indigenous politics
20 Feb 2008
The Oz Attacks Tom Calma
HREOC Social Justice Commissioner Tom Calma
Graham Ring responds to the personal attack on the Social Justice Commissioner for HREOC in Tuesday's Australian editorial
The Australian weighed in yesterday with another one of its staggeringly pompous editorials on Indigenous affairs.
The editorial team at the "national quality broadsheet" published a vindictive, personal attack on HREOC Social Justice Commissioner Tom Calma.
"Many, if not most, of the 90,000 Aborigines subsisting on remote communities … have probably never heard of Mr Calma" offered the Oz. Would the paper care to substantiate this allegation, or is wild speculation sufficient? Perhaps they could then explain, if true, why it is important?
By line three, we learn the details of Calma’s salary package. While $240 grand a year doubtless keeps the wolves from the door, it is not excessive and pales in comparison to the remuneration packages that some fairly undistinguished corporate cowboys are getting their snouts into these days.
But we had to wait for paragraph two before the Oz served up its beef. It seems that Calma had the temerity to appear on Ten’s Meet the Press on Sunday morning and call for compensation for members of the Stolen Generations. This position merely puts him in accord with recommendations 3 and 4 of the Bringing Them Home report.
However, Calma’s transgressions were to become a lot more serious - nay "worrying" - as he went on to commit heresy by expressing reservations about the NT Intervention.
The Federal Government has suspended its cornerstone human rights legislation - the Racial Discrimination Act - for most Indigenous Territorians. In Alice Springs the mechanics of the Government’s draconian and unilateral welfare quarantining regime are looking decidedly wobbly. The intervention is at best a problematic parcel.
Yet Calma’s qualms appear to have caused the Oz editorial team to succumb to a collective and quite unseemly episode of frothing at the mouth. The Commissioner, you see, is "Enjoying an upper middle class lifestyle on a salary package … ten times that of the average Indigenous Australian." Perhaps the Oz has an issue with Indigenous Australians winning well paid jobs?
After a brief outbreak of misty-eyed yearning for yesterday’s man, former Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough, and the "invaluable advice" that he is touting, it was back to Commissioner-kicking: Tom Calma has apparently "shown he lacks a basic grasp of what social justice means for those who are abused, hungry and dying 17 years too early."
Should the Oz editorial team decide at some point to forsake invective for information, they could do worse than peruse the pages of Calma’s thoughtful and rigorously compiled Native Title and Social Justice reports.
These are a little harder to read than racy fly-in fly-out exposes on the horrors of remote Australia. But the effort is rewarded.
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Fascinating, that way of arguing a preferred position - CEOs on the take, making squillions, so Tom Calma’s $240,000 is thereby justified. i.e. if your preferred guy was up on a charge, you just find someone who has committed many pf the same offences and, hey presto ! how small is the offence of your guy. Brilliant !
There are more than twenty thousand Indigenous university graduates, many finding it hard to find employment. The Indigenous community does not have to rely on any particular elite or pay them huge salaries. How much is enough ?
I’m not sure how this lamentable editorial fits in with the Oz’ call for “a new civility”!
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2008/02/21/the-new-civility/
rmg: What was Tom Calma supposed to do - refuse the job because it pays well?
I suspect the problem for the Oz is that THEY have not heard of him, because the only Indigenous policy reports they read are from Pearson, Brough and the CIS.
No, as long as he does his $240,000 job and defends the human rights of Indigenous women and children, he is fully entitled to his salary. My point was more to do with Mr Ring’s way of arguing, a principle of argumentation that if you can find a worse example, in this case of bigger salaries, it somehow makes the situation of one’s favoured person that little bit better.
As long as Mr Calma does his job, I have no great qualms about his raking in $ 240,000 p.a. Nor do I have any beef with him about his Canberra house either, as long as he extends the right to 99-year leases from himself to other Indigenous people. Human rights to me means that all have the same rights, and the same right to exercise or not to exercise those rights. If it’s OK for Mr Calma to take out a 99-year lease on his house in Canberra, where it is the rule, then it should be OK for people in Indigenous settlements to be able to do the same.
