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G4EBT > STOLEN 22.02.08 19:30l 131 Lines 5721 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : B48036G4EBT
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Subj: Noel Pearson - Indigenous issues
Path: DB0FHN<DB0MRW<OK0PKL<OK0PPL<DB0RES<ON0BEL<GB7FCR
Sent: 080222/1725Z @:GB7FCR.#16.GBR.EU #:62602 [Blackpool] FBB-7.03a $:B48036G4
From: G4EBT@GB7FCR.#16.GBR.EU
To : STOLEN@WW
Here is a clip of the text of the Ben Chifley Memorial Lecture delivered
by Noel Pearson, Aboriginal lawyer, at the Bathurst Panthers Leagues Club
on 12 August 2000.
I think some may be agreeably surprised at what he had to say.
Quote:
In recent times I have been thinking about the social problems of my
people in Cape York Peninsula. The nature and extent of our problems
are horrendous. I will not reiterate the statistics here tonight,
suffice to say that our society is in a terrible state of dysfunction.
In my consideration of the breakdown of values and relationships in our
society I have come to the view that there has been a significant change
in the scale and nature of our problems over the past thirty years.
Our social life has declined, even as our material circumstances have
improved greatly since we gained citizenship. I have also come to the
view that we suffered a particular social deterioration once we became
dependent on passive welfare.
So my thinking has led me to the view that our descent into passive
welfare dependency has taken a decisive toll on our people, and the social
problems which it has precipitated in our families and communities have
had a cancerous effect on our relationships and values.
Combined with our outrageous grog addiction and the large and growing drug
problem amongst our youth, the effects of passive welfare have not yet
steadied. Our social problems have grown worse over the course of the past
thirty years.
The violence in our society is of phenomenal proportion and of course
there is inter-generational transmission of the debilitating effects of
the social passivity which our passive economy has induced.
In considering the sad predicament of our people and the role which
passive welfare has played in the erosion of our indigenous values and
relationships, I have had cause to think about passive welfare provision
and welfare policy generally in Australia.
The problem of my people in Cape York Peninsula is that we have only
experienced the income support that is payable to the permanently
unemployed and marginalised.
I call this "passive welfare" to distinguish it from the welfare proper,
that is, when the working taxpayers collectively finance systems aimed at
the their own and their families' security and development.
The immersion of a whole region like Aboriginal Cape York Peninsula into
dependence on passive welfare is different from the mainstream experience
of welfare. What is the exception among white fellas - almost complete
dependence on cash handouts from the government - is the rule for us.
Rather than the income support safety net being a temporary solution for
our people (as it was for the whitefellas who were moving between jobs
when unemployment support was first devised) this safety net became a
permanent destination for our people once we joined the passive welfare
rolls.
The irony of our newly won citizenship in 1967 was that after we became
citizens with equal rights and the theoretical right to equal pay, we lost
the meagre foothold that we had in the real economy and we became almost
comprehensively dependent upon passive welfare for our livelihood.
So in one sense we gained citizenship and in another sense we lost it at
the same time. Because we find thirty years later that life in the safety
net for three decades and two generations has produced a social disaster.
The truth is that, at least in the communities that I know in Cape York
Peninsula, the real need is for the restoration of social order and the
enforcement of law. That is what is needed.
You ask the grandmothers and the wives. What happens in communities when
the only thing that happens when crimes are committed is the offenders are
defended as victims?
Is it any wonder that there will soon develop a sense that people should
not take responsibility for their actions and social order must take
second place to an apparent right to dissolution. Why is all of our
progressive thinking ignoring these basic social requirements when it
comes to black people?
Is it any wonder the statistics have never improved? Would the number of
people in prison decrease if we restored social order in our communities
in Cape York Peninsula?
What societies prosper in the absence of social order?
The solution to substance abuse lies in restriction and the treatment of
addiction as a problem in itself. When I talk to people from Cape York
Peninsula about what is to be done about our ridiculous levels of grog
consumption (and the violence, stress, poor diet, heart disease, diabetes
and mental disturbance that results) no one actually believes that the
progressive prescriptions about "harm reduction" and "normalising
drinking" will ever work.
This country needs to develop a new consensus around our commitment to
welfare. This consensus needs to be built on the principles of personal
and family empowerment and investment and the utilisation of resources
to achieve lasting change.
In other words our motivation to reform welfare must be based on the
principle that dependency and passivity are a scourge and must be avoided
at all costs.
Dependency and passivity kills people and is the surest road to social
decline. Australians do not have an inalienable right to dependency,
they have an inalienable right to a fair place in the real economy.
End quote.
Not much wrong with that is there?
Full paper here:
http://www.australianpolitics.com/news/2000/00-08-12a.shtml
Best wishes
David, G4EBT @ GB7FCR
Cottingham, East Yorkshire.
Message timed: 17:22 on 2008-Feb-22
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