Australia says SORRY to the Aborigenes

[Lakonian]

What a day for all that live in this wonderful country, we have officialy said sorry to the stolen race the Australian aborigenes!

The prime minister Kevin Rudd made a moving speech that i personay would hope inspire all the leaders of the world that owe an apology to countries they inslaved .

This indeed marks a new beggining for blacks and whites here, and i hope we embrace this seriously.

Can you imagine Turkey made such a revolution, an apology to there neighbours, just imagine the power and friendship that would be gained. One could only hope i guess.

Anyways, heres Kevin Rudds speech, its long but for all those that cry for some sort recognition, have a look at hows its done.

P.S Where was the Queen of England who's herds did the damage in the first place. The next move should be a seperation from the monarch.

http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-au&bran...-1:ind:1:ff:8A

[Makedonia25]

Yeah, its a good thing I guess.. Not that anyone cares..

[Truth Bearer]

It is a joke anyway lads.Noew really the big bad white man tries to save most of these kids from molestation and abuse and now we have to pay them for it too?This sorry is utter rubbish.

[pankration]

Many people won't care and I too am sick of the white man guilt trip. However, this abuse did happen and someone needs to acknowledge it. The Australian government will have to decide on compensation etc. but the effort they make should be lauded. My father once said, "why are the Indians mad at me? I didn't get to Canada until 1954!". We should not hold ourselves responsible for the travesties of the past, at least on an individual level. But governments are a different story. It is their duty to acknowledge and sometimes recompense past injustices but this must be tempered by common sense. This may be impossible but it really is the ethical thing to do (and as Greeks we should support this if we want to make the same case with Turkey).
And I agree, where is England, the imperialist superstar of all exploiters?

[Tsontos]

I care. I was proud to be Australian watching the speech today.

Even as the son of Greek immigrants I'm sorry, as an Australian, for some of the despicable things perpetrated against the aboriginals. It was clearly something which needed to happen for the country to move on.

Many people won't care and I too am sick of the white man guilt trip. However, this abuse did happen and someone needs to acknowledge it. The Australian government will have to decide on compensation etc. but the effort they make should be lauded. My father once said, "why are the Indians mad at me? I didn't get to Canada until 1954!". We should not hold ourselves responsible for the travesties of the past, at least on an individual level. But governments are a different story. It is their duty to acknowledge and sometimes recompense past injustices but this must be tempered by common sense. This may be impossible but it really is the ethical thing to do (and as Greeks we should support this if we want to make the same case with Turkey).
And I agree, where is England, the imperialist superstar of all exploiters?

Canada is not the same place as Australia, we have different histories.

[Tsontos]

Originally Posted by Lakonian

P.S Where was the Queen of England who's herds did the damage in the first place. The next move should be a seperation from the monarch.

Thats next!

[Lakonian]

I hope so man, and Tb you obviously know nothing of responsibility. You live in a country with a background that surpasses the Greek age of Hellas. These people may have been shown the western way, and yes it has developed there lifes on a social level but the way it was done was shameful and much was taken from them.

Why dont you spare a moment to think what your people went through with many invading nations, not just Turkey and reflect on the WHO CARES attitude along with what the world thinks of the Macedonian issue and the Turks crimes against Cyprus and mainland Hellas......

Wise up mate, you live here, the sorry is apart of you.

[Truth Bearer]

Why should I apologize for the abuse of the Anglo Saxon goverment of yesteryear?Tell me lakonian was it the wogs or wasps or the nooks that "allegedly" abused the Abo's?
And in defence to them did they not save them from their own abusive families?Have you looked closely what's happened to the Abo's in northern Australia or in Western Australia or even Redfern why don't you tell the audience how is that once great suburb now?Or do you easily just blame the big bad white man?The Abo's have self destructed on their own mate they play the victim and now they all want compensation for what?For saving them from sexual abuse??Why don't we post to our non Aussie Hellenes the evidence of how the Abo's sexually abuse their 8 to 12 year olds of their tribes?Lakonian it's alrighyt to preach open fairness by all means but the ABORIGINALS have nothing absolute nothing to do with my Hellenic brothers of Pontus,Asia Minor,Bulgaria,Albania or Cappadoccia.You are comparing apples and oranges mate.

