The following articles were published in "The Guardian", newspaper of
the Communist Party of Australia in its issue of Wednesday, June 25th, 2003.
Contact address: 65 Campbell Street, Surry Hills. Sydney. 2010 Australia.
Phone: (612) 9212 6855 Fax: (612) 9281 5795.
CPA Central Committee: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
"The Guardian": <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Webpage: http://www.cpa.org.au>
Subscription rates on request.
******************************
Editorial: Wrecking ATSIC
Ever since the Howard Government came to power it has steadily
intensified its attacks on the Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islander
Commission (ATSIC). The assault came to a head last week with the
publication of a review commissioned by the Federal Government. The
Commission was clearly designed to destroy ATSIC and return Aboriginal
affairs to the control of a committee dominated by persons appointed by
the government - not the Aboriginal people.
The Government's racist attitudes and its determination to reimpose a
colonialist type regime on the Aboriginal people is no different to its
attitude to refugees, its support for the invasion of Iraq and
Afghanistan, its intention to invade and occupy the Solomon Islands, its
steady destruction of Medicare and its aims to completely shackle the
trade unions of Australia.
The review committee comprised John Hannaford (Liberal), Bob Collins (a
right-wing Labor Party politician from the Northern Territory) and
Jackie Huggins who is said to be an academic. They have done exactly
what Phillip Ruddock wanted.
The Government's real intentions are revealed in a scurrilous article in
The Australian (18/6/03) written by Janet Albrechtsen, a pen-prostitute
if ever there was one. She writes: ". the policies of the International
of the World's Indigenous People, based on self-rule with little
accountability, have done more damage to indigenous Australians than the
white missions of the 1930s did".
In other words the white man knows best and the herding of the
Aboriginal people onto reserves (as refugees are herded into mandatory
detention centres) was an enlightened policy. She claims that "The
deluge of self-rule without accountability throughout indigenous
communities presents a post-diluvian picture of indigenous
money-squandered, indigenous lives wrecked."
Albrechtsen does not let the truth spoil the bile that pours out of
every sentence in her article.
She could have referred to a statement by ATSIC chairman, Geoff Clark
and Deputy Chairman Ray Robinson issued last April as the attack on
ATSIC was hotting up. Needless to say, she makes no mention of it. Geoff
Clark and Ray Robinson are the particular targets of the Howard
Government's venom and the media that are happy to support the
Government's racist attacks.
This statement records that the latest report of the Australian National
Audit Office (ANAO) found that ATSIC's financial management of more than
$860 million was sound. The ANAO report stated that the real problem for
ATSIC was that it was being forced into providing supplementary funding
because the State and Territories would not accept their responsibilities.
A report by the Commonwealth Grants Commission found that ATSIC's major
program - the Community Housing and Infrastructure Program (CHIP) - was
the best-targeted Indigenous assistance program in Australia.
The Grants Commission also reinforced the fact that it was mainstream
government programs that failed to meet the needs of Indigenous
Australians. The provision of essential services in health, housing,
education and employment are State and Federal Government responsibilities.
The Clark-Robinson statement says: "The Australian National Audit Office
has given ATSIC its ninth unqualified audit, yet our critics say
millions of dollars are being squandered."
What really disturbs the Howard Government is the steady progress being
made by Australia's Indigenous communities. Their culture is flowering,
their national consciousness has grown enormously and ATSIC has become
an effective centre fighting for Indigenous rights and relief from the
third world standards that the white man's governments have never been
interested in overcoming.
The most recent ATSIC election resulted in a record 50,000 voting and a
substantial increase in new voters. Howard, Ruddock and the mass media
detest such active democracy.
Australian governments, while shedding dishonest tears about "appalling
levels of neglect" and "unaccountability of leaders", have never yet had
the courage to acknowledge the prior occupation and ownership of the
Australian continent by the Indigenous people. They have yet to
acknowledge that the British occupation of the Australian continent was
an invasion and that the land was stolen from the Indigenous people.
These questions are basic matters that have to be resolved in a Treaty
but this too is resisted by successive governments.
In the meantime ATSIC should be defended - just like Medicare.
**************************************************************
--
--
Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Archived at http://www.cat.org.au/lists/leftlink/
Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop
Sub: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Unsub: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
