Opposition mounts to Abbott Government's Cashless Welfare Card

Greens Senator Rachel Siewart has made clear her party's opposition to the Abbott Government proposal to introduce a cashless Welfare Card for Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. Her media release is below.

Legislation for a 12 month trial of  the Welfare Card in a number of locations will be introduced into Parliament this week, but can only pass with the support of Labor or at least 6 crossbench senators.

The idea for the Welfare Card was originally proposed by philanthrocapitalist and mining billionaire Andrew Forrest who recommended a cashless welfare card for all working-age Centrelink clients in his 2014 review of Aboriginal employment.

The Welfare Card aims to prevent welfare recipients gambling or buying alcohol or drugs. The intention is that the card will apply to every adult  who happens to be on welfare. It is promoted as a way to stop alcohol fuelled violence and abuse of women and children.

There are two distinct elements to the proposed Welfare Card.  Firstly, the introduction of a cashless welfare payments system, and secondly, the implementation of universal restrictions on the spending of those welfare payments (including the inability to withdraw cash).

In the trial sites the card will target Indigenous and non-indigenous people and veterans, aged pensioners and others will be able to opt into the card should they choose to do so. 

In the trial sites 80 per cent of all welfare payments will be placed onto the cashless debit card and the remaining 20 per cent will go into an ordinary cash account.

However, as Eva Cox has shown there is no evidence such programs work.  She argues that such programs start with the wrong assumptions, that the spending of income recipients is the problem.

Cox argues that they can undermine recipients’ capacities to make their own choices, costs a lot per person to administer, which could be better spent on other services, reduce the focus on external problems (such as job seekers greatly outnumbering jobs and employers' prejudices affecting work prospects) and blames the most vulnerable and reinforces hostile public views

An independent evaluation of the Northern Territory Income Management Program concluded:

The evaluation could not find any substantive evidence of the program having significant changes relative to its key policy objectives, including changing people’s behaviours.

More general measures of wellbeing at the community level show no evidence of improvement, including for children.

The evaluation found that, rather than building capacity and independence, for many the program has acted to make people more dependent on welfare.

Unsurprisingly, there is division among Aboriginal leaders, with some supporting the proposal and others opposed to it.

ACOSS's statement opposing the Welfare Card is here.

Critiques of the Welfare Card proposal are here, here, here, here and here.

Christopher Chew from Monash University analyses the proposal from an ethical perspective and concludes:

In summary, it seems that the proposal for a Healthy Welfare Card is disproportionately paternalistic, rests on controversial and elitist assumptions about welfare recipients and the nature of welfare system, and will only serve to infantilise and alienate an already vulnerable part of the Australian community. It is most certainly not empowering, will not give people complete freedom and will certainly not end paternalism. Perhaps the intent of this amazing doublethink is that “welfare recipients” will become as demonised as the ‘illegal boat people’ of election campaigns past.

The proponent of the card, Andrew Forrest has contributed to this important social policy debate by dismissing anyone who critiques the proposal  as 'useless “hand wringers and pontificators'.

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Extract from media statement by Senator Rachel Siewart

"I urge the Labor party to be genuine opposition when it comes to voting on legislation that will seek to rollout the healthy welfare card trials.

“It is incomprehensible that a paternalistic thought bubble by a billionaire could materialise with the support of the Labor party, rolling out as early as next year.
  
“80% of someone’s income support forcibly quarantined to a card will make life remarkably harder for this already struggling group.

“Limiting access to cash will severely restrict the ability to budget and decision making. Whether it be at the markets, lunch money for their kids, or a bus fare – all these things add up and may not be available via card payment. 

"Most importantly people have spoken of being made to feel like second class citizens when talking about their independence and dignity.

“We know that paternalistic top down measures do not work. Income management has not worked. We know from evaluations that income management hasn’t delivered results. The healthy welfare card is just a continuation of this approach.
 
“The Government should focus its energies on a range of measures and wrap around supports; just restricting spending and access to cash doesn’t address the underlying causes and people will find other ways to buy alcohol and money for gambling.

