I am forwarding this post from aus.politics with permission from the poster -
Che Guava (his virtual identity) I think he makes some telling points (sometimes
in rather colourful language) and although the original posting was timely,
there was some delay in obtaining permission.
Trudy
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Howards tory constituency is 'locked-in' on race.
While not mentioning custodianship,
the preamble says Australians
"honour Aborigines and Torres Strait
Islanders, the nation's first people, for
their deep kinship with their lands and for their ancient and
continuing cultures which enrich the life of our country".
Mr Howard says those words will contribute to
reconciliation. ' -[ABC online 12/8/99]
Mr Howard is always ready to tell aboriginal people the terms for
reconciliation. but rarely prepared to listen to their views on the
matter.
>From the 7:30 report (11/8/99):
JOHN HOWARD:
We can argue about whether you should have had this
word or that, but nobody can quibble that that phrase,
that paragraph about the indigenous people, isn't
anything but a noble, generous paragraph.
This is a new concept of democracy, fitting for a man who wants
to retain the hereditary monarchy. Once John 'Jefferson' Howard
has pontificated on a matter, we should all recognise his wise genius
and just shut up and bend over.
KERRY O'BRIEN: Well, obviously, there are some who
ARE quibbling. You've heard Gatjil Djerrkura already.
He was your choice as chairman of ATSIC, which is the
most broadly representative group for Aborigines and
Torres Strait Islanders in Australia.
Did you consult him, did you consult ATSIC?
JOHN HOWARD: Well, I had no direct discussions with
ATSIC. But here was a lot of input from a lot of people.
There were hundreds, or at least 100, individual
submissions.
Just like the process of removing Native Title rights, Howards idea
of consultation is to sit down with the people who agree with you
and let them tell you what you want to hear.
"For All of Us" is a hypocritical joke.
You've got to remember that the newly elected
Democrat Senator -- who was the chairman of the NSW
Land Council before he became a Democrat Senator -- I
thought he brought a more contemporary view to the
debate. I found talking to him very constructive.
Sure Massa, you decide who speaks for us, and then listen to them.
You are our Great Father in Canberra, if you find a blackfella who says
the things you like to hear, well then, just treat him as our spokesman!
People who whine about representation, democracy, fair play, self-
determination... they just don't understand how a monarchy runs!
KERRY O'BRIEN: But why wouldn't it have been
constructive to talk to Gatjil Djerrkura, as chairman of
ATSIC?
I nominate this as Question of the YEAR!
Remember, Howard replaced all the previous spokesman of the aboriginal
movement, with people who he handpicked.
Now he sidelines them.
This is the man, who on the eve of his election victory, lied that
reconciliation was his priority.
Listen to his answer:
JOHN HOWARD: His views were communicated to me
very, very firmly from the very beginning. Look, people
lock themselves into custodianship.
Can I make the observation. A lot of people were locked
into custodianship, I was look locked into mateship. For
the sake of a compromise and for the sake of getting
agreement, I was prepared to bend and to be a bit
flexible.
You only had that opportunity because people were prepared to
talk with you.. Clearly 'locked in' is a phrase of convenience.
KERRY O'BRIEN: But you were able to keep talking with
people like the Democrats about that issue, but Gatjil
Djerrkura and other Aboriginal leaders didn't get the
opportunity to talk to you?
JOHN HOWARD: You must remember, in the end, the
people elected to Parliament have a right to resolve
these things after listening to others.
Or before listening, or not even bothering to listen to others, as the case
may be.
I mean, everybody participates in the vote and you have
the special situation now where one of the Democrat
senators is, in fact, an indigenous person and he's --
KERRY O'BRIEN: But he is there representing the
Democrats?
JOHN HOWARD: Of course, but he's also conscious of his
special affinity with the Aboriginal people, because he's
one of them.
John Howard imitating Nev Duguid!
Find a 'blackfella' who says what you want to hear, and treat him as
spokesmen for the whole troublesome lot!
KERRY O'BRIEN: Did you consult the Reconciliation
Council?
JOHN HOWARD: Their views were communicated to me.
In the usual manner?
Via United Nations investigations into racism? B^D
KERRY O'BRIEN: Can you understand why some
Aborigines might feel insulted or left out of the process
that they were unable to have any direct dialogue with
you on this issue of a preamble, which you say yourself
goes to the heart of reconciliation?
Alternative nomination for best political question of the year!
JOHN HOWARD: I think what goes to the heart of
reconciliation was to get a form of words, which
although a lot of people aren't happy with, can't be seen
as anything other than very generous and going a long
way further than we've ever gone before.
i.e. "You aboriginals just have to become reconciled to being unhappy."
This is the most revealing statement of Howards reconciliation goal;
"a form of words".
We are being offered a reassurring platitude to give us the warm fuzzies,
without actually achieving a damn thing!
"I tell ya mate, in my book, a mate can do no wrong" "No Worries, Mate"
"She'll be right, mate" "Put your head back up your arse, mate, and
pretend everything is fine"
Bearing, also, in mind that people lock themselves in
behind custodianship and I indicated from the very
beginning that there was a difficulty with the word
custodianship, so far as the broader constituency -- or
parts of the broader constituency on the centre right of
politics in Australia -- was concerned.
