If Tony Abbott wants to be Minister for Indigenous Affairs, we should have a look at his credentials for the job, widely spruiked by many white people.
But what do the Indigenous community and their advocates think?
In 2008, Aboriginal elders travelled for three days to get to Canberra to put their case for businesses in remote communities to a Parliamentary committee; Tony Abbott walked in late, didn’t apologise, sat down and then fell asleep. Needless to say, nothing came from their journey.
In August 2013, 1 Deadly Nation had this to say:
Tony Abbott volunteers in Indigenous communities we are told, he goes for a week a year and these statements of “fact” are usually then followed by a barrage of holier than thou tripe about how much Mr Abbott could teach the rest of us….
In August of 2012 Tony Abbott did indeed go to Cape York…for 2 days! It was a working bee of sorts and some of Australia’s business leaders were taken along to volunteer as well. Photos of Abbott with tools in hand were taken and the myth of Abbott the saviour of the Black man had a wonderful photo op. Abbott charged $9,636.36 tax payer dollars to fund the hire of a private charter flight for the 2 days. I don’t know about you, but when I volunteer to hammer in a few nails for a day or two I don’t ask the people of Australia to cough up 10k. That isn’t volunteering, that is the most expensive labourer in the history of Australia.
On another one of his trips to an Indigenous Community Mr Abbott was off to sell his version of the Wild Rivers Legislation to the traditional owners it would impact. Not quite volunteering as such, but policy is good and spending time in Indigenous communities is to be encouraged if it results in consultation that means that locals get their message across and this results in positive policy changes. So just how much did Mr Abbott listen to the local people of the Indigenous community he visited? How much was this reflected in his policy? Because hey, we know (or are told) he has the ear of the Black man…
”We do not support his shonky Bill,” said activist Murrando Yanner of the Carpentaria Land Council. ”We think it is badly drafted and legally unenforceable.” ”He will leave unhappy,” said Mr Yanner, who supports the existing Wild River legislation. ”His new Bill is a dogs breakfast.’
Well, that didn’t go to plan. It was neither volunteering nor listening to the locals. That trip cost we the tax payer $32,545.00 in flights alone and was for just one night!
So when weeks are days and days cost tens of thousands of dollars and volunteering is photo ops and not listening to the traditional owners of the land you have to rename these volunteering trips. Tony Abbott’s very expensive, tax payer funded, private jet flown, not listening tours of outback Australia.
Next time an LNP member or journalist drops the “Abbott volunteers for weeks in Indigenous communities” line, call bullshit and then refer them to the figures. Three days and nearly $45000 in flights alone…, if that’s volunteering the rest of us are really doing it all wrong. Many of us, some one million odd Australians, do volunteer every year for community organisations, they slog their guts out, donate large amounts of money and never even ask for a thank you. The audacity of this public lie should be even more shocking when we remember that Indigenous life expectancy is at third world levels and Mr Abbott is racking up huge bills to do nothing about it while claiming credit for work he simply doesn’t do!
But did it improve when Tony took over being both the PM and the Minister for Indigenous Affairs?
Budget 2014: $534 million cut to Indigenous programs.
More than 150 programs, grants and activities defunded.
More than $160 million of the cuts will come out of Indigenous health programs. The health savings will be redirected to the Medical Research Future Fund.
Further cuts include a $3.5 million cut to the Torres Strait Regional Authority and the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples will not get $15 million earmarked for the representative body over the next three years.
Funding for Indigenous language support announced in the last budget will also be cut by $9.5 million over five years.
No commitment to the National Partnership Agreement for Indigenous Early Childhood Development which will likely lead to the closure of 38 Indigenous childhood development centres across the country.
New funding announcements include $54 million allocated to police stations to be built in seven remote Indigenous communities in Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia over the next four years.
In response to cuts of $15 million from legal aid commissions and $6 million from community legal centres, all seven Attorneys-General signed a letter calling on Senator Brandis to reverse the existing cuts made to legal services, and guarantee no further funding reductions would be made to Legal Aid Commission, Community Legal Centres, and the Aboriginal Legal Service.
“These proposals will affect the most vulnerable members in our community, including foremost women and children who are victims of, or at risk of family violence, as well as Indigenous Australians,” the letter said.
“It is difficult to reconcile these actions with the Prime Minister’s recent recognition of the importance of tackling domestic and family violence and closing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians as national issues.
“Cutting funding to the services which help these vulnerable members of our community, at this time, is short sighted and ill conceived.
“Such a move will further set us back decades in tackling this important issue.”
And it only got worse…
In March 2015, Mr Abbott backed a plan in Western Australia to close more than 100 remote communities and move more than 1,000 people, saying “what we can’t do is endlessly subsidise lifestyle choices.”
But Indigenous leader Noel Pearson told the ABC remote Indigenous communities deserved an “extensive” explanation and not “off-the-cuff” comments.
“I think it’s a very disappointing and hopeless statement by the Prime Minister, quite frankly,” he told The World Today.
“I just think it’s very disrespectful to cast fear into these communities through a kind of policy thought bubble rather than a considered position from the Commonwealth Government as to the future – the anxious future – of these remote communities.
“He has got no plan for the future of these communities in the event that they close down. And I’m just bitterly disappointed to hear this deranged debate go on in the substandard manner in which it’s being conducted.”
Chair of the Prime Minister’s Indigenous Advisory Council Warren Mundine said it was not as “simple” as the Prime Minister had described.
“These people are actually living on their homelands and it affects a lot of things, it affects their cultural activities, it affects their native title, it affects a number of areas,” he told Radio National.
“It’s not as simple as… if someone from Sydney decides to have a treechange and go and live in the bush. It’s about their life, it’s about their very essence, it’s about their very culture.”
I don’t think Catherine McGregor is the person who should be recommending who should get the Indigenous Affairs portfolio and I certainly don’t like her reasoning that it is the only way to make Tony behave. Rewarding bad behaviour leads to very poor outcomes. How about we ask the Indigenous community who they would like to be their Minister. On the real track record, as opposed to the air-brushed media version, I doubt they would choose Tony.
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