“The Government and it appears the Opposition are desperately supporting silver bullet measures, these are complex issues that need to be addressed.

“The Australian Greens will not be supporting the healthy welfare card in the House of Representatives or the Senate. We will move to send this measure through to a Community Affairs inquiry so that it can be further scrutinised.

“We must abandon top down approaches that have failed in the past and will fail again. We must work closely with community members to address disadvantage."

Neoliberalism, market fundamentalism and the colonization of Aboriginal policy

"Neo-liberalism is a hungry beast and this 21st Century strain of capitalism is shaping the agenda for control of Aboriginal lands...........Australian Government policy is heavily influenced by neo-liberalism through its extraordinary emphasis on managing access for mining companies to resources on Aboriginal lands. This involves controlling what is still perceived as ‘the Aboriginal problem’ and forcing a social transition from traditional values and cultural practice to ‘mainstream’ modernism of a particular brand. It also involves displacing many Aboriginal people from their traditional lands and concentrating them in ‘growth towns.......To make any sense of the aggression behind most current Indigenous policy in Australia you need to study the impact of neo-liberalism around the globe"  

Jeff McMullen

The Australian journalist, writer and social justice campaigner Jeff McMullen has written two cogent and articulate critiques of the colonization of Aboriginal policy making in this country by the cancer of neo-liberalism (or what others call market fundamentalism). 

One of Jeff McMullen's articles The New Land Grab is available on line here (in The New Internationalist blog). The second piece is a book chapter titled Dispossession- Neoliberalism and the Struggle for Aboriginal Land and Rights in the 21st Century which appears in a new book In Black and White: Australians at the Cross Roads (edited by Rhonda Craven, Anthony Dillon & Nigel Parbury). This article is available here on Jeff McMullen's own website

In drawing on the work of David Harvey and others, and incorporating the voices of Aboriginal people, McMullen makes the case that neoliberalism is a key driver of the agenda for the control of Aboriginal lands and assimilation of Aboriginal people in Australia.  

Neoliberalism, McMullen argues is the ideological underpinning of a uniquely Australian strain of state-corporate capitalism that aims to control Aboriginal communities to enable exploitation of the land and mineral wealth on Aboriginal lands. McMullan argues that the real goal here is the upward redistribution of land and mineral wealth.

McMullen demonstrates the way that successive Federal and State Governments have used the coercive powers of the state to impose an agenda of modernization, control of Aboriginal lands and assimilation and assault on Aboriginal rights and culture.

Drawing on David Harvey's book A Brief History of Neoliberalism, McMullen identifies 4 essential features of the neoliberal agenda and analyses the extent to which they are manifest in Aboriginal policy making in this country:

1. Privatization and commodification of public and community goods. This has occurred through the privatization of Aboriginal lands, via policies that open up Aboriginal land to resource exploitation and attempts to override community land ownership and impose private property ownership rights.
2. Financialization to treat good or bad events as opportunities for economic speculation.
3. Management and manipulation of crises to establish a neoliberal agenda. This includes using the  Northern Territory Intervention as justification for  exerting greater control over Aboriginal communities to enable market and corporate exploitation of the minerals and resources on Aboriginal lands and the use  of 'military style campaigns to exert control and challenge Aboriginal sovereignty
4. State redistribution of wealth, not to the poor but to the rich and powerful.

Analyzing Aboriginal policy through the lens of neoliberalism as McMullen does, helps us to understand what drives social policies such as the Northern Territory Intervention and the social engineering to control Aboriginal people still living on traditional lands, as well as the aggressive land grab by mining and resource companies, aided and abetted by Federal and State Governments, which divides Aboriginal communities, and even Aboriginal families.  He writes:

'Neoliberalism connects the agendas of modernising Aboriginal culture and allowing mining companies to vigorously exploit and minimal cost the mineral treasures on Aboriginal lands'.

McMullen points to the divide and conquer tactics of mining companies and governments in the Kimberley and Pilbara in Western Australia, across the Northern Territory, on Cape York and in parts of NSW and South Australia, as manifestation of these neoliberal agendas.

