Mission & Justice

Nicola Berkovic; 30/7/08

The Rudd Government’s moves to overhaul immigration policy and use detention only as a last resort is heading for a showdown in the Senate, with the Coalition attacking the proposal as a watering down of Australia’s border security. Under the changes unveiled by Immigration Minister Chris Evans yesterday, detention would be used only if department officials could show a person posed a security risk. If not, they would be released into the community until their visa status was resolved. Detainees’ cases would be reviewed every three months to ensure detention was still justified and children would not be held in detention centres. “This isn’t about a mass opening of the gates; this is about a more humane treatment of asylum-seekers,” Senator Evans said.

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Letters; 28/7/08,

Why are Helen and Mark Hughes stuck in the outdated and unproductive either-or mentality of the Howard era? This is the old and false perception of the rights agenda being diametrically opposed to the responsibilities agenda. They certainly did not show in their article (* “Drunk from resources bonanza, Top End ignores basic needs”, Inquirer, 26-27/7) that amending the Constitution would not help those Yolngu people living in Third World conditions. In fact, they did not address the issue at all. Kevin Rudd did not say that constitutional change would be pursued at the expense of education outcomes. Rudd was clearly responding to requests from Galarrwuy Yunupingu. Is Rudd to be vilified because he is prepared to listen to what the traditional owners want?

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Paul Toohey; 26/7/08; Paul Toohey is a senior writer on The Australian and author of the most recent Quarterly Essay, Last Drinks: The Impact of the Northern Territory Intervention.

The Tall Man; Chloe Hooper; Penguin

The north has chosen to reveal itself to Chloe Hooper, even though the primary players in her tale were unavailable. One was Palm Islander Cameron Doomadgee, dead in the ground. The other was police officer Chris Hurley, who appears to have taken the view that co-operating with Hooper — or anyone else — would not serve him well.Well might Hurley take that view. He was the recipient of a predictable miracle when an all-white jury last year acquitted him of Doomadgee’s manslaughter. He’s back in the police force; he’s innocent. What’s there to add? Hurley, who stands 2m tall, is the subject of the title, as are the elongated creature spirits of the north, who move in the night sky and steal the breath of the living.
There is another spirit more localised to Queensland, the Quinkan, long-limbed and malevolent. They do their evil, then fold back into cracks in the sandstone. Hooper is not subtle about her motifs, saying Hurley was “like an evasive spirit, hiding in the legal cracks”.

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Craig Ashby; 26/7/08

The Third World conditions in which the vast majority of my indigenous brothers and sisters live in this land of plenty and this age of economic prosperity are nothing short of shameful. The problems are the same in cities, regional and remote communities - poverty, passivity, unemployment, welfare dependency, drugs and alcohol - and these problems perpetuate a vicious downward generational spiral. The result is that our indigenous children are born into a seemingly hopeless vicious cycle. The challenge for our generation is to replace this downward vicious cycle with an upward virtuous circle. In the past half century there have been countless rays of light, hope and optimism. I think of the Freedom Ride led by Charlie Perkins in 1965 and the story of Vincent Lingiari and the Gurindji walk-off in 1966. I fast-forward 20 years and think of the Alice Springs address by pope John Paul II during his visit to Australia in 1986. I think of the Redfern speech by Paul Keating in launching Australia’s celebration of the 1993 International Year of the World’s Indigenous People.

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Bernard Lane; 26/7/08

Remote Australia is a failed state, bereft of government that works, its permanent population giving way to mining companies and their “mercenary” fly-in, fly-out workforces, according to former West Australian governor John Sanderson. Lieutenant General Sanderson said the lack of governance, people, services, economic diversity and infrastructure throughout vast areas of the continent posed a serious problem for national security. “Australia’s defence against possible threats and breaches of security, including biosecurity, emanating from Southeast Asia and the south Pacific is made all the more difficult when remote Australia itself is gripped by social and economic crisis,” General Sanderson told a Murdoch University audience in Perth this week. He told The Weekend Australian he thought the description of remote Australia as a failed state was “pretty apt”. One reason for his conclusion was his experience as peacekeeping commander in post-civil war Cambodia. General Sanderson cited a thinktank definition of failed states based on poverty, violence, the lack of health and education services, and a perceived lack of government legitimacy.

