The biggest scam against Aboriginal Australia
One of the biggest political scams in Australia is unfolding and the only people seeing it are our first inhabitants, writes Vanessa Kairies. Vanessa, a proud Indigenous lady, wants to share her story with the wider community.
The saga continues, it’s been going on for longer than the Star Wars’ movies.
“What is it?” you may ask? It is hard to condense, given that the rort has been going on for 225 years.
This chapter begins with Canberra’s spin doctors working yet another miracle. How to convince Australia that we are really not a bunch of racist bigots and we are doing everything we can, to do the right thing by the original inhabitants of this land.
I’ve got one word for you, folks: ‘Recognise.’ When it comes to the sham that is the ‘Recognise’ campaign, the two major political parties stand united. It is an absolute insult on the grandest scale. Don’t be fooled, they have alterior motives. I’ll go into them later. You only have to follow the Indigenous sites and read peoples’ comments to see that the majority of people are in opposition to the government’s proposal (The Government ‘Con’ in Constitutional Recognition and About ‘Sovereign Union’).
To understand why, you need to know your history. Not that sugar coated version they teach you in school. Let us begin with:
Aboriginal history timeline (1900 – 1969)
Aboriginal history timeline (1970 – 1999)
Aboriginal history timeline (2000 – today)
Now let us digress for a moment and look at the ye old days and formal advise from the Crown.
The Queen, god bless her, ‘recognised’ way back then, that the sacred laws and culture of people needed to be honoured and protected. This became the basis for the Constitution.
Odd, you may think . . . Why would Canberra want to start a campaign to ‘Recognise’, when it has already been done? Answer: To rewrite the Constitution, making anything in the Constitution null and void.
Add a bit here, take away a bit there, whatever is needed to serve the purpose.
But wait, there’s more. If that doesn’t work, they have a secret weapon called ‘Referendum’.
Before I met my elder, I thought a referendum was a great idea. Let people shake off that convict mentality. A good thing for that ‘Reclaim Australia’ mob. When I look at the bigger picture, I see that the people that are owed the greatest amount of respect in this country will be screwed over yet again.
Becoming a Republic is open slather to change everything. The Queen is no longer ruler, so everything in the constitution and all of the advice from the Crown can be ignored. The impacts will be felt nationwide.
Graphics via Sovereign Union
I am not a Monarchist. I really admire the foresight that the Queen had way back then. She knew what greed could do. She knew what humanity was capable of doing to acquire it. This course of action will take away any rights that folk have left. This will have dire consequences for the people, the land, the animals. These are the core and essence of culture. An elder said to me, “We don’t own the land, the land owns us”. In a nutshell, this is our religion. It is a spiritual connection not only to the land, but to the universe itself. Destroy the land and you assassinate the spirit of the culture.
It has already happened. Sacred sites destroyed. Others with world heritage listing to be de-registered.
The rituals have gone in many places. The practises obsolete. The younger generation suffer because of it. Nothing gets passed down. I call it ‘ethnic cleansing’.
What is the motive? Why bipartisan political support? How will it benefit the Libs and the Labs? Let’s look at the sponsors for the Recognise campaign and the the party policies.
‘Recognise’ is backed by the major football codes, Cricket Australia and Corporations including Qantas, Telstra, Westpac, PMG, Lend Lease, Sodexo, Accor, Transfield, National Australia Bank, Commonwealth Bank Australia, Rio Tinto, Chevron and Woodside.
Oh look, there is some foreign owned, major mining corporations sponsoring ‘Recognise.’
Liberal Party: You would be surprised to see how much coal, coal seam gas, petroleum, iron ore, bauxite, alumina, aluminium, uranium, diamonds, salt and god only knows what other filthy mining is going on in Australia. The Liberal Party are dirty, rotten, climate change denialists. The whole ‘mining is good mentality’ has become an international embarrassment. The facts are in, the scientists all agree, climate change is real, the world is warming, the sea is rising, and this is caused by rising levels of CO2. This is caused by man. We are responsible. Did you know that Denmark is 100% powered by wind? Tony is too.
Graphics via Sovereign Union
Bring on the summit in Paris, that will be good for a laugh. I can see all of those little memes now.
What stands in their way of pursuing more mining and pushing the current mining proposals through?
People living on THEIR land. Written into the Constitution.