McMullen is scathing about the role played by influential Aboriginal leaders, such as Noel Pearson, Marcia Langton and Warren Mundine who have become influential advocates and brokers for neoliberal policies and have gathered adherents and supporters in both political parties and corporate Australia.

Gerry Georgatos and the power of combining citizen journalism and social justice campaigning

Gerry Georgatos is a West Australian journalist who combines investigative reporting with a powerful commitment  to campaigning on social justice and human rights issues.

Gerry is  a Western Australian based reporter for the National Indigenous Times for whom he writes important stories about Indigenous and social justice issues that few other journalists are willing to cover.

Gerry is also the Principal and Convener of the Human Rights Alliance through which he has initiated  and led groundbreaking social justice campaigns in WA. Gerry is also a Phd researcher  on Aboriginal Deaths in custody.

It is this combination of investigative journalism, social and political research and social justice campaigning that has resulted in Gerry exposing injustices ignored by the mainstream media and politicians, including the illegal imprisonment of Indonesian youths in adult prisons in WA, Police violence inflicted on a young Aboriginal man in Albany and the appalling state of Aboriginal homelessness in the Kimberley region.

As well as the National Indigenous Gerry's articles also appear in many other places including Indy Media, Indy Media Brisbane, Green Left Weekly and the Donnybrook-Bridgetown Mail.

Gerry's article below is about the decision by the UK multinational corporation Serco and the WA Department of Corrective Services to deny Aboriginal prisoners access to prisoner transport to attend family funerals. 

The article will appear in the National Indigenous Times this week. 

Gerry Georgatos on Aboriginal Funeral outrage

The National Indigenous Times has been contacted by two sources during the last couple of weeks, one within the Department of Corrective Services (DCS) Western Australia and another within SERCO, that Aboriginal inmates will no longer be transported to funerals. Instead they may be left with the option of paying their respects to loved ones by either viewing a recorded or where possible live screening of the funeral and the procession while alone in a prison wing room. This has been slammed as inhumane, and culturally inappopriate by most Aboriginal Elders.

Both sources said that this initiative was flagged allegedly due to SERCO's reluctance to transport prisoners to funerals. The multinational which has the contract to much of the State's prisoner transport, and manages Acacia Prison, on the outskirts of Perth, and the lucrative Immigration Detention Centre network Australia-wide, is allegedly reluctant to provide compulsory funeral attendances for Aboriginal inmates - it has been alleged that SERCO management claimed high prison officer risk issues at funerals and also allegedly cost benefit issues. SERCO is one of the world's wealthiest companies.

The National Indigenous Times contacted the DCS, and its spokesperson Brian Cowie said "Gerry, we will have comment for you next week." 

UWA law student and Nyoongar rights activist Marianne Mackay the former chairperson of the Deaths in Custody WA contacted the National Indigenous Times a few days ago to confirm that she had also been advised that an Aboriginal prisoner was refused transport to a funeral last Friday. "This is a first, it doesn't happen that one of our people is not allowed to attend a funeral. Apparently SERCO refused to transport him and this has stunned us considering how everybody knows how important it is for our people to attend funerals. It attacks our cultural integrity."

SERCO is yet to respond to the National Indigenous Times.

Another Nyoongar rights activist, Iva Jackson-Hayward has responded with a call for the State Government to ensure that the DCS and SERCO ensure Aboriginal inmates do not have their cultural rights eroded. "The DCS and SERCO are dutibound to protect the rights of our people. Aboriginal women and men in prison cannot break their customary duty to attend funerals. It's outrageous what is happening, and it's a human rights abuse. This is all about money, and SERCO trying to make more of it by abusing the rights of our people. It is the Government's duty to pull SERCO into line."

Ms Mackay said the Inspector of Custodial Services, Neil Morgan was contacted on Friday.

The WA Prison Officers Union (WAPOU) said the State Government should scrap SERCO's prisoner transport contract. WAPOU Secretary John Welch made this call following another whistleblower's leaking of serious allegations.

