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with subsiding jobs; teachers, and such are massively "subsidised" or do you want to return to the 19th century?

I think it's fairly clear that when Pearson says:

What's happened is that many CDEP positions in the communities are subsidising Government service jobs and other service industry jobs that really should be properly funded as Government jobs in health or education or land management and so on. Convert those positions into real full-time paying jobs and stop bludging on the CDEP as a source of subsidy for it.

he does not have a problem with using Government funds to pay for teachers etc. He appears to be saying that CDEP is used to get these vital services on the cheap.

Do you have any alternative policy proposals to put forward? Or do you know of any? If so, what are they?

YM, The sequence of events is this; Pearson attacks CDEP, Brough sacks 8000 CDEP aboriginal workers and puts them on wlefare so that he can introduce controls over their children with more sackings to come.

Do you support this?

I'll stick my neck out here and say that as far as I can see,  programs like CDEP do need to go. 

 I don't have any detailed knowledge of how the CDEP scheme will be phased out and neither do I have an enormous amount of confidence that it won't be done clumsily. However,  I agree with Pearson's analysis of the  passive welfare problem in Aboriginal communities.  The CDEP may have been successful in leading participants into real jobs in a few cases, but in the main it seems to have got in the way.  It has operated in the main as another form of passive welfare.

There is no solution to the crisis in Aboriginal communities which won't involve a serious push from both indegenous leaders and the Commonwealth toward participation in the mainstream work force.   And yes, this will be a disruptive process. 

This has been written in haste as I'm about to rush out the door.   But I'll try to write more later.  I think that Pearson's analysis is enormously important and that  his strategic acumen is enormous too.   A serious discussion is warranted.  His insights are  extend beyond the crisis in Aboriginal communities.

Oh, what a surprise. I asked dalek to justify calling Pearson a liar, but he dodges the question. 

 I'll try and answer dalek's question anyway, if only to show up the difference between someone interested in debate, and someone like dalek who is only interested in libelling people he disagrees with.

2) Is he asking if I support Brough's recent decision?

3) Is he asking if I agree with his implication that Pearson agrees with Brough's decision and was part of making it happen?

4) Or is he asking if I agree with his flawed logic? According to dalek, if something happens, then something else happens, the first thing must have caused the second thing.

My answers are:

1) I don't know. Pearson makes a good case. Despite asking twice recently, dalek either won't or can't point us to a different set of policies than Pearson's.

2) I don't know. Possibly not. It's entirely possible that there is a better way to discourage passive welfare, and that Brough has acted with all the blindness and arrogance of a remote bureaucrat.

If anyone knows of a different set of policies that would be better for Aboriginal people, they should speak up instead of libelling Pearson by calling him a liar and an Uncle Tom, as dalek has.

3) If dalek has any evidence that Pearson supports Brough's decision, now would be a good time to let people know about it. Perhaps a dispassionate analysis of what Pearson has to say would be useful, rather than personal attacks.

4) If that is the logic on which dalek bases his case, it is utterly flawed and unreliable.

I eagerly await dalek's next attempt to ignore the questions I asked him, trying to get him to justify his attack on Pearson, when dalek called Pearson a liar.

YM: Pearsons schtick is to make out that his people are basically a lazy shiftless lot of paedophiles that need a touch of the white mans whip to get them up on their feet. Of course the racists in the Howard government have siezed upon this to send troops into the communities and to whip up a frenzy. Note that they have  "found"  very little evidence for Pearsons assertions, in fact it appears that incidents of child abuse in Aboriginal communities are no worse than in "White"ones.

 

You should answer why you are so strongly opposed to subsidised jobs for Aboriginals and yet support the subsidisation of white jobs in white society, eg Teachers, firemen, traffic wardens etc etc. Society "subsidises" all sorts of jobs in many and varied ways for good reasons. Why do you pick upon the Aboriginals?

 

My observation of communities from Ernabella all the way up to Old Mapoon leads me to believe that there is, as to be expected, a large variation in morale and living conditions. I note that the communities close in to Alice Springs are the worst, this is largely because degenerate elements of the white community deliberately corrupt the Aboriginal communities for their own gain. When I first visited in 1964 there was open prostitution of Aboriginal girls by white pimps and lot's of defacto segregation. This goes on to this day, perhaps a shade  more discreetly.

 

I don't know any easy answers to the "issues" faced by Aboriginal communities. I do know that things are now far better overall than in 1964 - perhaps it will take another 43 years for the Aboriginal people to sort things out for themselves. It's not really for whitefellas to force them into some white anglo saxon protestant mould - been trying that for over 200 years.