Labor Party: What a time the Labor Party had convincing Australia they were the party for them. Back peddling on their initial cut to RETS and coming out to support the renewable energy sector. There’s votes in this one. Marriage equality too. Hats off to them for trying to take credit for their new renewable energy and marriage equality policies. I’ve seen their politicians come out and say they are the only ones that will deliver. Shame the policies were originally the platform for the Greens. In my opinion a much more progressive bunch, way ahead of their time.
Smokescreen alert! I smell a rat.
Hang on, at the recent Labor Party Conference Bill Shorten supports the Liberal Party’s policies for the inhumane treatment of the asylum seekers. The whole turn back the boats, offshore processing debacle continues. If it wasn’t so tragic, it would be laughable. Now that’s a whole new international crime novel.
I digress.
The Labor Party is committed to nuclear power. I thought we finished that prehistoric idea back in the 80s. This, combined with the deal with India means that there is a need for developing more uranium mines. I shudder to think what could happen with the uranium leaving our shores. If you’re new to this, politicians are known to lie.
What stands in their way of pursuing uranium mining? People living on THEIR land, of course.
Call me old fashioned but I tend to put human rights before politics.
There are currently 150 Aboriginal communities that are to be forced to leave their traditional lands so that this proposal can continue. I am assuming it is for this reason, the whole thing is a secret, like most other things in our country now, i.e. the TPP.
No-one knows which communities are going to close. How does the idea of hundreds of homeless people sound to you? It is already happening. People wonder why there is such a problem with serious social issues, mental health, domestic violence, drugs and alcohol, suicides. It is blatantly obvious why.
For more information you could try speak to the WA premier. He is a Liberal, his name is Colin Barnett, or perhaps you could talk to Andrew Forrest, a.k.a. ‘Twiggy’ to see what he is up to in the region. I know Gina has just bought a huge parcel of land in WA. She doesn’t seem like the type to retire just yet.
This situation is not isolated to WA alone: it is happening nation wide and not just to Aboriginal folk. Australia really needs to come together on this. Any change to the Constitution or becoming a Republic has the possibility of affecting everyone. Try to see past things and look for the motive.
You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to connect the dots.
Here’s what some of the people have to say:
Gail Beck, Nyoongar: A tireless worker for Aboriginal rights and member of South West Land and Sea Council: “Those that have us in the Constitution, will then be granted continual powers to make laws for us and without us . . . For our own good . . . The Constitution is the government’s law making blue print . . . We do not need to be in that preamble to recognise us is OK but not in the main law making document. It is all trickery and government lead.. This is not a people movement.
Vicki Lee Roach – Yuin woman from South Coast, NSW – human rights activist and advocate for decarceration, prison abolition for Aboriginal women currently in prison.
How many millions of dollars have been slashed from Aboriginal Legal Aid? How much more from Indigenous health, education and other services? How many remote communities are to be closed down because they’re ‘not viable’, because there’s not enough money? If there is no money for these important things, how then is there over $50m to spend on a campaign to recognise us in the constitution? More to the point, WHY is there so much money to spend on this issue in the middle of an alleged ‘budget emergency’? Why are several multi-national mining companies, along with all sides of politics also spending 10’s of millions of dollars to convince us, (the campaign started in Indigenous communities), that we need to be recognised in the Constitution? Is this where the money for Indigenous services has gone, (the figures are oddly similar)? To fund a campaign for something that we are not even allowed to know what form it is to take, how it will be worded or what impact it will have on us? On an issue that will affect only Indigenous people. We are only 2.5% of the pop., we will effectively have no voice in a referendum?
Clinton Jetta BFR:
Why constitutional recognition? Why now? And, why are they spending so many millions of dollars to make it happen? Before anybody casts a vote for ‘yes’ in any constitutional reform referendum, these questions must not only be asked but honest answers demanded!
And this from Nova Peris about the patronising language from the government and also partly in response to this vile statement from Andrew Bolt. (As an aside, if you wish to complain the Press Council about Bolt’s comment you can do so here).
There you go, the real voice of Australia. Not those paid to be. What a waste of time and money. Money that can been directed into actually getting results.
Graphics via Sovereign Union
I see the public and politicians declaring their outrage trying to seize publicity from what happened to Adam Goodes and using it once again to spread propaganda. How many of them are actually prepared to take an honest look at the whole picture of what is happening? How many of them have educated themselves to see how they can help. How many of them actually listen to the voice of Australia? How can 40 government selected members of the ‘Recognise’ campaign represent all of Australia? To be truly democratic, this alone needs to be put to the vote. Only then will you get true representation. People that act on behalf of the people. It is all a never ending debate. It keeps them and others employed.