Ah, the heart of the matter... Howards right-of-centre constituency
is permanently 'locked in' to denying Land Rights recognized by the
High Court. (At least he has 'come out' about his tory constituency,
and vindicated Liberal Matriarch Dame Rachel Cleland, and myself. ;-)
Given that *his* 'constituency' is locked in to a non-negotiable position
there is clearly little point in him consulting anyone in a meaningful way,
chatting to any agreeable blackfella seems perfectly adequate!
This man is a national disgrace!
And I've said from the very beginning that it's far better
to get something that is short of what you would want as
an ideal, but at least to have it, than to say, "Well I'm
settling for nothing than a total ideal."
For Howard the 'ideal' would have included more 'mates', and less
'noble and generous' woffle about aboriginals, if he hadn't been forced
to abandon his 'locked-in' position and compromise.
Now, I've been willing to settle for something that I
regard as less than ideal. I would like to have seen
mateship stay in.
There are other words that are in that document that
weren't my first preference, but, in the end, politics is
the art of the possible, and if the possible is
respectable
and something you can throw your weight behind, then
it's worth persevering in order to get it.
KERRY O'BRIEN: Do you understand what the problem
was with custodianship?
JOHN HOWARD: Yes, some of the people on the centre
right of politics took the view that that could possibly
imply notions of continuing ownership, which might, at
some stage in the future, complicate understandings in
relation to native title. Now, I, personally, didn't have
a
difficulty with that word.
B^D "For all of us.. tories"
But, in the end -- KERRY O'BRIEN: Because it's true also
that you're going to pains to ensure that the words in the
preamble will not have any legal hangover at all?
JOHN HOWARD: Kerry, that is right. But I can't speak for
everybody.
I have to take people with me and just as I am
encouraged all the time and I'm being in this interview to
take account of what other people have to accept, you
have to accept that I have a constituency, too.
That is Howard's leadership in a nutshell:
The nation has to be led to the same position as that held by the people he
follows!
It's not much point my reaching accommodation with a
particular group and then finding that people who are
normally aligned with me say, "Hang on, John.
We can't go along with all of that." Now I think people
have been very flexible on this. I think our side of
politics has been very flexible.
How does being a 'locked-in' dominant, intractable, right-of-centre-
constituency-getting-everything-you-want-from-a-completely-craven-PM
demonstrate flexibility?
Is it because they are still going to permit us to vote on *their*
formulation
of the nations aspirations? B^D
I've been flexible.
"First I was locked-in, but then i wasn't, and i locked them in instead!"
B^D
I've tried very hard to get a compromise.
A compromise between Howards views; racism with mateship, and his
constituencies views; racism and who gives a stuff about mateship.
I think it will help reconciliation if we can have a preamble.
How does a document designed to please the tory constituency
conceivably advance reconciliation? Unless the aboriginals are simply to
be 'reconciled' to being ignored?
I say to those in the indigenous
community who would have liked me to have gone
further -- Do you really prefer to have nothing at all,
rather than what is now on offer? Because that, really, is
the choice.
Thanks for being so frank about your pathetic leadership, and your
deep committment to paternalism, John!
I can't speak for aboriginals, but Djerrkura can, and i join him in
rejecting this parsimonious piffle.
Dear PM, if you wish to masturbate, please do it in private!
Is it really better for reconciliation to go into the next
century with no reference at all to the Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islanders in our Constitution, just because
the reference did not go quite as far as you would have
wanted?
This is the man who wants to retain one lie, (that we are both
subject to a foreign monarch and an independent nation) and
add to it another lie, that we have in any way advanced the
relationship with the nations first inhabitants through a paternalistic
puff piece.
If I'd have applied that test, I'd have said no last night
to
Meg Lees. I'm not prepared to settle for a preamble that
doesn't have mateship in it.
What kind of meglomania leads this lunatic to compare his own ego
to the legitimate rights and aspirations of aboriginal people?
I think the public would
have condemned me for lack of responsibility in
leadership on that. I think there's got to be a give and
take in all of this.
Native peoples give, you take.
It's a difficult area and we are inching bit by bit, phrase
by phrase, almost, towards a better understanding and I
hope people will see it in that light.
No john, *you* are 'inching bit by bit', whenever some concession can be
grudgingly squeezed out ouf your miserable little shopkeepers tallybook.
*Leadership* is what leaders are supposed to provide..
not lessons in quisling quibbles over pompous preambles.
Che
------
I find it absolutely appalling that Howard can compare his
'compromise' over 'mate' in the preamble with a call for
aboriginals to 'compromise' the central point determined
by Wik; that terra nullius is a fiction. Native title exists!
It is inconceivable that he should compare a manifestation
of his ego, a mere personal preference for motherhood
statements, to the legitimate rights of a whole group
of Australians!
tories.. they have 'kinship' with
the Bungle Bungles, the great Dividing range, Lake Disappointment,
Disaster Bay, False Entrance, Doubtful Island, Mt Destruction,
point Desperation, the stones in the barren, dusty heart; acidic leeching,
the weeds choking waterways; Bugarup and Perisher!
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