New Aboriginal welfare plan - and army shame.

From yesterday's Australian (Murdoch) newspaper: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,11349884%255E601,00.html


Sit-down cash ends for blacks
Patricia Karvelas and Stuart Rintoul
November 11, 2004

ABORIGINAL welfare is to be rebuilt from the ground up with the introduction of behavioural "contracts" with black communities in return for healthcare, education, dole money and services, in an attempt to turn around 40 years of failure.

The Howard Government's plan, which has caused deep divisions among Aboriginal leaders, means families and communities will be rewarded for ensuring their children are washed, clothed and attending school.

In an interview with The Australian, Indigenous Affairs Minister Amanda Vanstone said the payment of "sit-down money" would end. "Passive welfare is over, but we want to work with communities to meet what are their obvious problems and needs."

Senator Vanstone said she wanted to ensure the principle of mutual obligation -- the Government's view that people must give something in exchange for welfare -- would deliver tangible improvements to indigenous people.

Under the program, indigenous communities would enter into contracts with Centrelink officers in Indigenous Co-ordination Centres, the Howard Government's regional service agencies.

Former ATSIC chairwoman Lowitja O'Donoghue backed the Government's plans, saying a radical approach was the only way to solve deep-rooted problems.

"Radical measures really need to be taken to get communities viable once again," she said.

But Aboriginal leader Pat Dodson angrily condemned the plan.

"This is not mutual obligation -- nothing like it," he said. "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.

"This is not reform -- this is social engineering at its worst."

But Senator Vanstone dismissed suggestions the Government was applying double standards and said mutual obligation applied to all Australians, black and white.

She said the final approach would empower communities by allowing them to negotiate the terms that best helped them. "If I take you out to a remote settlement ... you will agree they are not in the same circumstances," she said.

Cabinet briefing documents prepared for the re-elected Howard Government reveal plans for Aborigines to be required to take action in exchange for welfare, including ensuring children attend school and having regular health checks.

There are also proposals to use payment cards that can store information and set electronic limits on what indigenous people can buy using government payments.

The documents show that over the next 12 months the Remote Area Exemption and other arrangements that exempt remote Aboriginal areas from mutual obligation rules will be scrapped. Proposals include the "no school, no pool" system to reward school attendance by stopping children from visiting the community swimming pool if they do not attend classes.

The rewards system includes a DVD player for the community to run movie nights for children who attend school, and a pool of bikes to be ridden by children in the afternoons after they have attended school.

Senator Vanstone said the claim this was paternalistic was wrong. "We tell people they're not allowed to murder, we tell people they've got to take their kids to school, we tell people kids have to be taken to the doctor when they're sick."

ATSIC regional commissioner Michael White, who was invited on to the Government's new indigenous advisory council, questioned why Aboriginal people should be the "only ones forced to do this."

"It sounds like blackmail to say that if you're not a good enough mum or dad, you won't receive any payments and won't be able to feed your kids."

ALP vice-president Warren Mundine, also on the new council, said welfare dependence should end, but warned against paternalism.

However, successive federal governments have failed to deliver better outcomes for indigenous communities, despite winning responsibility for black issues in a historic referendum in 1967.

Blacks split on welfare overhaul
Stuart Rintoul
November 11, 2004
RADICAL plans by the Howard Government for unprecedented intervention in the lives of Aboriginal people have divided indigenous leaders, with Lowitja O'Donoghue strongly backing the approach but Pat Dodson describing it as "fascist".

Ms O'Donoghue, who is advising the Rann Government in South Australia on the troubled Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) lands, said: "All those matters have to be brought into the equation of getting our communities viable; all of them."

She said some Aboriginal communities -- stricken by petrol-sniffing, alcoholism and unemployment -- were in "absolute crisis". She thought the Government's new direction was directed at "exactly what I am dealing with in the APY lands".

"Radical measures really need to be taken to get communities once again viable," she said.

She said in APY lands people had the will to change, but not the capacity, "and they don't know where to turn".









"I'm not sure about imposing them without proper discussion, (but) I don't go as far as lots and lots of discussion beforehand. We know that there are problems, we know that these are the issues and they've certainly got to be tackled."

But the plan was bitterly condemned by Mr Dodson, who said it marked a reversion to the days when Aboriginal people were dictated to by the despised department of Aboriginal affairs.

"This is not mutual obligation, nothing like it," he said. "It's fascism gone mad. It's crazy stuff. Two-hundred years of enlightenment and this is the best that they have been able to deliver.

"This is not reform, you can't possibly call this reform. This is social engineering at its worst."