A wise elder said to me “politicians don’t care.” I guess she is right. There is not enough votes in it for them. They care when it suits them, when there is a photo opportunity, like the token kiss on the babies cheek.
Aboriginal Australia alone doesn’t have enough votes to make a real difference. It is up to Australia as a whole, to unify and say “enough is enough.” Instead of ‘Recognise’, try ‘Realising’ what you are missing out on. The most beautiful culture and way of life imaginable.
Open your hearts and your minds to become involved, unify and learn news things.
You won’t be disappointed.
Many things that are currently happening around Australia are human rights issues. Gillian Triggs can see it, Amnesty Australia, The United Nations, Oxfam Australia and all of the other charities can see it.
Image courtesy of Vanessa Kairies
I am not a member of any political party, just an ordinary member of the public who is deeply concerned with what is happening. I choose to read all of the party policies so I am informed when it comes time to vote.
Spread the word. If you’re not enrolled to vote, do so. Read the policies before you vote. Check the preferences. Listen to your instincts. Ask questions. Talk to your local member. Speak out.This country needs you.
It is time for all politicians to grow a conscience. Going to church on Sunday and introducing the policies that are currently in place, in my view, makes the ratbags hypocrites.
It is time for the environmental vandalism to stop. The real terrorism in this country is destroying the heart, the life and the soul of our nation.
Nothing changes, if nothing changes.
What I would like to see is an overhaul to the entire political system. There is no true democracy in this country. I heard a suggestion that politicians should be made to have a proper psychological assessment before they are allowed in Parliament. What a great idea. Another one, that every member, State and Federal should have their individual policies made public.
How can solutions to major issues be found with inventive ideas when all the politicians do is bicker and argue? What sort of example is this setting for Australia? It has set the precedent for all other interactions amongst communities nationwide. You only have to watch ‘Question time,’ on the ABC to be revolted. Perhaps that is the strategy, to divide and conquer, it has been used for millenniums.
Who you vote for, has the future of the generations to come in their hands. Choose wisely.
Please take the time out to open up my cartoons and read all of the previous comments. Just click to open. You will come away enlightened. Cartoon locations:
I flew over the cuckoo’s nest.
Further reading
Newspaper clippings (below) and approval of article by elder Helen Dodds of the National Aboriginal Constitution Office.
Notes
Vote no to Constitution reform graphic courtesy of Blackfulla Revolution.
Sovereign Union website.
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Return to home pageI’m with you, Vanessa.
Great article.
Indigenous leader Patrick Dodson and Mr Pearson had submitted a proposal involving a series of conventions to allow Indigenous people to come to a consensus position on constitutional change.
In the letter to Mr Pearson and Mr Dodson, Mr Abbott said there was a “risk” involved in an “Indigenous only – or even an Indigenous first – process”.
TONY ABBOTT: “My anxiety about a separate Indigenous process is that it jars with a notion of finally substituting “we” for “them and us”.
I am in favour of building consensus, but strongly believe this should be a national consensus in favour of a particular form of recognition rather than simply an Indigenous one. The risk with an Indigenous only – or even an Indigenous first – process is that it might produce something akin to a log of claims that is unlikely to receive general support.”
Give me strength.
Actually, give people like Adam Goodes and Vanessa and all the people she quoted in her article the strength to continue to raise their voices. I too am with you Vanessa. Enough is enough.
Great article, Vanessa. It all makes sense to me.
If the abbott government says
“Let’s change the constitution for the benefit of the Aboriginal people”, I know instinctively it’s a lie.
Like every other word he ever uttered.
So … “NO” … it is.
We need to change Constitution to recognise the truth of our history. Truth warts and all. As much positives as negatives.
I confess to being internally conflicted about the value of symbolic change. Being a white heterosexual female it is difficult for me feel the same passion about constitutional recognition or marriage equality. But then I remind myself of how I would have felt if someone had told me I couldn’t marry my husband. I remind myself of how I would feel if my children were made to feel like lesser citizens. I remember what is was like the many times when I have faced discrimination because of my gender.
It is not for politicians to decide these things. We, as a society, must include everyone equally.