The whistleblower said SERCO transported prisoners to wrong prisons, was late in bringing prisoners to their Court appearances, transported seriously ill prisoners in prison vans instead of ambulances. It was only a couple of months ago a prisoner who had open-heart surgery was returned to the prison in a van instead of an ambulance and arrived with serious injuries which the DCS tried to play down however CCTV footage proved otherwise.

All three whistleblowers said SERCO was not turning up to transport Aboriginal prisoners to family funerals, and that SERCO made no effort to account for its failure.

Mr Welch said SERCO's failure to ensure contracted prisoner transports gave rise to stress and tensions in prisons.

"These latest allegations are so serious that the Barnett Government should cancel SERCO's contract and bring these services back for the Department of Corrective Services to run so that we can be confident the community is being kept safe."

Australia has one of the world's worst prison suicide rates, with privately run prisons, according to the Australian Institute of Criminology, enduring proportionately more deaths in custody than Government run prisons.

Other serious allegations were made by the whisteblowers to the National Indigenous Times and we will follow these through.

Report card on Australia's progress in adressing Aboriginal disadvantage

This week saw the the release of the Federal Government's Third Close the Gap Report on its efforts to address Aboriginal Disadvantage.

Despite important progress in some areas, the Report highlights the continual failure of Federal, State and Local Governments (and now the corporate sector) to "close the gap".

Unsurprisingly the report has quickly disappeared from public discourse and political and media media commentary.

Rather than acknowledge the failure of successive Governments to address Aboriginal disadvantage the Prime Minister pushed the responsibility back on Aboriginal people, demanding that they take greater responsibility for overcoming the problems their communities face.

As Greens Senator Rachel Siewart pointed out it was breathtakingly hypocritical of the Gillard Government to demand that Aboriginal people take greater responsibility, while simultaneously restricting how they spend their income.

Responding to the Report's release Eva Cox questions the evidence base upon which some of the Report's findings are based.

In this piece from the ABC Drum Unleashed Aboriginal leader Bev Manton offers a sustained critique of the Gillard Government Report Card:

So it is with heavy cynicism that I greet the third annual Closing the Gap report.

Rudd made the promise to deliver a statement on the government’s progress on closing the gap shortly after he won the election. The first two statements, both belated and both short of substance were a disappointment.

But Gillard’s latest delivery is even more of a let-down, and a continuation of the failures of Rudd’s unfinished business.

While she touches on “improvements” in many of the six targets federal Labor has set for eliminating Indigenous disadvantage - without providing a shred of evidence to back her claims - a key part of her statement was a call for “individual responsibility”.

“Closing the Gap means change in people’s lives. And Indigenous people know that when the child starts attending school… when the drinker stops abusing alcohol… when the adult takes the job that is there… then change begins,” she said.

“And Indigenous people know these decisions are not made by governments. They are made by people. The job of government, of communities is to support decisions.”

This is an old cliché. A dangerous and outrageous cliché, made even more dangerous and outrageous by the fact it was uttered by our nation’s leader.

It does not reflect the barriers that have been placed on generations upon generations of Indigenous people and undermines the willpower of thousands of Aboriginal Australians who battle against these barriers.

It also does not reflect the reality of life for many Aboriginal people.

The child will start attending school, when the school is built. And when the lessons are relevant, and delivered in a language they understand.

The drinkers will always abuse alcohol, just like white drinkers do. They’ll stop the drinking when they have the support in place to do so, and for the record, Aboriginal people are more likely to be tee-totallers than non Aboriginal people.

And Aboriginal people will take jobs when there are jobs to take. Prime Minister Gillard might like to explain to the nation how her party destroyed the economies of many communities when they pulled apart CDEP.

These barriers - and more - are wholly government-constructed.

A key example of this is the blanket coverage of income management on Aboriginal residents living in prescribed areas under the Northern Territory intervention.

There is scant evidence that this compulsory form of welfare quarantining is working. In fact, there is a growing body of research showing the precise opposite - that it is undermining the Government’s attempts to close the gap. It is having an adverse effect on nutrition and demonises Aboriginal people who largely spend their money wisely.