Dalek 

 

No, dalek has no answers, and can't justify his libels so he takes the easy solution - more abuse of Pearson, which he can't back up with any actual evidence whatsoever.

 Dalek also misrepresents my position on Government jobs - actually, I haven't taken a position, I have described what appears to be Pearson's position:

You should answer why you are so strongly opposed to subsidised jobs for Aboriginals and yet support the subsidisation of white jobs in white society, eg Teachers, firemen, traffic wardens etc etc. Society "subsidises" all sorts of jobs in many and varied ways for good reasons. Why do you pick upon the Aboriginals?

I think this has already been answered by me:

I think it's fairly clear that when Pearson says:

What's happened is that many CDEP positions in the communities are subsidising Government service jobs and other service industry jobs that really should be properly funded as Government jobs in health or education or land management and so on. Convert those positions into real full-time paying jobs and stop bludging on the CDEP as a source of subsidy for it.

he does not have a problem with using Government funds to pay for teachers etc. He appears to be saying that CDEP is used to get these vital services on the cheap.

Dalek spins more crap by twisting that into saying that I am 'strongly opposed' to subsidised jobs for Aboriginals. Not surprising from someone so full of hate as dalek is. He's called Pearson an 'Uncle Tom', a 'liar' and now says that Pearson thinks that black people need a 'touch of the white man's whip'.

Dalek has also admitted he has no policy solutions to offer, and that he knows of none. But he is still prepared to tear Pearson down - all the while posing as a friend of Aboriginal people.

YM, firstly I do not believe that Pearson is a "liar", I said that he lied about the effect of CDEP.  He probably tells the truth most of the time, just as every-body else does. There is a big differnce, but you are so desperate that you must resort to really cheap debating tricks and a lie of your own.

Be that as it may, I urge you to read carefully the program of the Cape York Institute http://www.cyi.org.au/

Be3fore you do this I also urge you to read up on the Wattie Creek episode, where the Gurinji took back by force the land that was thiers and contrast it with the cap in hand corporate fascism of the Cape York Institute. I find it very interesting that once revolutionaries should be supporting the very institutrions that have been responsible for the subversion of the militancy of the 1965-67 Aboriginal movement.

Who are you going to support when the newly emerging opposition to the corporate take-over of the Aboriginal aspirations gets under way?

Dalek

 

 

 

I think that once again dalek has revealed that he has no interest in seriously discussing differences of opinion and trying to get at the truth.

This is revealed by statements such as:

Pearsons schtick is to make out that his people are basically a lazy shiftless lot of paedophiles that need a touch of the white mans whip to get them up on their feet.

Whatever anyone may think about his (conditional) support for the current Northern Territory intervention and his work with the Cape York Institute  there is no way that any person with a thought out view on the issues could justify characterising Pearson in this way.  I think dalek  either needs to retract the statement or substantiate it. Since I can't see any possibility of him being able to substantiate it then I expect him to retract it and apologise for substituting baseless vilification for serious discussion. 


I would also like to see some evidence for his claims that child abuse in Aboriginal communities is no more widespread and severe than across the  Australian population overall and that things have been  getting better in Aboriginal communities (Dalek: "I don't know any easy answers to the "issues" faced by Aboriginal communities. I do know that things are now far better overall than in 1964 - perhaps it will take another 43 years for the Aboriginal people to sort things out for themselves.").

I've read a large amount of what Pearson has to say and I think his analysis of what has led to the current crisis of social dysfunction in Aboriginal communities is largely correct.   There's nothing patriarchal or racist about arguing against policies which have effectively made it impossible for people born into those communities to take part in the mainstream Australian economy. 

Unlike dalek, Pearson has developed a clear set of proposals aimed at liberating his people from the lack of opportunity, choice and agency which keeps them down. Pearson wants to win, he's not in the game of grandstanding and speaking of some sort of abstract self determination (to be somehow delivered fron on high by more "service delivery").  He is thinking about how to open up possibilities for real self-determination.  And anyone who reads his papers will see that he has actually got down to work and come up with real proposals rather than airy fairy position statements.   This also means that he has had to rub shoulders with powerful people in the real world (what a disgraceful piece of "capo", "corporate" behaviour!! Better to let another generation of Aboriginal children suffer from foetal alcohol syndrome, low levels of literacy  and all the rest of it). 