Well said Vanessa.
Vanessa, thank you for your insights and links to additional information. Let’s spread the word.
Thank you Vanessa the truth will set us free because right now our indigenous brothers and sisters still have their heads in a contemporary colonial trap of lies, deceptions, endless disinformation and obfuscation.
In truth the L-NP care not and Labor need to come out fighting or remain a poor shadow of their origins.
This country was stolen and the meager compensation we give is given grudgingly as if indigenous people owe us and not the other way around.
The great shame of a nation.
Today is the 7th of August, year 2015.
1788 was about 80,300 days ago.
WW2 about 21900 days ago.
So what? you ask.
Just reminding you, that’s all.
Hatred, animosity, fear will fester and become a cancer if you can not sometimes, just “let go”.
Fair, no one ever said it is Fair.
Get on with it, no more “poor fellow me”.
Suck it up, breathe deep, extract finger and move on.
Mark Needham.
Who benefits from the comments ‘let it go’? Certainly not Indigenous Australian’s who are still significantly oppressed by institutionalised racism. What you fail to understand as does every other person who has this view Mark Needham is that Indigenous issues can not be reduced to a single event in 1788. The effects of colonisation are present in forms of such unequal proportions that getting over it or letting it go would be to turn a blind eye to black deaths in custody, higher rates of incarceration and teenage suicide rates, higher rates of child removals etc. The grief from massacres and the stolen generation are also in our lifetime not 200+ years ago, I have met survivors of both. I find it pertinent that you added the countdown of WW2 as it is critical to the point of letting it go and getting over it. The next time an Indigenous player gets told to get over being booed fro pointing out institutionalised racism, or Indigenous public figure meets outcry over raising the impact of colonisation and not letting it go maybe the public who feel that way should go out to the ANZAC celebrations and boo telling veterans and their families to just let it go and get over it. It is the most amazing thing that Gallipoli was one of the worst military failures of this countries history and we celebrate it with ‘Lest We Forget.’ yet our most successful military triumph ie the invasion of Australia and subjugation of it’s inhabitants needs to be forgotten. As non Indigenous Australians we benefit in deciding what is forgotten and what is remembered. As a non Indigenous Australian who has learnt from Indigenous people I am saddened that we do not see it as our collective loss rather than something that must be denied and relegated to the past.
Feed the festering sore with bile and it festers further. Treat it properly and Lo Behold.
The whole world has been shat on by someone of another race, religion or ideology and will continue for ever.
Look at the “festering” pile in the middle east., they do not let go, continue the “war”. No one is “Wright or Rong” just so long as the argument is carried on.
As a child I can still hear my mother, arguing with me dad. Mum won the argument, but would not let go. Dad won the fight. I can still hear the “Thump” when Mum hit the floor.They were both wrong. The silly buggers loved each other with a passion, but fought till the death. Both suicided. So what did they prove., Absolutely nothing.
Do not “single event” me, and lecture me on grief. I do not hold the only right to do so, nor do you.
Get, bloody well, over it.
I have survived bastardry, malintent, malicious theft, bullying and crap from people who were and still are “absolute bastards”.
I have had my share of crap also from those who hide behind a pseudonym, hide behind someones skirt and throw rocks.
Be up front, declare your insipid, scared self and like me show the world that you are not beaten.
But, what ever you do, please, just for once Please, Move on.
At the end of the day, it does not matter. It hurts like hell, it sure ain’t Fair, just Get on with it.
Warm regards,
Mark Needham.
PS. To be quite honest, to reply to a thing that hides behind a ‘Nom de Plume” is contrary to my normal self made rules. If you don’t stand up, then in my book, Sorry, you do not count.
Dad had a good rule, “Do not trust a man in a dress, or Anonymous.”
Great article! Thanks Vanessa! Take no notice of trolls like mark needham… our sovereignty scares them…
Yes The recognize issue is clearly a scam and access to mining is the biggest reason for it. Mark Needham is way off the mark. This has nothing to do with a festering sore that needs to be forgotten. This is about the removal of sovereignty, rights to continue living on land, ownership of land being taken away now to allow full access to mining. Coonana a tiny remote community near Kalgoorlie had it’s closure notice given in 2013 for closure now in 2015. Health service – closed. water supplies turned off and electricity turned off. Once the people left there was the announcement of uranium mining to start up…closest community to it …. Coonana. This is only one of the many to come. Have you noticed that the closure of remote communities in WA by the Barnett government is still going full steam ahead? shame on LNP dancing to the tune of Twiggy Forrest and his cronies in mining.