If it’s OK for Mr Calma to get a good education and a good job, or for you and me to do the same, then it is OK for every Indigenous person (and every other Australian) to do the same, and mechanisms should be put in place to facilitate this. Now that there are no hunter-gatherers out there in the remote deserts, chasing lizards and eating tiny berries and digging for deep and piddly waterholes, then Indigenous people must have other options, such as building up their local economies, or moving to towns and making sure their kids get a good education and satisfying careers. Like you and me, dear reader. Whatever right you have, we all have.
Australia should not be divided into two, one comfortable population in the cities, one tiny population festering in remote piss-ant and dead-head settlements. Those people ‘out there’ have as much right to be ‘in here’ as you do, if only because, in a broad sense, it is their country. Theirs, Mr Calma’s, and for the non-Indigenous people, to a lesser extent, mine and yours.
Tom Calma: Urgent reform to Indigenous policy and service delivery needed
******************************************
20 February 2008
Urgent reform to Indigenous policy and service delivery needed
Australia has reached a ‘crossroads’ in Indigenous policy and service
delivery, according to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice
Commissioner Tom Calma, who said today that modifying the existing system
must be an urgent priority for reform.
Delivering his ‘Reform’ speech at the Australians for Native Title and
Reconciliation (ANTaR) Queensland’s Annual General Meeting, Mr Calma said
the new federal government had been left with a system limited in its
capacity to meet commitments to Indigenous affairs and reconciliation.
“At some point, as a nation we stopped believing that equality of
opportunity for Indigenous peoples was a realistic goal. And so we stopped
trying to achieve it,” Commissioner Calma said.
He added that the commitment of the previous government to make a real
difference could not be questioned, but they had made the mistake of not
learning from their past, and not appreciating the importance of undertaking
action in partnership with Indigenous communities.
“The new Australian Government should harness the urgent desire of the
previous government to reform Indigenous affairs. Reform is necessary to
ensure standards of accountability are upheld and that a clear, consistent
vision is applied with a guaranteed capacity to deliver,” he said.
“There are some essential elements to this reform. First and foremost,
Indigenous peoples must fully participate in policy making processes.
“Secondly, it is not good enough to rely on ‘record levels of expenditure’
as the measure of progress. We should instead be setting ambitious targets
that have bipartisan support and form the basis of inter-governmental
cooperation.”
Mr Calma said the recently announced Joint Commission on Indigenous Policy
provided the vehicle for this to occur. He added that this could be enhanced
with support from business leaders, academics, community workers and others,
to ensure that its work is evidence-based and informed.
“Once goals and targets have been set, government processes must be reformed
and re-engineered to ensure that they are capable of meeting these
challenges,” Mr Calma said.
“It is also essential for Indigenous policy making to be based on a
commitment to human rights and human dignity. This requires a focus on
gender equality, the rights of children and a focus on the best interests of
the child, as well as providing recognition and protection for cultural
diversity.
“The first step on this road to reform is mutual respect and partnerships,”
he said.
Note: This is the second in a series of six speeches outlining an agenda for
change across all areas in Indigenous Affairs. The “Essentials for Social
Justice” series is being presented between February and April 2008, with
speeches available online at:
http://www.humanrights.gov.au/social_justice/essentials/index.html.
rmg1859:
Who has stopped thinking of equality of opportunity for Indigenous people ? Twenty thousand indigenous people have graduated from universities and another nine thousand or so are currently enrolled. Another hundred thousand have supposedly been enrolled in TAFE, although I could not vouch for that. Perhaps some of them have been doing genuine courses, I don’t know.
But is Mr Calma talking about remote communities ? What equality of opportunity was there for Indigenous kids before the Intervention ? And, if abuse can be controlled (and even stopped altogether, if legal services can be persuaded to do their job), and if kids get decent feeding for just a few years and their useless parents are forced to cut back on their grog and stop knocking the shit out of each other, then maybe, just maybe, they may have just a glimpse of equality of opportunity.
So how to extend equality of opportunity to Indigenous kids in remote communities - the kids, that is, who are NOT embedded fully in a hunter-gatherer economy, which would be about 100% of them. I would suggest that close to 100% of these poor kids are embedded in daytime TV, and a chips and Coke diet (question: is Aboriginal health a consequence of life-style choices ?)