Yet this Labor Government has committed to rolling out this dog of a policy across the nation. It will be in NSW soon.

Another example is the disastrous Strategic Indigenous Housing Infrastructure Program (SIHIP), which has blown hundreds of millions of dollars on administration and still continues to waste money while communities cry out for more houses.

Many of these communities are not eligible for SIHIP funding. None of my communities in NSW - many of which are desperate for housing - qualify either.

Last year, I visited the remote communities of Irrultja, east of Alice Springs. Despite the billion-dollar NT intervention, the people of Irrultja still live in tin humpies.

They are strong people. They are courageous people. They are people who are proud in their culture and tied to their homelands.

But the Rudd government didn’t commit funds to build houses. Instead, they were given funds for electricity meters, to ensure their humpies are powered. They were denied the opportunity by the government of a first-world nation to lift their conditions from third world.

Should the people of Irrultja take responsibility for the failure of government, like Julia Gillard seems to be suggesting?

And should those affected by income management take responsibility for the failure of an evidence-light policy?

The dominance of big powerful NGOs

Despite their rhetoric about the importance of the not-for profit, non-government sector, the reality is that Federal and State Government policy and funding is predominately biased towards large corporate and business oriented NGO's. 

When it comes to shaping public policy, attracting public funding or winning large contracts there is an inherent bias towards larger more influential NGO's and to certain powerful service provider interests.

As Gavin Mooney points out, in the health sector it is always the  interests and the voice of the medical profession and the powerful bodies that represent them, who dominate public policy making and shape funding distribution. Mooney points out that in current debates about the direction of primary health care policy in Australia, smaller community based health NGO's, such as the Aboriginal community controlled health sector, which has strong links into Aboriginal communities and represents and advocates for Aboriginal people, are being marginalized

This piece appeared in Crikey and we acknowledge Crikey as the source.

Are Medicare Locals Entrenching Institutional Racism

by Gavin Mooney*

A few years ago, together with two Aboriginal colleagues, I wrote about institutional racism in the Australian health care system.

In the last few months, reading some of the documentation around on the new Medicare Locals (or Primary Health Care Organisations -- PHCOs) from the Department of Health and Aging, the Minister and the Australian General Practice Network (AGPN), it is evident that today such institutional racism is alive and well.

Indeed it is being built into the future of these PHCOs. In the current discussions on primary health care for the future in this country, the Aboriginal community controlled sector and its voice are being ignored.

The concern of that sector at not being invited to be engaged adequately in deliberations about the PHCOs is reflected in a recent media release here in the west from the Aboriginal Health Council of WA. That states, for example: "We are alarmed that there has been so little effort made by the minister and the Divisions of General Practice to involve our sector."

I do not think this is sour grapes on their part. I share that view. The views of the Aboriginal community controlled sector are not being sought and not being heard by the Minister, by the department or by the AGPN.

The reason? The new PHCOs are being seen as just bigger if fewer GP Divisions, with a few bells and whistles (which have been forced to be?) added on. This is reflected in the fact that all 15 of the new PHCOs are to be GP Divisions-based and according to the recent discussion paper from the department on Medicare Locals the rest will be "largely" Divisions-based.

In her speech to the APGN Forum in Perth 10 days ago this Divisions-focus was confirmed by the Minister.

As one example (but there are many) in that speech, she stated that her department was engaging consultants "to develop a funding formula that will enable funding for Medicare Locals to be fairly distributed, taking into account the needs of different parts of Australia".

According to the Minister the only body that the government will consult "before finalising the funding formula" is … the AGPN! No others seemingly and certainly no mention of consulting the Aboriginal community controlled sector on this funding formula.

But then, as the funding formula, according to the Minister, is to take into account only differences geographically ("the needs of different parts of Australia") and there is no mention of the differing cultural needs of Australians, such as the special cultural needs of Aboriginal Australians, then maybe she feels no need to run the funding formula past the community controlled sector.

The discussion document is similarly neglectful of the community controlled sector.

