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key indigenous australian issues
| home | news lAboriginal welfare plans cause stir12 November 2004 - The Australian government is planning a controversial new welfare system for its indigenous Aboriginal population. The proposals, which were leaked to the media, are reported to include financial sanctions for parents who do not send their children to school. They have been met with a mixed response from Aboriginal leaders. The reports come as a paper published a photo of Australian soldiers dressed as members of the Ku Klux Klan, reportedly to intimidate Aboriginal recruits. The details of the new welfare plans were published by the Indigenous Times newspaper. Police have since raided the newspaper's offices and seized a number of documents, including the confidential cabinet plans. The paper said they included proposals to consider applying sanctions to Aboriginal parents who do not ensure their children "attend school or are fed before school". It said the government advocates an expansion of the "no school/no pool" system - which prevents children from attending the local community pool if they do not attend school - already being implemented in the Northern Territory. "It's fascism gone mad. It's crazy stuff. Two hundred years of enlightenment and this is the best they've been able to deliver". Aboriginal leader Pat Dodson. There are also reported to be plans to replace cash payments with electronic cards that cannot be used to buy alcohol. Indigenous Affairs Minister Amanda Vanstone denied these policies were "paternalistic", dubbing them "shared responsibility agreements". "What we will be doing with communities is saying, 'Where do you want to be in 20 years, where do you want your kids to be? What do we have to do to get there? What can you do as a community and what do you want us to do?'", she told ABC radio. Prime Minister John Howard told Southern Cross radio that the proposals ended the concept of "sit down money". "I think the idea of passive welfare is an idea whose time has passed," he said. The former chairwoman of ATSIC, the now-disbanded Aboriginal affairs commission, said she backed the government's plans. "Radical measures really need to be taken to get communities viable once again," said Lowitja O'Donoghue. But Aboriginal leader Pat Dodson angrily condemned the plan. "This is not reform - this is social engineering at its worst," he said. Australia's Aborigines suffer alarming rates of ill-health, unemployment and imprisonment. Earlier this week, the Australian government unveiled a new Aboriginal advisory body, the National Indigenous Council, that will help shape its policy towards disadvantaged native communities. The new organisation has been rejected by some Aboriginal leaders who have labelled it a token gesture and its members government lackeys. The welfare payments report came as Sydney newspaper The Daily Telegraph published a photograph of more than 20 troops dressed in white hoods standing behind Aboriginal recruits. The photograph was taken four years ago at the Lavarack barracks in northern Australia. Australia's army chief Gen Peter Cosgrove said the photograph was investigated last year and action was taken. He said that even if the stunt was supposed to be light-hearted it was "inappropriate and offensive". He said further complaints had warranted another inquiry by Australia's Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission as well as by the army. Indigenous leaders have said the photograph illustrates a wider problem within Australian society, where many Aborigines are confronted by abuse and taunts every day. Source: BBC, UK related links :
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