Dear reader, another pearler from Frank,

 

In this- un Frank has quite a bit to say about Jack Waterford, and his analysis of the 1967 referendum.

In this piece Frank suggests that more often than not the ‘Fed’s’ get it wrong on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. And that no matter how well meant, ‘the voice’ just might become another noose for First Nations Australians.

 In this regard we are inclined to agree.  After the recent inland rail report, a decade of ‘ Clean Coal initiatives’, the effort to stifle renewables, the housing crisis, the Murray Darling, the Lesser Great Barrier Reef, and just about every form of self-centred pork-barreling one minute policy we agree. The Feds have been pretty crappy on most initiatives. As the proctologist said to the amputee; ‘Not a lot of joy to be found’.

Perhaps there is new hope. For in optimism we can be willfully blind to the short- termism and craven opportunism that marks the Australian body politic. Pork barrel on….

 

Frank Writes….

 

Greetings,

I have mentioned John Paulos’ book ‘Innumeracy’ before. The book’s main premise is that innumeracy is as serious a problem in society as illiteracy.
I forget the exact quote but the section on statistics starts with “Two out of three doctors prefer paracetamol to aspirin. They couldn’t convince Fred otherwise.”  The book also informs us that hair doesn’t grow in miles per hour, which I’m glad to know.

In the gold exploration industry of which I was a part, they have something called the nugget effect.  If a drill hole strikes a rare nugget this can result in astronomically high assay results.  A prudent mining company will ignore these assays as being non-representative and exclude them from resource calculations.  An unscrupulous mining company may announce these high assay results to artificially boost its share price.  A bit like poker machines whereby the occasional win is accompanied by loud triumphant music.

Much the same applies to diamonds in kimberlite pipes. Ore sorting machines detect the occasional diamond by the high refractive index. The diamonds are expelled from the ore stream by a loud whistling blast of compressed air.

I’ve just looked at the My School website. Yuendumu school’s NAPLAN results are consistently below the national average. The mother tongue of over 90% of Yuendumu school pupils is Warlpiri.  All NAPLAN tests are conducted in English. If NAPLAN tests in Melbourne were conducted in Warlpiri, Melbourne schools would perform poorly.

Much of education policy is influenced by such as NAPLAN statistics, and just like a gold mining company which relies on non-representative nugget assays when deciding to proceed to mine is likely to come a cropper, so too education policies based on flawed interpretation of statistics are doomed to failure.

So back to the Voice- My friend Forrest Holder, after reading my friend Jack Waterford’s essay which I forwarded in a previous Dispatch, has this to say:

I reckon Jack is one of Australia’s best journalists.

I also reckon he let himself down a little with the article that Frank dispatched.  I address that herein, but nothing that I write below detracts from the very high regard I hold for Jack.

Jack got it right in stating that “we now live in a society where most citizens would not, and a few citizens dare not, express the racist and discriminatory feelings that were once … common.”

Spot on Jack, racism today is generally no longer overt, nonetheless and more troublesome for me is that racism remains endemic in Australia.

This is evident in our collective failure to revolt against Howard’s Intervention.  A failure repeated when we collectively failed to repudiate Labor’s cowardly refusal to end the NT Intervention.

Shame Australia, shame on us.

Jack correctly reminds us that 90% of eligible Australians in the 1967 referendum voted to change the Constitution in relation to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Does that mean we are more racist today than we were in 1967?

In truth I don’t think we are more racist today than we were in 1967, I reckon the greater majority of us believe, and very much want to believe, we are not racist.

The majority of us most sincerely want urgent change that will improve the lives and conditions for ATSI peoples in Australia.

The best way for all of us to effect that change is to ensure we know and understand the pros and cons of the Voice initiative, and we really need to know a salient and most important lesson from history.

And in this regard, I reckon Jack erred because he did not inform us of this lesson.

Let me refresh your memories about one aspect of the 1967 referendum.

Prior to 1967 Section 51 (xxvi) of the Constitution, referred to as the race power, prevented the Commonwealth from passing legislation with respect to ATSI peoples.

The referendum changed this and granted the Commonwealth the power to make ‘special laws’ for ‘the people of any race for whom it is deemed necessary’.

The popular campaign for Constitutional reform in 1967 was driven by the complete failure of the States in the decades following Federation to improve the conditions for ATSI peoples.

In 1967 there was a widely held sincere belief that if granted the constitutional powers the Commonwealth Government would succeed where the States had failed.

Back then nearly 91 percent of us deeply wanted the Commonwealth to improve the lives of first nations peoples in this country.

Back then Australians acted in good faith and delivered those powers to the Commonwealth.

But in our innocent naivety we believed the Commonwealth Parliament would only ever use the new power for the benefit of ATSI peoples.  Consequently we delivered the powers to the Commonwealth with no constraints as to how its new found powers could be used.

The terrible fact is that the Commonwealth has without exception proven unworthy of our trust. The Commonwealth has used the race powers three times, and each time it was to the detriment of the rights and interests of our first nations peoples.

The last time it used these powers was when Howard relied upon them to pass the raft of legislation needed to implement the NT Intervention. Note the provisions of the Racial Discrimination Act had to be suspended for the passage of the Intervention bills.

I believe Jack should have reminded us that the hopes we had in 1967 were dashed completely.  He should have reminded us of the folly of trusting Parliament to act in good faith in its dealings with ATSI peoples.

I believe this because once again ATSI peoples and their supporters are investing much hope in trusting the Parliament to act in good faith with the Voice.

And once again the Yes campaigners propose no constraint that would prevent Parliament from acting to the detriment of ATSI peoples.  The proponents for the Voice model have forgotten the lessons of 1967.

People really need to know these facts before they make up their minds on the Voice initiative.

Without such a constraint the Voice initiative is a folly.

It is terrible that no one in the media reports on these facts.  Jack should have I reckon.

Forrest.

In the Canadian ‘oilpatch’ I learned an expression “A slap in the mooch with a cold mackerel”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLdK9zaLaG8
Is that all the referendum is going to deliver?

Rudd’s Apology with its ‘mistakes of the past never to be repeated’ was in hindsight exquisite hypocrisy as a friend who was much involved in Aboriginal Affairs aptly described it.  Jack’s ‘war on terror’ by the “welfare” is ongoing. I know for a fact that the mistakes of the past are being repeated and also that despite all the NT Police’s undertakings at the coronial inquest to do things better, over the top raids by armed police continue to happen.  Like Forrest, I won’t be holding my breath and expect much improvement flowing from a YES vote.  The likes of Andrew Bolt and Barnaby Joyce are already using dishonest chicken little tactics campaigning for the NO vote. There is a new word describing what the extreme right wing media exploits, it is “angertainment.”
Anger was sadly lacking when the Intervention was imposed.

I’ll be voting YES. I don’t want to be out of touch and sympathy with the national mood as Jack Waterford put it. Neither am I prepared to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

I believe Australia has enough NO sayers for the NO vote to succeed.

Statistically the odds are stacked against the YES vote.  The system is rigged, just like poker machines are.

Let your patience be rewarded by some nice music from the Solomon Islands:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkTGKieSrP8

Frank