Pearson just got $48 million dollars from the Federal Government in order to fund programs in Cape York that are designed to get his people off welfare and give them at least the stake in the real economy that the rest of us take for granted.  He's also doing things like introducing the MULTILIT   literacy program into the region - something which shows to me that he has really done his homework

 It's not good enough dalek just to fling unsubstantiated abuse at Pearson. You need to say what you think needs to happen and why you think it would work better than Pearson's proposals. 

dalek to YM:
"Be that as it may, I urge you to read carefully the program of the Cape York Institute http://www.cyi.org.au/ )... ....the cap in hand corporate fascism of the Cape York Institute"

How many of Pearson's articles at the CYI have you read dalek?

http://www.cyi.org.au/articles.aspx
http://www.cyi.org.au/speeches.aspx
http://www.cyi.org.au/positionpapers.aspx

Which ones?

Why don't you demonstrate to us dalek that you have actually studied, reflected and critiqued Pearsons articles at CYI? Could you start with this one, I rather like it:
Dr Charles Perkins Memorial Oration
25 October 2001
Speech on the human right to misery, mass incarceration and early death delivered by Noel Pearson to The University of Sydney, McLaurin Hall.
http://cyi.org.au/speeches.aspx

My analysis of this article was posted earlier in this thread, here. Since you missed the opportunity to refute it then you can do it now. How could you do that? Well you could supply us with some quotes in context and argue to us how they represent fascism.

Or were you just recommending to YM to read something that you haven't actually read carefully yourself?

If Pearson and his ilk were writing about 19th century England they would spend all efforts on the gin palaces and the terrible addictions of the English working class. He shares his eloquence with Dickens and Zola. The pitch then was that the problems of the "lower classes" were down to thier drinking,pederasty etc. Just improve thier "moral Character" and there would be a new dawn.

Why are you lot so gullible? You bought the Iraq stuff (now forgotten - apparently). Now you buy every half baked fascist plan rushed through the very "democratic" process that you pretend to support, by beacons of enlightenment such as Brough.

 

I  was wrong about Pearson et al, they are more Kapo's than Capo's.

 

Dalek

No, still no policy suggestions from Dalek, just more foul abuse - he's now calling Pearson a Kapo - that is, a concentration camp inmate with authority over other prisoners. I was wondering if dalek was going to be able to top "I didn't call him a liar, I just said he was lying!!!one1". I think dalek needs to find someone to relax with (not suitable for work - nudity + geeky Dr Who reference)

The Bartlett Diaries are worth reading on this issue. Senator Bartlett has doubts about many of the particular proposals of the Federal Government.

He manages to express these doubts while still acknowledging there are major problems that must be solved, and without using words like "Kapo", "Uncle Tom", or "liar". I guess he just doesn't care as much as dalek.

Thanks for the pictures YM - it brought a rare happy glow.

Dalek is so cute  - I want to cuddle it too.

Glad I could help, arthur . But I think you have to say "kyoot" these days, at least if you want to be up with teh kidz and their crazy internets.

internetz

I think we'd better get back on topic in this thread now.

In the spirit of the pronoia thread,  I'll  launch a new topc where people can post links to stuff  that is fun.

Nup, screw it.  I'm not putting up with dalek's crap any more.

 Dalek has cut-and-pasted this article from Crikey.com.au, which claims that there is a 'document' "that presages a federal government takeover of millions of dollars worth of assets owned by Aboriginal organisations."

 Dalek said that "no doubt this will bring on the usual torrent of personal abuse". Since dalek is the person who has called Noel Pearson an "Uncle Tom" and a "Kapo" (Concentration Camp Guard), he should take a bloody look at himself when it comes to personal abuse.

 And once again, LS is accused of "defending every right-wing fascist plan that Howard and Co put up".

 Get stuffed dalek. Start your own blog. We're trying to debate policy here, not tolerate your moronic rants. If you want a place to crap on about how evil the Prime Minister is, and everyone else who disagrees with you is wrong, Larvatus Prodeo is much more suited to that. Or maybe Leftwrites.

 I've tried, twice, to engage seriously with dalek, despite the personal abuse that he can't help spitting out every day. Not worth it. Over it. I hope we can find some people who disagree with us who are prepared to debate seriously instead of scream and yell.

NOEL PEARSON: Aboriginal Australia is burdened by the politics that we developed in the '70s, which on the one hand was defiant, and it achieved a lot of political progress, but at the same time we also compounded a view of Aboriginal people as hopeless, marginalised victims. And the more we could play that up, the more attractive that was for us politically.

Yes, we've been victimised, and terribly victimised, but to tell our people that we're victims is a terribly irresponsible thing to perpetuate, I think, because we just create a mentality of defeat and resignation rather than struggle and defiance.

 

Full transcript: http://www.abc.net.au/austory/transcripts/s723570.htm  

 

 

Barry