Natasha Robinson; 17/8/09
A school teacher from a tiny Tiwi Island town is about to become the first Aborigine living in a remote community to own her own home. School principal Leah Kerinauia will soon move into her new house in Nguiu, on Bathurst Island, after saving $50,000 for a deposit. The purchase was made possible because Nguiu signed a 99-year lease with the Howard government in 2007. Nguiu is the only remote Aboriginal community in Australia to have signed up to a 99-year lease. “I was waiting a long time for a house,” Ms Kerinauia said.
See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25938869-5013404,00.html
The vested interests in failure are just too powerful
17/8/09
The anthropological experiment with our indigenous people is a failure by any and every test (“Homeless”, Inquirer”, 15-16/8). The objective of preserving their culture and identity by leaving them in remote communities without any prospect of employment while raining cash on them has failed. The passive welfare mentality grows like a cancer. They are lives without meaning or purpose in isolated communities with no proper economic base and no functional society. We as a nation must face up to our failure, listen to people like Alison Anderson and Noel Pearson, and start again. But it won’t happen. There is an industry of vested interests (politicians, bureaucrats and private enterprise) in keeping the failed experiment going. There is a powerful army of snouts in the trough of indigenous aid (both white and black) who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. They like things just the way they are—broken. Incompetence, greed and corruption rule.
See: http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/letters/index.php/ theaustralian/comments/the_vested_interests_in_failure_are_just_too_powerful/
Tags: Aboriginal, Australia, Housing