Letters SMH March 13, 1999 Convenient amnesia We are nine Aboriginal people from all over Australia who have come to the University of Sydney to acquire knowledge and skills that will help us improve the often wretched health of people in our communities. Like other students, we are paying HECS fees and some of us are relinquishing pay from jobs to be here. As we walk among the other students on campus we want to feel part of those Australians who are working towards improving living stan- dards, health and well-being of all those who live in this country. Yet this week we hear John Elliott saying our people are �a forgotten race� who expect farmers to give us double pay. Yes, there has been a lot of forgetting. People like Elliott conveniently forget that our grandfathers and mothers worked for farmers for nothing and had their land taken. Souped up by motivational speeches like Elliott�s, they find it convenient to forget that Aborigines were decimated, that thousands of us were taken from our parents, and that we are daily offended by a Prime Minister who tries to make a virtue out of refusing to make a symbolic national apology for these past events. For Elliott, Aborigines and drugs are �absolutely unimpor- tant issues� because they don�t �make the pie bigger�. Mr Elliott looks like he�s not been short of pie, thanks in part to his pastoral and brewing company�s profiteering from Aboriginal land, labour and promotion of grog to some of our people. All Aboriginal people want to do is share the pie. Mr Elliott, like his ever- present cigarettes, should butt out. Steve Ella, Central Coast NSW, Liela Murison, North Queensland, on behalf of the class, Department of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of Sydney Sydney. March 12 ------------------------------------------------------- RecOzNet2 has a page @ http://www.green.net.au/recoznet2 To unsubscribe from this list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED], and in the body of the message, include the words: unsubscribe announce or click here mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20announce This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use."