Yes, it lists that sector as one of several with appropriate "skill-sets" that "complement those offered by the Divisions of General Practice Network". But where is the recognition beyond "skill-sets" of the need to embrace the cultural base of the community controlled sector? Where is the acknowledgment that AMSs already often have the breadth of primary care that Divisions currently lack and which PHCOs are being asked to embrace?

It is noteworthy that the AGPN has set out some good principles, including on equity and on Aboriginal health, in its ‘blueprint document’ on PHCOs.

It is most unfortunate, however, that when AGPN comes to the operational end of things, as in its paper on a framework for PHCOs, both equity and Aboriginal issues are sadly neglected. When push comes to shove, the principles in the AGPN blueprint document thus turn out to be empty rhetoric.

There is still time for Minister Roxon and for AGPN to think again.

There remains a wonderful opportunity to build an exciting, fair and inclusive primary care sector in Australia. This needs to start with the idea of caring for patients and their health, sharing the vision with all relevant parties, including the Aboriginal community controlled sector, and embracing more firmly both equity and the social determinants of health.

Indeed I’d like to switch the letters round and have PHCOs become COPHs -- Caring Organisations for People’s Health, even if not in name at least in principle and practice.

I suspect that is what Australian citizens want. It is just a pity they are not being asked.

*Gavin Mooney is a health economist with an honorary appointment at the University of Sydney

Civil society organisations lead the fight against the "industrialisation" of the Kimberley

While large not-for-profit organisations dominate the headlines (and the funding), here in Western Australia it is small civil society groups and not-for-profit organisations that lead the struggle for environmental, economic, racial and social justice. 

There is no better example than the current campaign to oppose and challenge  the Barnett Government 's plans to industrialise the Kimberley.

Small civil society groups, Aboriginal organisations and individual citizen activists lead the fight against the proposed $30 billion liquified natural processing plant (gas hub) at James Price Point in the Kimberley and Barnett Government plans to industrialise the Kimberley region. James Price Point is on the Dampier Peninsula, 60km from the town of Broome, on land subject to native title claim. The proposed hub is being developed by Woodside Petroleum and its consortium partners including Shell, BP and Chevron.

When he came to power in 2008 Premier Colin Barnett revoked a process already in place to select a site. Barnett also removed the Indigenous veto over the site and threatened to compulsory acquire the land if Aboriginal people did not agree to his plan.

The Kimberley Land Council, acting on behalf of Traditional Owners, signed an Agreement with Woodside Petroleum and the State Government in 2009 which gave in principle approval to the plant on the basis of an Indigenous Land Use agreement which would deliver economic and financial benefit to the Traditional owners and the KLC. However, not all Aboriginal claimants accepted or agreed with the KLC's Agreement and when they were unable to resolve their differences, the Barnett Government moved to compulsory acquire the land for the site, regardless of Aboriginal wishes.

Aboriginal people are divided on the issue and how it will impact on the community. Some support the proposed gas hub, but oppose the Barnett Government's compulsory acquisition of land.  Others oppose the James Price Point gas hub, as well as broader plans by the Barnett Government and large mining and resource companies to "industrialise" the Kimberley and have pursued legal action in Federal and State courts to prevent the development.

Environmentalists and citizens are concerned that the gas hub will be the beginning of the end for the Kimberley as a wilderness area and is part of Barnett Government plans to industralise the Kimberley, as has occurred in the Pilbara and the Midwest.

Opposition to the gas hub and the compulsory acquisition of land has galvanized a coalition of Aboriginal groups and Aboriginal leaders, local, state and national environment and conservation groups, local residents and concerned West Australians.

On October 16th an estimated 2500 citizens marched though the streets of Broome to rally and protest against the proposed gas precinct and Barnett Government plans to compulsorily acquire over 20,000 hectares of land at James Price Point, some of which is currently subject of native title claim. This is despite Premier Barnett's claims that the gas precinct will only be 3500 hectares in size (2500 hectares of land and 1000ha of marine area).

The WA Environmental Defenders Office, a small community legal service, is representing Aboriginal elder Joseph Roe in a legal action in the WA Supreme Court against Woodside to prevent it clearing vegetation at James Price Point.