Thanks Vanessa. The story of The First Nations Peoples is just in the too hard basket for most of modern Australia people. In between the lines of discontent that herald the politics of Race and its discourse there is occasionally allowed a perspective of authentic voice that continues to cause shame to the unbelievers who remain wilfully ignorant as they rant of the festering sores of their personal histories. The story of dispossession is today as fresh as it was 200 years ago. In the West, the North, the East and the South of old Gwondana are modern words designed to politically confuse and confound as more dispossession arrives daily under the cover of carefully contrived campaigns that make fools of us all. It is just unbelievable that in Australia today is a class of liars and spivs that rule the Treasury and usurp the hard won rights of working men and women by the same stealth that disposses the First Nations Peoples, stole the Children and introduced and made strong a system of adversarial bastardry that is held up as Democracy Australian Style.
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Mark Needham,
And how do I know that you are not Bartholomew Cornelius Longfellow-Mayweather or Buck Studbolt, posting under the relative anonymity of a bland pseudonym?
@ corvus boreus
so….. pinafore, skirt or a nice summer frock…?
Mark Needham
Mark Needham,
In reply to your plea for fashion advice, you should choose whichever you are most comfortable in.
Mark Needham, are you suggesting I am a man in a dress?
That is just a little weird.
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Great piece Vanessa. you know your onto something when the antagonists start showing up.
You have my full support.
I am a white heterosexual (mostly) female – I do not know what it is like to have a dark skin and to be abused for this genetic happen-stance.
However, I DO know what discrimination is like:
At school; skinny, brainy and crap at sport.
Workplace: depending on whether the bully is male or female (and hetero) – I am dumb or a threat because I am a blonde female.
Years when married: Sure my ex-husband did drink – but didn’t need to be drunk to slap me around, all of which occurred in a leafy eastern suburb of Melbourne; oh so respectable.
As a tenant: forced to move 5 times in 7 years due to sale of premises.
The above is no way complete, but what it does mean is I can empathise with others who feel marginalised, disrespected or even pitied.
I have enough experience to feel complete outrage at authoritarian B/S like “intervention”, “emergency response”, “leaner”…. ad nauseam….
I have managed to survive and secure a home for myself – had my skin been a different colour, would I be among the dispossessed?
I believe I wouldn’t even have lived this long.
A very important article Vanessa, it is very important to hear from the perspective of those dispossessed. Our governments have more than ever become agents of the rich and powerful and are accelerating the process of dispossession of all of us. Australia’s Aboriginal people continue to be treated the worst of all.
Governments must act on behalf of the people to counteract the disproportionate power of the corporations, the wealthy and the well connected. Even though the mass media is complicit in the dispossession and lobbyists and vested interests have siezed control of the two major parties, the democratic process must be made to work so that we can stop this slide to plutocracy, corptocracy, authoritarianism and fascism.
Why is Bill Shorten not interested in this evil mining-industry backed plan to, yet again, dispossess Aboriginal people from their home?
Appealing to the WA or Federal government is not going to change anything, and here is an opportunity for Labor to offer an alternative.
diannaart, Bill Shorten is a minion of the far right Labor power-brokers – he is one of the Lib-Lites.
When push comes to shove, Bill Shorten will side with the big end of town. He is bought and paid for and will do his masters bidding.
Expecting Bill to do anything for the traditional voters of Labor, the poor, the working class, the progressives and humanitarians, will end in despair. Bill is there for Bill Shorten’s benefit and he will sell out to the highest bidder.
A leader of conviction, of compassion, of integrity and intellegence, is so desperately needed because that simply ain’t Bill Shorten.
I no longer have any expectations of Bill – however, I do like to take the opportunity to remind people of what Labor could be doing.
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I wrote this last year but the information it contains regarding Native Title explains just why the government is determined to have the Recognise campaign work without the benefit of a treaty specifying those rites: https://jenniferann1970.wordpress.com/2014/05/30/how-we-stole-australia/
Jenni, I just read your link and love it. I was wondering if you have any references to go with – because I would like to know more.
A lot of what you wrote about would be useful with references.
There is a lot of history that is hidden, and Australians should know more.
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