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Editorial; 25/7/08

Practical reconciliation remains the key to better lives. Since Federation, Australians have carried just eight out of 44 referendums to amend the Constitution. It remains to be seen if a majority of people in a majority of states support Kevin Rudd’s proposal on constitutional recognition of indigenous people. Given bipartisan support, it stands a good chance of success. If so, it would be a worthwhile extension of the 1967 referendum in which 90 per cent of the nation voted to count Aboriginal Australians as citizens of their own country. As Mr Rudd suggested in Arnhem Land, symbolic reform can take place alongside practical reconciliation, building a bridge of respect between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. With the best interests of indigenous people at heart, he pointedly ignored several contentious points in a statement put to him by Northern Land Council’s chairman Wali Wunungmurra and 53 clan leaders.

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Natasha Robinson & Samantha Maiden; 25/7/08

Kevin Rudd has refused to commit to a timeline for recognising indigenous people in the Constitution despite the Liberal Party offering bipartisan support for a referendum on the issue. A day after announcing the Government would begin talks over the form and timing of a constitutional amendment to acknowledge the first Australians, the Prime Minister said Labor would not prioritise the issue and its consultations would take place “very much over time”. “What I’ve said loud and clear is that subsequent to the national apology, our first priority is closing the gap between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians,” Mr Rudd said following a cabinet meeting in Darwin yesterday.

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Nicolas Rothwell; 24/7/08

With consummate skill and elegance, the two partners in Australia’s utopian future played their parts in Yirrkala yesterday. Kevin Rudd, the fresh inspirer of an idealistic nation, came face to face, on Aboriginal land, in the very cradle of the land rights movement, with Galarrwuy Yunupingu, the veteran of the indigenous cause, the feudal leader of North-East Arnhem Land. They dreamed together of a new constitutional compact; they were shadowed by the past. Here, at Yirrkala mission, the depths and complexities of the Aboriginal myth world first became plain to Western incomers. And it was also in this country, a generation ago, with the consent of the federal parliament, that bauxite miners churned up precious land excised from an Aboriginal reserve. Here, too, on this narrow promontory, a cultural revival began 10 years ago with the Garma Festival - the symbol today of indigenous cultural strength and pride. Well-chosen ground for new understanding.

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Natasha Robinson & Padraic Murphy; 23/7/08

Kevin Rudd today will make his first visit to a remote indigenous community since being elected Prime Minister, holding a historic cabinet meeting at the homeland of one of Australia’s most powerful indigenous leaders. Led by indigenous powerbroker Galarrwuy Yunupingu, Aboriginal people from Yirrkala, at the eastern tip of the Gulf of Carpentaria, are gearing up to welcome Mr Rudd to Arnhem Land and to tell his cabinet what Aboriginal people want from their federal Government. After a visit to Cairns yesterday, Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin last night flew to the mining town of Nhulunbuy, 600km east of Darwin, ahead of the cabinet and stayed in the nurses’ quarters at the Gove District Hospital. Mr Rudd touched down in Darwin last night and will fly with his cabinet to Nhulunbuy this morning before travelling to Yirrkala, 18km from Nhulunbuy on Cape Arnhem.

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23/7/08

Supporters of Israel write as though the Jewish state is isolated and reviled around the world for no other reason than irrational anti-Semitism. Nothing could be further from the truth. Anne Bayefsky (”Australia must boycott the next racist hatefest”, July 22) continues this unfortunate trend. She paints Israel as a poor, defenceless nation in the heart of the Middle East that is likely to be devoured by the Arab world’s uncontrollable racism. In fact, it is Israeli actions that have led it to become an international pariah. Do Zionists really believe expanding illegal settlements in the West Bank can continue without paying a high diplomatic and military price? Bayefsky criticises Durban I as “a notorious anti-Semitic hatefest”, a view not shared by many Jews.

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