Woodside was granted the clearing permit by the WA Government before the completion of the required environmental assessment process. Woodside claims that it needs to clear the vegetation to test the availability of ground water for the Project. Aboriginal laweman Joseph Roe argues that Woodside and the State Government have acted illegally and are clearing vegetation on a site that has cultural significance.

Remembering John Pat

photo courtesy of Deaths in Custody Watch Committee

This Friday October 8 the WA Deaths in Custody Watch Committee is holding John Pat Memorial Day 2010, to remember John Pat and all the other Aboriginal people who have died in custody in Western Australia. The ceremony will be held at Fremantle Prison, this Friday between 11am-12.30pm.

John Pat was just 16 years old when he died in a Roebourne Police cell in 1983. He  died of head injuries alleged to have been caused in a disturbance between Aboriginal people and Police, and subsequent beatings by Police. Four police were charged with manslaughter but acquitted. The death was the catalyst for the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.  

The terrible death of Mr Ward in the back of a prison van and recent Aboriginal deaths in custody remind us that thirty years later little has changed in Western Australia.

WA poet Jack Davis wrote what I believe is one of the finest Australian poems of all time about the death of John Pat.  Jack Davis's poem has been put into song by Archie Roach and Mark Bin Bakar.

John Pat
by Jack Davis (from the book John Pat and Other poems, published 1988)

" Write of life
the pious said
forget the past
the past is dead.
But all I see
in front of me
is a concrete floor
a cell door
and John Pat

Agh! tear out the page
forget his age
thin skull they cried
that's why he died!
But I can't forget
the silhouette
of a concrete floor
a cell door and John Pat

The end product
of Guddia* law
is a viaduct
for fang and claw,
and a place to dwell
like Roebourne's hell
of a concrete floor
a cell door
and John Pat

He's there- where?
there in their minds now
deep within,
there to prance
a sidelong glance
a silly grin
to remind them all
of a Guddia wall
a cell door
and John Pat

* Guddia is a Kimberley term for the white man

Noel Pearson and the shallowness of much social justice debate

Noel Pearson in his 2010 John Button Oration demolishes, quite rightly, much of the social justice rhetoric that the Labor Party faithful deploy, labelling it as hollow and meaningless:

"Whilst social justice is still part of Labor’s intra-mural pieties – a useful rallying cry for the true believers – in front of the nation at large the concept is muted and liturgical.


.... the notion of social justice is completely elusive and has for too long remained undefined by those who say they were and are all for it. Both the end state of justice and the means by which that end state is supposed to be achieved, is utterly undefined."

His diagnosis is partly correct and is a challenge to all who use the term "social justice".  But just as vague and meaningless for me is his idea of the "radical centre", which to me is hardly radical at all. 

As is often the case I find myself challenged by Noel Pearson's analysis and his intellectual critique, but disagreeing with his conclusions and solutions.

Justice for Mr Ward, his family and community

“A question which is raised by the case is how a society, which would like to think of itself as being civilised, could allow a human being to be transported in such circumstances” —Alistair Hope, Coroner (WA)

Can only but agree with the comments of State Labor Politician Ben Wyatt on the appalling response of the WA Director of Public Prosecutions and consecutive State Governments to the death of Aboriginal elder and community leader Mr Ward.

“The death of Mr Ward in 2008 was, and remains, a disgrace.

“How can we as a community genuinely talk about reconciliation and NAIDOC celebrations when Aboriginal men die in circumstances such as that of Mr Ward and the DPP does not take the matter to the court for judgment?”

Ben Wyatt has called on the DPP to make public the legal advice upon which he based the decision not to prosecute the responsible government agency, the private corporation G4S and the two G4S employees who were driving the van in which Mr Ward died.

Like thousands of West Australians I will be attending the protest rally in Supreme Court Gardens this Sunday July 11 at 1pm organized by the Deaths in Custody Watch Committee WA who continue to do a remarkable job fighting for justice for Mr Ward, his family and community. Please support them.