Mr Dodson suggested the plan had all the hallmarks of a government short on ideas. Having rejected the big picture -- constitutional change, a treaty, land rights and reconciliation -- and having questioned the validity of the stolen generations and minimalised native title, the Howard Government now planned to use welfare payments as a weapon for change.

He said in some communities there was a need for intervention "that would run to this order, but the way to do it is not to concoct it and then say, 'This is what you have to accept or you don't get a shekel from the public purse'.

"There is no choice here, it is universally holding people to ransom, irrespective of their merit."

Others, however, will see redeeming features in a "tough love" approach in communities that are largely uneconomic and stricken by intolerable levels of violence, child abuse, alcohol and drug abuse, petrol-sniffing, and health and education standards far below national averages. The idea of a "smart card" to restrict what indigenous people can buy using government-funded payments was first floated by ATSIC deputy chairman Lionel Quartermaine.

Cabinet documents quoted by the Australian Financial Review say the support of "key indigenous leaders such as Noel Pearson", along with federal and state governments, "provides an important opportunity for the government to pursue unparalleled reform".

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,11349815%5E2702,00.html

Smart-card push to ensure payments not wasted
Belinda Hickman
November 11, 2004
SMART cards that link welfare payments to the purchase of clothing, electricity or food are being considered by Aboriginal leaders, and could be available within 12 months with sufficient government support.

ATSIC deputy commissioner Lionel Quartermaine said the technology was attractive because it could prevent parents squandering government payments on alcohol, cigarettes or gambling.

Mr Quartermaine sparked widespread debate in October last year when he proposed introducing smart cards that linked welfare funds to the purchase of clothing, food or education as a way of ensuring benefits reached children.

Though he has not discussed the issue with government since a meeting with Indigenous Affairs Minister Amanda Vanstone last year, he cautiously welcomed a government proposal that smart cards be used to direct payments and stop indigenous people using money to buy alcohol.

But Mr Quartermaine said such a proposal should only be used to protect children at risk and should be applied equally to indigenous and non-indigenous families. "I see some parents who either drink, smoke or use the money to gamble," he said. "Then they go to the grandparents who have to give their money out to feed their grandchildren. That is elderly abuse."

Smart cards have been adopted in some European countries, where they replaced ration cards used to provide milk and other essentials.

In Australia, their use, including being linked to the provision of general health services, has been floated for at least a decade.

A federal parliamentary inquiry in 1998 identified the technology as a good alternative banking facility for regional and remote communities, but warned it would be years before the cards were technically reliable and publicly acceptable.

Since Mr Quartermaine raised their potential benefit for child protection, Tasmanian ATSIC commissioner Rodney Dillon, Australia's first indigenous woman MP Carol Martin, child health expert and former Australian of the Year Fiona Stanley, and Cape York lawyer Noel Pearson have backed smart cards as an option worth exploring.

But other ATSIC commissioners angrily warned they would deepen welfare dependency and return Aborigines to carrying ration cards.

Mr Quartermaine is among indigenous leaders now in talks with private companies, including communications and hotel groups, to explore options for using smart cards.

He said with sufficient government support the technology was capable of being rolled out within a year.

In Western Australia, other ATSIC representatives have also discussed providing households in remote Aboriginal communities with smart cards to enable them to pre-pay for electricity supplies.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,11349822%5E2702,00.html

This one sounds disgusting - but the reality is, in many settlements, the men take the money, and drink it - then they, and the women and kids, have no food etc...

In some settlements, women elders have arranged for the nearby towns to close bottle shops on pay day, so that the guys (and some women) cannot get drunk, and food etc. is bought first.

Cash controls fail to please at community level
Ian Gerard
November 11, 2004
GIVING Aboriginal welfare-recipients "smart cards" that control what they buy and making parent payments dependent on children's school attendance rates was a band-aid solution that would suit only a small number of indigenous communities.

Yarrabah chief executive officer Leon Yeatman said yesterday he would prefer to develop his own strategies.

While accepting Aboriginal communities did have problems with children's school attendance rates and alcohol abuse, Mr Yeatman and fellow councillors at Yarrabah, south of Cairns, felt the proposed welfare reforms would do little to get people working.

"We would rather sit down with Yarrabah people and develop strategies and ways to deal with kids who are not attending school," he said.

Local councillors at Yarrabah were yesterday visibly upset when the smart-card concept was explained to them.

For many, it was a throwback to the days before self-representation when the government issued vouchers to Aboriginal people.

After the recent demise of ATSIC, it is feared government policy will come full circle.