Can those poor little buggers ever get any genuine opportunity stuck out in the bush like that ? Yes, if they voluntarily - and with full parental support - can get out and into nearby proper schools (i.e. within 100-200 km), perhaps staying voluntarily in dormitories during the week and coming voluntarily back home for the weekends voluntarily. Certainly not perhaps at pre-school level, and perhaps not in Junionr Primary (Grades 1-3) but from Grade 4 ? And voluntarily to bigger schools in larger towns in Grade 6-7, coming home voluntarily every couple of weeks. From there, enrolling voluntarily in Years 8 and 9 to proper secondary schools in larger towns, voluntarily coming home perhaps once a month. And from there, going voluntarily to a very diverse range of secondary schools in the cities for their Years 10 to 12.
The point about outside schools, especially those in towns and cities, is that the kids might then have a chance to observe, experience, hear about a wide range of careers, and thus broade ntheir quest for equality of opportunity.
Nobody is saying that this would be easy, but how to match education and remote living is not easy, which is why it has been avoided for 35 years (and the rest!). Voluntary enrolment in dormitory schools is one answer. Perhaps readers may have better voluntary solutions to this very difficult problem. But surely, if genuine opportunity is to be offered to Indigenous kids in remote areas, to get them out of their ghastly situation and allow them to rejoin the rest of Australia, then solutions must be found which combine voluntariness (is there such a word?) with rigour with education with career advice with genuine opportunity. And all voluntary, at least as voluntary as wanting to live in segregated shit-holes. English-language immersion of course is one of the sine qua nons of such a solution, after 35 years of the bankruptcy of bilingual education. Not a better, but a common language, with textbooks written in it, the media in it, teachers speaking it, the future work environment in it, universities in it.
Any ideas ?
I’m not sure what the idea of 99 year leases and ‘private’ ownership of homes is supposed to mean in a society that still has tribal and clan obligations. Look at the prevalance of humbugging.
It is one thing to keep local undesirables from trashing your house when you are in the city but it is another to keep your ‘private’ property private when there is still a comunnal set of rules and relationships. “I’m sorry but you are only my ‘uncle’ when you are on the street but here on my private property you are a stranger and have to keep out, so go sleep in the gutter.” That’s a big can of worms.
Maybe they could move to Canberra and leave the rels behind.
From the little I know, I don’t think that clan and ‘tribal’ obligations are all that salient any more. Abuse, violence, early deaths, utter idleness and daytime TV, incompetent management - have all conspired to destroy those fondly held myths of the white middle-class and turned many Indigenous people into individuals seeking their own salvation and security by any means necessary.
Forty-year or 99-year leases would allow people with some craving for autonomy and protection from the drunks, the humbuggers, the cadgers, the skivers, the bludgers, the thugs and the abusers (that would seem to cover all the dregs) to buy their own home (on leased land, which would always be owned by the ‘tribal’ group, with the group as a whole getting some lease fees paid for by the feds) and at easy interest rates. (Owning the home but not the land would mean a far lower purchase price).
Owning their own home would give people the security to be able to tell bludgers (i.e. relations) to piss off, and would also bring home to people the realisation that they have to look after their homes, that ther is nobody who will replace them every seven years or so, and that they would have to pay for repairs and upkeep, like white fellas do. It might start to dawn on people how much a house actually costs, in terms of lifelong effort.
Many years ago, I was driving a group of women into the local town from our community one Saturday morning, and we went past a white guy in his front garden, mowing and weeding. They were strangely resentful, saying ‘He’s got a nice garden’. I didn’t understand, until many, many years later I realised two things; that they thought that white fellas all got houses free, and that they also got someone to come in and maintain their gardens for them, fairies or pixies perhaps.
And as for humbuggers sleeping in the gutter, so what ? Would anybody actually care ? Able-bodied people should work, period, and persuaded to get their own houses, and pay for them. Accommodation costs, for anybody, rich or poor, black or white. Marx would have agreed (although not necessarily led by example).
I’m sure that there could still be some people in the remote settlements who have not yet ‘moved to Canberra’ as you say, perhaps to the nearest large town, who would dearly love to get the hell off and into the mainstream, with all its insecurities, but also with its opportunities - opportunities not necessarily for the older people but for the next generation.
I just hope that Mr Calma will ever keep in his mind the best interests of the next generation. Because if he, and others in his power positions, do not, then there will not be a next generation worth talking about.
