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​Oz Day blues

28/1/2021

9 Comments

 
​The majority rules, or should do, argues John Cobbledick.  ​
Not fair, responds ​​Marg Lynn​. Aboriginal people have been adapting ​since 1788
​and i
t’s time for white Australians to meet them half way.  
'We are one nation'
By John Cobbledick
 
IT IS a shame that some people take exception to 26th of January, Australia day. It is a day for Aboriginal, Anglo Saxon, Greek, Chinese, Italian, German and all other Australians of different ancestry to celebrate.
 
We are, after all, one people, one nation, and we all believe in equality, although there are those that wish to divide us by objecting to a word in our Anthem, a date on a calendar, even a flag.
Picture
Cartoon by Natasha Williams-Novak
​​Australian federal governments of both persuasions have, on numerous occasions catered to the demands of the 3.5 per cent minority, only to have more and more demands made.
 
How can there be TOTAL EQUALITY if only one side gives and keeps giving and the other keeps taking?
 
It is time for Australians to decide that the Majority rules, so we can became a Democracy again.
 
Time and Time again past injustices are put forward as excuses for the discontent. LOOK FORWARD NOT BACK!!!!
 
We have a great Country. Why try to stuff it up with racist attitudes toward everything of White culture?

'Let's meet half way'
By Marg Lynn

​WOULDN’T it be good if Australia Day were a day that all nationalities and ancestries could happily celebrate together. But the fact is, it isn’t! And if it isn’t, we can’t make it so by demanding it. If we can’t make it so, we need to listen to the reasons.
 
The Senior Australian of the Year for 2021, Dr Miriam-Rose Ungenmerr Baumann, AM, made the point when she was presented with her award that Aboriginal people have been adapting since 1788, changing to fit our western conditions, but that it has been a one-way street. We white Australians need to meet Aboriginal people half way and walk together.

We cannot do that while we have not officially acknowledged the pain and suffering caused by massacres, dispossession, stolen generations. These are not historic facts from the past only. They have contemporary ramifications through higher rates of illness, poverty, suicides, educational under-achievement, incarceration rates, and child removals.

 
As the Uluru Statement so rightly says, these are not inherent flaws in Aboriginal people, they are caused by the systems of inequality in Australia.
 
Yes, you say that we are all equal, but that is not the case. We ought to be. We have a human right to be considered equal and treated equally. But the evidence is, through police and prison statistics, that Aboriginal people are treated worse for the same behaviour than white people; through educational statistics, that Aboriginal children are disadvantaged by culturally distorted education models and low expectations; through health statistics that show, as an example, higher rates of death due to smoking and the shortage of culturally appropriate health education.
 
I hear you say, why do they need special programs? Because the reasons for smoking behaviours are different. Within living memory, many Aboriginal workers were paid in tobacco. It was associated with survival, relief, camaraderie – deeply ingrained needs that set up behaviour patterns that are difficult to break. Is this “special” treatment?
 
Aboriginal Australians have inherent rights based on their prior occupation of this land, upholding the longest surviving culture in the world. They are not just one ethnic group amongst many – they have the right to be honoured and respected as the First Australians, of whom we should be very proud.
 
You say that governments have catered for the demands of the 3.5% minority, and then get further demands. “Demands” for services is hardly radical. We all deserve services. The truth is that the majority of funding that goes to Aboriginal projects and communities is actually spent on bureaucracy, and as often on white as on Aboriginal bureaucrats.
 
Some of this is for infrastructure, like roads in remote Australia, which is used by black and white Australians. Much of the cost in health and education is required because of the remoteness of communities. Much more is spent per Aboriginal person than on non-Indigenous people on prisons. Why should we load our funding towards the punitive end rather than on the development of happy and health Aboriginal Australians?
 
Above all, there is an inequality in power. White Australia has the power to dictate the terms for everything, making Aboriginal people’s interests marginal. When Aboriginal people have self-determination, as they do through their National Aboriginal Community-Controlled Health Organisations, they excel. Their success rate in keeping COVID numbers down set an example to all of us, with fewer cases and fewer deaths per head of population.
 
How much more successful could they be in all sectors of life if they had the power to determine their own outcomes?
 
So, Australia Day. Why should Aboriginal people celebrate the day when the First Fleet sailed into Sydney Cove?
 