"They are dictating to people what they can and cannot have and are more or less controlling your life for you," Councillor Michael Sands said.

"They are dictating to us how we can spend our money. It's like the voucher system."

Councillor Les Murgha said indigenous people would be too ashamed to use the smart cards at shops outside their communities.

"People in the white community see someone from the community using it and they are going to think they have a drinking problem," he said.

Mr Murgha said alcohol was less of a problem in Yarrabah than most other communities, indigenous and non-indigenous.

"Alcohol is just a symptom in our community or any community. It's a symptom of unemployment, and just because people drink it doesn't mean that their children are being neglected," he said.

"I can go to Sydney or Brisbane any time and find a mob of non-indigenous people packed at the bar. How many street kids are there in Sydney, Melbourne and the Gold Coast and who is looking after them?"

Councillor Josephine Murgha said the reforms were yet another example of the Howard Government pushing policies on Aboriginal communities without consulting them.

"It's about time the Government came here and tried to find out what we want," she said.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,11349824%5E2702,00.html

The army shame thing:


OUR KU KLUX KLAN: Army shamed by racist ritual
By LUKE McILVEEN in Canberra
11nov04
AUSTRALIAN soldiers dressed up as members of the Ku Klux Klan to intimidate young black recruits just weeks before they were sent overseas to fight in the name of freedom.

This disturbing picture taken in September 2000 ? exclusively obtained by The Advertiser ? shows Aboriginal and other dark-skinned soldiers sitting on the ground while white soldiers, wearing hoods, stand behind them.

For the first time, The Advertiser can reveal details of a secret investigation into the "initiation rituals" at Australia's biggest army barracks. The white soldiers behind the cruel pranks escaped punishment and, in some cases, were even promoted. Victims of racist abuse at Lavarack Barracks in Townsville are now preparing to launch a civil action against the army over the KKK photograph and other acts of bastardisation.

The ritual took place on the parade ground at Lavarack just weeks before the 1RAR battalion's Delta Company was sent to East Timor.

The image ? which has been sold to 1RAR troops for $10 a copy ? is certain to cause concern within the military here and in the U.S., as thousands of black American soldiers fight alongside Australians in Iraq.

One of the soldiers shown wearing a hood in the photograph said he was ordered to take part in the stunt by his superiors, and now regretted it.

"I was disgusted at the time and I'm still disgusted," said the soldier, who asked to remain anonymous.

"I wanted a picture to put on my wall that would make me proud to serve my country, but there was no way I was putting this horrible image on my wall."

The army was forced to investigate racism inside the 1RAR battalion three years after the picture was taken.

When black soldiers complained, everyone who took part in the photo was asked to sign a legal waiver absolving the army of responsibility.

The army tried to wash its hands of the episode, but it is understood the instigators were of senior rank.

During the internal investigation in 2003, black soldiers told their superiors their equipment had been defaced with racist graffiti.

They were frequently called "black c..." and several of them were given nicknames such as "sh . . skin," "Abo" and "Cathy Freeman".

One dark-skinned soldier had the life-saving armour taken out of his flak jacket by other platoon members while conducting dangerous patrols in East Timor.

While the army found the photograph to be in poor taste, no further action was taken and the officers behind the stunt now hold senior positions in the military.

The army's official report found the incidents to be nothing more than "jovial banter".

On the day the photograph was taken, the white soldiers were told to cut eye holes in their army-issue white laundry bags to make KKK hoods.

"We had just been given our laundry bags for East Timor and one of the officers came up with the idea to cut holes in them for eyes," said one of the soldiers present.

Another young soldier said higher ranking officers were also on the parade ground, laughing and clapping at the platoon's antics.

"We got lined up like a school photo and one of them yelled `Ok boys, Klan hoods on'," the soldier said.

The picture was taken by a Townsville freelance photographer who has taken group photos for the army for years.

A federal parliamentary inquiry into military justice has been told of several instances of racism in the army, and of an Aboriginal soldier who hanged himself at Lavarack a year before the KKK picture was taken.

The 1RAR battalion is one of Australia's most distinguished military outfits and was once commanded by the country's most senior soldier, General Peter Cosgrove.

http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,11349502%255E910,00.html

Seems our military do not have the will to stop this sort of thing - there have been previous scandals about it in re ordinary white guys, women - whomever.

Oh my!!!!!! http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,11363286%255E1702,00.html

Indigenous paper to dish more dirt

12nov04
AN Aboriginal newspaper which had leaked cabinet documents later seized in a police raid had more embarrassing papers ready to publish, its editor said today.

