I am forwarding this for Bruce...Trudy Date sent: Wed, 30 Aug 2000 10:19:48 +1000 Subject: Australia - now empowering male dictators Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] PATRIARCHY'S LAST HURRAH! It is no secret that the election of the Howard Federal government in 1996 represented the return to power of yesterday's men. The two sad clowns who pass themselves off as the Australian Federal Attorney-General and the Minister for Foreign Affairs have played their role in empowering dictators around the world with the announcement the Australia has sided with governments which wish to maintain their rule by foul means. But they are merely dancing puppets for other puppet masters who stay well out of the light of the democratic system. Not surprisingly, Northern Territory Chief Minister Denis Burke was quick off the mark saying that this attack on the international means for encouraging and protecting the hard won human rights culture justified his stance. His stance being one he inherited from Shane Stone (now President of the Federal Liberal Party) and which makes much of the claim to legitimacy bestowed by the workings of the democratic electoral system. Denis Burke makes much of the fact that the types of concerns which are taken to UN human rights committees would have 'no electoral appeal'. A more sober interpretation of the Northern Territory is not that it is a viable democracy but rather a one party dictatorship based on race and corruption. The Northern Territory of Australia, as Aboriginal women well know, is a blokey place where unrelated men behave very badly. The means by which the highly unrespectable can coat their bad behaviour in blokey respectability is made possible by the failed experiment in democracy in the Commonwealth's Northern Territory. Similar male dominated governments around the world are likely to agree with Burke. But the Commonwealth government refuses to accept its responsibilities to attain best - not worst - practice in its northern territory. With a Federal Liberal party which is at a great remove to the right of a true Liberal position, other forces dominate the Federal government through the party bosses. And they owe their primarily allegiance not to Liberal values but to seriously big money. The same forces which attacked the Australian High Court when it 'got the answer wrong' in recognising native title are now attacking the UN and for the same reasons. Australia's genocidal record in relation to indigenous peoples has built up a mountain of vested interest from the proceeds of wrongful expropriation - and this process continues into the 21st century. Anglo-Australia Inc seeks to consolidate its hold on Australia's wealth and if that requires it to jettison pretences of supporting international protection for human rights, then so be it. The present Australian government has now positioned itself at the forefront of an international attempt by those who find respect for human rights a nuisance for their other agendas. Howard, like Burke, knows that indigenous rights issues have no electoral appeal domestically. They rank below number ten - a long way down the list from health, education, employment etc. Until Australia's voters realise the great significance of ensuring the well-being of First Peoples, the Australian situation will remain unhealthy. There may be some hope in that the announcement of the Howard government's position regarding domestic and international human rights comes at the time when some ten thousand overseas media people are arriving in the country for the Olympic Games. The Australian government's position will be far better known than it would normally be. And successive Australian governments have got away with so much over the centuries by being remote and invisible to the outside world. The true features of those who claim to represent life in Australia are now becoming recognisable - and the figures of life they call to mind may come as a shock to many who stand opposed to wrongheaded male dominated forms of totalitarianism. Australia's Federal government has just weakened its domestic sexual discrimination legislation to empower State governments to deny the use of IVF processes to single women. Now it completes it move by refusing to adopt international means of protecting the rights of women. Correcting the priorities of Australia's voting public will require assistance from others outside of Australia to send healing messages to Australia's government in an international language they understand. Get well soon, Australia, for all your produce must now be viewed as tainted by half the world's population - that of the women whose rights you have just refused to uphold and support. Surely, say people overseas, our mother will not cook with anything made in Australia. Women, as the Australian male dominated Australian governments seems to have forgotten, represent Mother Earth herself. Healing life in Australia requires the full support of all those who love - and seek to protect from abuse - their mother, their sisters, their daughters and their wives. Bruce Reyburn 30 August 2000 ------------------------------------------------------ RecOzNet2 has a page @ http://www.green.net.au/recoznet2 and is archived at http://www.mail-archive.com/ 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." RecOzNet2 is archived for members @ http://www.mail-archive.com/recoznet2%40paradigm4.com.au/