[Truth Bearer]

Aboriginal abuse 'should shock all'

Stuart Rintoul and Kevin Meade | June 16, 2007

THE findings of a report into child sexual abuse in Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory are shocking and appalling and should sicken all Australians.

Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough said the report, released yesterday, was "a damning indictment into the failure to protect children".

"The findings of the report are nothing short of shocking and appalling, particularly in the enormity and extent of the problem," he said. "That the inquiry finds child abuse occurring in every indigenous community and that there are sex trades and juvenile prostitution occurring is something that should sicken all Australians."

Although the report did not find any evidence of pedophile rings in the Territory, Mr Brough continued to stand by his claims, pointing to child sex charges laid against 13 men over the past two months in the tiny Kimberley community of Kalumburu, with the main offence being penetration of a girl under 13. "This is a national disgrace, it is a disaster and it is something that should never happen in this country," he said.

In indigenous reaction to the Anderson-Wild report, former ALP president Warren Mundine said the findings were "shocking, but not surprising".

He said too many people had "buried their heads in the sand", that poverty was no excuse for child abuse and that there needed to be much tougher policing in Aboriginal communities as well as economic development.

Former ATSIC chairwoman Lowitja O'Donoghue said there was no doubt pedophiles were active in Aboriginal communities and greater law enforcement was required.

"Taking action is the difficult part," she said.

Sue Gordon, head of the federal Government's National Indigenous Council, who conducted her own inquiry into Aboriginal family violence and child abuse in Western Australia in 2001-02, said the Northern Territory Government needed to set up a team to implement the inquiry's recommendations, as former premier Geoff Gallop did in Western Australian five years ago.

"Dr Gallop allocated, over four years, $76 million for the implementation," she said. "While some of the implementation was slow, his government continued to push government agencies."

Indigenous academic Boni Robertson, author of a 1999 report that found that Queensland indigenous communities were "imploding" under the strain of violence, said child sexual assault needed to be investigated nationally and not just in Aboriginal communities.

Mr Brough said although he was not provided with the report before its public release yesterday, the federal Government would work with the Territory Government "to do whatever is necessary to bring an end to this insidious behaviour in indigenous communities".

He urged the Territory and other governments "not to be afraid to take the tough and sometimes difficult decisions desperately needed to end this appalling abuse of children".

Mr Brough said although child protection was "absolutely a state and territory responsibility", he had convened a summit on the issue 12 months ago and secured $130 million to help tackle child abuse. This included extra resources for police with new stations at Galiwinku, in Arnhem Land, which the Territory Government thought was unnecessary, and at Mutitjulu, near Uluru, which Territory police were unable to staff.

He said the Territory Government needed to "step up to the plate".

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...18-601,00.html

[Truth Bearer]

Crusade to save Aboriginal kids from abuse

Patricia Karvelas | June 22, 2007

JOHN Howard will seize control of Aboriginal land in the Northern Territory, banning alcohol and pornography and using the military to attack the "national emergency" of alcohol-fuelled sexual abuse of children.

Dennis Shanahan blog: Plan's time has arrived
Matt Price blog: Children before politics
Video: Canberra acts to protect indigenous children

In the most dramatic revolution in Aboriginal affairs since the 1967 referendum gave the commonwealth power to enact special laws for Aborigines and include them in the census, the Prime Minister will forcibly quarantine half of the social security payments to most indigenous community residents so that parents spend money on food and rent instead of alcohol.

Scores of doctors will be drafted to examine all 23,000-plus indigenous children in the Territory aged under 16 for evidence of sexual abuse.

Over the next month, Mr Howard will flood indigenous communities with police and the military, who will offer logistical support to rebuild communities from the ground up.

The unprecedented power grab comes a week after the release of a report that revealed rampant and often-unreported child sexual abuse in Territory indigenous communities, with children as young as three exposed to hard-core pornography.

It described frequent attacks on children by family members and their friends after parties featuring drug use and binge-drinking.

"We are dealing with children of the tenderest age who have been exposed to the most terrible abuse from the time of their birth, virtually," Mr Howard said. "It is interventionist, it does push aside the role of the Territory to some degree - I accept that. But what matters more: the constitutional niceties or the care and protection of young children?"