Federal police yesterday raided the offices of the National Indigenous Times in Canberra, seizing six documents, including a cabinet submission on a plan to shake up Aboriginal welfare.

Editor Chris Graham said the Prime Minister's Department ordered the raid because the documents, which the newspaper published, were embarrassing to the Government.

But the newspaper had more secret documents it was preparing to publish, he said.

"I can assure you there's more to come and it's not pretty," he told ABC radio.









"This Government has been dishonest in the way it's dealt with Aboriginal people and Aboriginal affairs generally.

"And I can understand them not wanting it to get out, but I can't for the life of me understand how they thought raiding our offices would have assisted their cause."

Among the documents seized was a controversial submission from the Department of Immigration, Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA) discussing the introduction of requirements for Aboriginal people to receive welfare.

The leaked document made its way into major newspapers this week and while no immediate timeframe has been given, the Government has confirmed it was looking at changing indigenous welfare.

Another document was a letter from former indigenous affairs minister Philip Ruddock to Prime Minister John Howard in April 2003, saying that nearly all Government ministers had failed to undertake a major review of how services could be better delivered to Aboriginal people.

There was also a cabinet submission dated April 7, 2004, which revealed cabinet had been misled about Cape York Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson support for the Government's new National Indigenous Council when he actually opposed it.

Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance federal secretary Chris Warren condemned yesterday's raid.

"The only crime that's potentially been committed is a bit of embarrassment for the Government and a bit of embarrassment for some of the bureaucrats," he told ABC radio.

"To turn that into this sort of assault on press freedom, to take that embarrassment to that stage of raiding newspaper offices with police, is an extraordinarily serious step."

Howard condemns Ku Klux Klan photo
By Brendan Nicholson
Canberra
November 12, 2004


An episode in which Australian soldiers posed in Ku Klux Klan-style hoods with black recruits has been condemned by Prime Minister John Howard and senior army officers.

Mr Howard said the photograph, taken just before the soldiers went to East Timor, was offensive.

"I'm fairly broadminded and reasonable about pranks and so forth in the military," he said. "But anything that touches upon somebody's race and particularly involving such an abhorrent organisation as the Ku Klux Klan is not a joke."

The photograph was taken at Townsville's Lavarack Barracks in September 2000 and involved soldiers from Delta Company of the 1st Battalion of the Royal Australia Regiment.

White soldiers donned laundry bags with eye holes cut in them and posed in intimidating fashion behind several dark-skinned recruits.

Some of the black soldiers involved are considering legal action and the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission is also investigating.

The incident has already been the subject of one inquiry, which resulted in soldiers from the unit being told to undergo additional "equity and diversity" training to counter racism.

A further complaint was made recently, with a second investigation to be completed by Christmas, according to Army Chief General Peter Leahy.

Soldiers have also claimed that armour plates were removed from a black soldier's bulletproof jacket in East Timor, and that offensive messages were scrawled on black soldiers' equipment.

General Leahy said the Ku Klux Klan photograph was deplorable. "We're appalled by the behaviour that brought this photograph about," he said.

He said he was disgusted that soldiers still thought they could get away with behaviour "of this intolerable nature. Where have they been whilst we've been training and dealing with matters of equity and diversity?"

He said the army believed the soldiers thought it was a prank, "a bit like a school photograph - they thought at the end of the formal photographs 'We'll have a fun one'. Well, this one wasn't fun. They got it wrong and the consequences, while unintended, have been deplorable."

We're appalled by the behaviour that brought this photograph about.
- General Peter LeahyBut the local federal MP, Liberal Peter Lindsay, said there was no racism at Lavarack Barracks. "It was just a fun thing before the troops went overseas," he said.

He said the photograph should never have been taken, but that an inquiry was "a waste of time". "Out in the general community, nobody would even turn a hair."

Townsville photographer Richard Fraley, who took the picture, said it was done as a joke and was not racist.

Platoons competed to see who could come up with the best "fun photo", he said. "These guys ran off, grabbed these (laundry bags) and came back for the Ku Klux Klan stuff. That's all it was. There was no ceremonies, and the whole thing took two to three minutes.

"I have been with the army taking their photos since Vietnam. I have never, ever, seen any racism."

Townsville residents are familiar with allegations of Ku Klux Klan activities in their city. In August 2003, local Aborigines complained when leaflets bearing the letters KKK and a swastika appeared in letterboxes. Homeless Aborigines have also complained of rock and petrol bomb attacks by skinheads.

General Leahy confirmed that since the photograph was taken some of the officers involved had been promoted.

