Black and White Issue

The Federal Government dropped something of a bombshell last week and announced that it would be taking over the administration of the indigenous land currently in the charge of the Government of the Northern Territory.

The reason was a shocking report detailing endemic child abuse in Aboriginal communities, fuelled by alcohol and substance abuse, and the lack of any action by the local administration. Police stations, for example, had been built by the Federal Government but left un-staffed. New measures will include an influx of police and soldiers, an end to the permit system that restricts entry by non-indigenous people, and health checks, primarily for STDs, for those aged under 16.

It’s hard to see, in the face of the evidence of abuse, how this move could have copped such a bad press, and it continues to do so, with accusations of paternalism and a land-grab, and claims that the health checks could lead to another “stolen generation”, a reference to the formerly widespread practice of removing Aboriginal children from the parents and sending them to live with white families.

No one other than the Federal Government has come up a plan for dealing with the problem though and it has won the support of at least one Aboriginal leader, Noel Pearson, the director of the Cape York Institute. This interview
is highly recommended.

Controversial Cleric or Just A Boofhead?

Politics here can be quite colourful. We start in October last year with Australia’s senior Muslim cleric, Sheik Taj Aldin Alhilali who compared scantily-clad women to “uncovered meat”, the inference, later denied, being that they had only themselves to blame if they were molested by men. This provoked a storm of protest from all sections of society.

Fast forward to this week when the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, warned members of the NSW State Government that they faced consequences in their religious life if they supported a bill to extend stem cell research. More outrage, including from NSW Cabinet Minister Nathan Rees who compared the cardinal to “that serial boofhead, Sheik Alhilali.”

Another Cabinet Minister and Catholic, Frank Sartor, said the remarks were reminiscent of the Dark Ages and added: “I’m very sceptical about people who claim to speak in the name of God….because if you look at history, people have been burnt in oil in the name of God.”

No word from the controversial cardinal as to whether that’s what he has in store for Frank and any other MPs voting the wrong way, but I can tell you that a “boofhead” is defined as a fool by my Australian Concise Oxford Dictionary (yes, really), probably based on “bufflehead”, buffle being an obsolete word for buffalo.

Australia 31, Wales 0

The singing of the anthems in the SunCorp Stadium, Brisbane, on Saturday night. After that, it all went wrong. Both teams and the ref were booed off at half-time for being useless. In the second half, Australia got better but Wales didn't. There's not much else to say, really.