Mr Howard, flanked by Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough, said he was prepared to spend "tens of millions" to enforce his uncompromising plan by asking states to second 10 police each to form a strike force.

Mr Brough said he hoped the extra police, backed by army personnel, would be on the ground in four weeks, with the Government writing letters yesterday asking the states for assistance in the form of six-month police deployments.

Mr Howard also foreshadowed legislation to provide a legal base for his decision to wrest control of indigenous lands from the Northern Territory Government. He described its response to the problems as manifestly inadequate and called on state premiers to adopt similar laws to stop abuse all over the country immediately.

The appeal received a cool response from the premiers and angered Aboriginal leaders.

Northern Territory Chief Minister Clare Martin said the suggestion that inaction by her Government had forced Mr Howard's hand was "utter rubbish", but she agreed to work with the commonwealth.

Aboriginal academic and activist Boni Robertson described the move as "knee-jerk nonsense" that clearly breached the Racial Discrimination Act.

She said it would "segregate and quarantine a section of the Australian community" and impose laws that did not apply to other Australians, defied human rights and racial equality laws and could not possibly survive a legal challenge.

Northern Land Council chief executive Norman Fry blamed the problems in the Territory communities on a lack of action by the Territory Government. He attacked the Howard government decision to remove the permit system, which regulated non-indigenous visitors to communities, and also consideration of customary law in some criminal cases.

The Howard government move builds on proposals by Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson for a four-year trial in Queensland's Cape York, where Aboriginal people would be stripped of welfare payments if they failed to meet the conditions aimed at protecting children.

Under the new plan, the federal Government will take control of all indigenous lands for five years and require half of all government benefits to be quarantined for food and rent.

Kevin Rudd backed the plan, although it is understood some Labor MPs are uncomfortable with the Government's tactics. But party insiders said Labor was containing its concern to prevent being wedged on the issue so close to the coming election.

Mr Howard said he made no apology for overriding Territory laws to implement his plans, saying protecting children was paramount.

"We regard this as akin to a national emergency," he said, adding federal parliament would, if necessary, hold a special sitting during the winter break to push through legislation.

Mr Howard said the Government's intention was to "introduce widespread alcohol restrictions on Northern Territory Aboriginal land for six months".

"We will ban the sale, the possession, the transportation, the consumption and (introduce the) broader monitoring of takeaway sales across the Northern Territory," he said.

Police will also enforce against possession of X-rated pornography, and allpublicly funded computers will besearched for evidence of stored pornography.

Mr Brough said there would be about 60 "proscribed areas" where it "doesn't matter whether you're black, white or brindle, you will not be able to have, consume, transport or have in your possession alcohol in those areas".

"Let's act, and if we breach the Racial Discrimination Act then we need to deal with that in the legislative fashion. But what right does a child have, when at age three, they are being sexually abused and that means, you know, raped. Let's call it what it is. And it's not one, it's not two, it's unthinkable numbers," he said.

Half of welfare payments through Centrelink to parents of children in affected areas will be quarantined to prevent all their money being spent on alcohol. "Effectively, the arrangements will be that that 50per cent can only be used for the purchase of food and other essentials," Mr Howard said. The commonwealth will also make welfare payments dependent on children attending school.
Mr Howard said that at cabinet's next meeting, Mr Brough would present further proposals to extend the conditions of welfare payments to other welfare recipients "to ensure that these payments are used for the benefit of the children".

The federal Government will take control of Aboriginal townships through five-year leases to improve property and public housing, with traditional owners getting "just" compensation for the short-term loss of their lands.

The Government will set up a sexual abuse reporting desk and ask the Australian Crime Commission to focus on child abuse in the communities. Mr Howard said there would be a meeting next Thursday of the intergovernmental committee on the Australian Crime Commission to identify perpetrators of abuse of indigenous children in other areas.

The response will be overseen by a taskforce led by magistrate Sue Gordon, chair of the National Indigenous Council and author of the 2002 Gordon report into Aboriginal child abuse in Western Australia.

Canberra said the NT Government would be expected to develop a comprehensive strategy to tackle the "rivers of grog" and resume all special leases over town camps in major urban areas where lease conditions had been breached. It would also be expected to remove customary law as a mitigating factor for sentencing and bail conditions.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...91-601,00.html