He said he found "incomprehensible" the claim about the bulletproof jacket. "We're a team. We work together to keep each other alive. It's a dangerous environment out there. I just can't understand how that would have happened."

Brisbane lawyer Simon Harrison said he was considering complaints of brutal treatment from more than 50 former members of the Defence Force.

The allegations, relating to treatment over the past two years, included psychological bullying and a case where a soldier suffered pneumonia and frostbite after being forced to stand under a cold shower.

Defence Force Chief Peter Cosgrove said the photograph was galling because the force had a good record of looking after indigenous recruits.


http://www.theage.com.au/news/National/Howard-condemns-Ku-Klux-Klan-photo/2004/11/11/1100131134144.html




And - the photo iteslf:




Does this kind of crap go on in other militaries?

bookmark

Bookmarking. Awful Deb, too much like the same old story here in the US.

Be bacl later when I've had a chance to catch up after Thanksgiving.

Dang Deb. You got so much going on down under its hard to take it all in at once. Truly there does need to be some re-organization of the welfare system overall But just don't pick out the Aboriginals and revamp whatever system was in place for them. Make it straight across the board for all welfare recipients in the entire country. I am a true believer in the saying "if you give a man a fish, he will eat for one day. If you teach a man to fish he will be fed for a lifetime"

Granted, these articles are only talking about welfare reform in terms of dollars and smartpay cards, but are there also plans in the provision of reform to actually get people working. Unemployment among the aboriginals is high, but why is that?

As far as the photo....that just saddens me a great deal. I know we have hazing everywhere, in schools, universities, the military, even at workplaces, but to be so blatant about it by allowing a picture to be taken is just disgusting.

Deb, has there ever been a good welfare system? It seems that whenever a truly good, well-thought-out plan is put into place, the funding is never enough and the plan is eventually scrapped. I know that sounds cynical, but I've seen it too often in my many years.

Money for adult education, job training, day care, etc. is never quite enough and when a woman has to take a bus to job interviews towing three children with her, the situation becomes overwhelming. In this country, those 'good' ideas are used in campaigns, but seldom followed through with any real continuity or dedication.

Good luck to the Aborigines.

Maybe the solution is not so much in the welfare system, but a different thought process towards aboriginals. In the past the government has just thrown money at it and wiped its hands of the problem. Maybe more thought needs to be given to it. It is our responsibility to look after the aboriginals as best we can. They are unique to this great country and a vital part.

Thanks for starting this thread, dlowan (Deb?)

Firstly, just to address the KKK photos that surfaced last year and the responses of MP Peter Lindsay. Although, the media has moved on, I don't believe that this matter was dealt with accurately when those pictures surfaced. It irritates me how when this kind of thing happens how the (usually) solidiers are crucified so that the organisation remains blemish-free (cf. Abu Ghraib, despite the evidence). We can keep continuously punishing the individuals but if nothing is addressed at the institution then we shouldn't be surprised at the outcomes. So much of the research and our understanding of human psychology have taught us that in a concrete situation with powerful social constraints, our individual moral sense can easily be trampled. This doesn't justify anyone's abhorrent behaviour but I would never underestimate the power of the institution. The problem is, the Defence Force, much like other institutions, are reknown for its clandestine proceedings and bureaucratic wheelspinning when it comes to situations like this.

Secondly, the treatment of our indigenous population in in this country is fairly appalling. We haven't even apologised for past injustices. Why not? After all, each of the state governments has apologised. To varying degrees, the US, Canada & NZ have made a better job of acknowledging indigenous rights and making amends than Australia. It is a symbolic step that could promote reconciliation and restore dignity to Aboriginals.

In 2000, the UN Committee for Economic Social and Cultural Rights condemned Australia for its continuing failure to improve the status of Aboriginal Australians. The committee expressed deep concern about the position of indigenous Australians and discrimination in the area of health and other economic, social, and cultural rights. Aboriginal Australians continue to have poorer health, substantially lower life expectancy, high maternal infant & mortality rates, and higher rates of infectious diseases.

Like you, I am also highly critical of the Howard govt.

I agree with you re the photo - military culture needs to be addressed.

Yep to the rest of your post - but, what do you think of the new welfare plan?

Much as I dislike the government, I can see benefits - ans heaven knows what we are trying now is having limited success!!!

For instance, re the need for communities to fulfil some obligations to get funding - a lot of the ideas are coming fro the ommunities themselves - eg the no school, no pool one - which is based on a very successful idea another community came up with. The chlorine also seems to be helping withthe chronic eye/ear infections which take such a toll on aboriginal communities.