Marg Lynn is secretary of the Bass Coast/South Gippsland Reconciliation Group. 
​​
9 Comments
susan fowler
30/1/2021 10:59:24 am

Thank you Marg, I totally agree!

Reply
Ian Robinson
30/1/2021 11:29:10 am

The reasons 26 January is not a good day for us to celebrate our National Day are manifold and have little directly to do with indigenous people. It is certainly not "Invasion Day" – the First Fleet landed on in Australia on 18 January so that's when the "invasion" started. What happened on 26 January was that the British founded a penal colony at Sydney Cove. Most countries – including the USA and India and many others – celebrate their National Day on the day they stopped being a colony, We are the only country on the planet that celebrates on the day we started being a colony! This is pretty sick! What happened on 26 January was something the British did, not something Australians did, so what are Australians celebrating it for? Indeed there was no Australia then and until about forty years later. Why are we celebrating an event that took place before we even existed? A valid Australia Day must of course be inclusive of and recognise the long custodianship of our Indigenous people, but it must also be meaningful for other Australians too. A rabble of sad convicts huddling on an alien shore is not an event worth a National Celebration!

Reply
Jim Barritt
30/1/2021 12:54:29 pm

Well said Marg. Sadly the comments by John Cobbledick reflect that same old paternalistic diatribe more fitting for centuries of old. Why is it that some people ignore history that doesn’t interest them, discounting other peoples’ past and legacy, yet find it absolutely valid to reflect upon ANZAC day, Christmas, Easter and the myriad of other important historic events? There is so much that White Australian’s enjoy that has been built upon First Nation Peoples backs and land. Education nurtures understanding and empathy, I encourage Mr Cobbledick to dabble in the both heart wrenching history of the frontier wars and the incredible humanity that Aboriginal people continue to bring to the table despite the impacts of colonists and their ilk.

Reply
Anne Davie
30/1/2021 04:18:44 pm

Out of respect for our First People and our shame the date of Australia Day must and will change

Reply
Mark Robertson
30/1/2021 08:21:27 pm

Forget all the squabbling about which date to celebrate our nations rich heritage. I feel that we will only truly become on when there is an aboriginal auntie as our leader. They seem to display a far greater sense of reality than the old white blokes who historically and currently hold the power.

Reply
Geoff Ellis link
31/1/2021 12:29:10 am

"It is time for Australians to decide that the Majority rules, so we can became a Democracy again."

Again? Though sometimes a great nation, Australia has never been a great democracy. Before 1788 it was a collection of nations, from 1788 to 1901 a collection of colonies and since 1901 a federalized Commonwealth with all that gerrymandering and control by special interests. Remember when Senator Harradine had the final say? Or Fred Nile in NSW and Bjelke Peterson in QLD?

Who actually wanted us to go to war in Iraq or Afghanistan?

Commonwealth refers to "public welfare, general good or advantage" and I see little evidence to disprove the old adage that "the rich get richer". As for the poor, does history have to repeat?

Reply
Bron Dahlstrom
31/1/2021 01:06:33 am

Thank you, Marg Lynn for your excellent piece. As for John Cobbledick, I was looking for something in what you wrote that I could agree with, and I found it. It is, 'How can there be TOTAL EQUALITY if only one side gives and keeps giving and the other keeps taking?' Just think about it, John, Europeans took the land from the First People and pretended that they didn't exist, by calling it Terra Nullius, empty land. And the Aboriginal people are still having so much taken from them, including freedom. But so many First Nations people give and would give much more if only we would let them, for example, it is now being recognised the fire reduction burning is not effective because of the way it is carried out. When Aborginal people have been allowed to share their knowledge of the correct burning techniques, land and lives are saved.
Yes, John, there is no equality when people such as you want to take and expect others to give their heritage away.

Reply
Lynda Campbell
31/1/2021 10:24:04 am

Go Marg! Lucid and persuasive.

Reply
Les patterson
1/2/2021 02:17:18 pm

There is no date this criminal occupation can celebrate, not while it remains a continuing monumental crime scene, unresolved it demeans and diminishes everyone, everything we do a as a people, community, nation is tainted, no human rights recognition for the first peoples means no human rights recognition for all the people here. Stop the lies, genocide, ecocide.
"Lets make the date" ! we can be all proud of.

Reply



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