I thank Graham Ring for his report on the latest piece of abuse from the ‘Murdochian”. I have to admit that I had never heard of Tom Calma, and have not read the “Murdochian” since 1971. When I hear that the paper has asked for civility in public discourse and then attacks someone personally it confirms my decision not to waste money on it. Its not even good for toilet paper.
I once read that the ‘Great Helmsman’, Rupert himself, once complained to a businessman that his company did not advertise in the Murdoch papers. The businessman is said to have told Murdoch that,
” Your readers are our shoplifters”. Whilst I am not seriously suggesting that people who read the “Murdochian” are evil, shoplifters or in any way nasty (maybe a little demented perhaps) the Murdoch/businessman conversation sums up nicely what his papers stand for as far as I’m concerned. Its “The West’s” Australian version of Pravda, propaganda - not news.
If Murdoch’s tattered lackeys are attacking Tom Calma, then Tom Calma must be OK. Good luck to indigenous people who have ‘made it’. Yes, there is an ‘Aboriginal Industry’ with people sponging in it, there are always spongers in every sphere and they need to be cut out of the loop where possible. But we know the ‘Murdochian’ of old and it and balanced reporting have a very loose association.
rmg says “From the little I know” then proceeds to tell us all about life in remote communities, and it becomes obvious that the “little he knows” is even less than he thinks. Most remote communities are dry, at the choice of the people. Most Aboriginals don’t drink, don’t assault others, are not sexual predators and love their children. Tribal and clan obligations are very strong, but rmg seems to think that him saying otherwise, makes it so. Finally, I have no doubt that Tom Calma has the interests of future generations at heart. That’s why he has a job with responsibilies and accountability, while rmg has only ignorance to peddle.
1. Of course there are dry communities (a majority ? I don’t know), but I’m sure that even Desertdude would concede that there would be a stark difference between the lives of people there and the degradation of human existence where grog and other substances run rampant, where most income is blown on grog and gambling, where children are not properly fed and do not go to school, where grandmothers are stood over, where domestic violence and abuse are rife.
2. I am sure that a majority of people, perhaps even in the worst settlements, are not heavy drinkers, and do not beat their partners or abuse each others’ children. Incidentally, it has not actually occurred to me that men might abuse their own children, I hadn’t heard of it often, so thanks for that.
3. I didn’t say that tribal and clan obligations were not strong. They certainly would be. In my clumsy way, I was trying to suggest that those obligations do not have the positive impacts that the stereotype portrays, that they are just as likely to bolster the worst aspects of social life. Case in point would be the corruption in so many organisations which revolves so much around family control: mention the name of most organisations and people who know them well would be able immediately to identify the family or clan or clique of related people (siblings, cousins, children) which dominates it.
I hope that Dr Calma has the best interests of Indigenous people at heart: if this is so, then he would be pretty rare in Indigenous organisational life. And I’m sure that even he would have to admit that he is well-paid for his responsibilities and accountability.
As for my ignorance, that may be, but I have put many, many years into the Indigenous scene, for no pay, going back to the sixties. And I’ll tell you this for nothing too: never again.
I have fought for my son for 12 years in that time I have tried to contact personally and through ministers and my local members they that could do something to give my son an education
Last Friday I left a message with Dr Tom Calma’s Executive Assistant Allyson Campbell at about 8.30am Qld time(real time) and on the way back from my appointment at Ipswich I recieved a call from none other than you guessed it Dr Tom Calma and we spoke for about 10-15 minutes about my sons case and a few things of my own life and from that call it seemed apparent that Dr. Calma is very much interested in a change for the better for our people but as he admits it is not an open and shut case as there are many different nations and even more different tribes
This man spoke with feeling and concern especially when I told him that my son entered grade 7 doing reading and spelling from grade 2 and maths from grade 3 and my son is by no meens from a distant remote community
Further at the age of 61/2 years of age he couldn’t even wipe his own bottom and while with independent carers cried for his mum and dad until making himself physically sick then thought that he would get into trouble for that so how many times had he done that in the 3 years before then whilst out of his parents care
Since the year 2000 I and my son have had very little contact with each other and DoCS and the Courts don’t give a damn
I don’t say that Dr. Calma can fix all the problems but he sure has the decency to at least listen which is a major start
Thanks to Dr Calma and his Executive Assistant Allyson Campbell
Thanks to the rest of you for your time
Dave Grayson
PS anyone that wants to know more on this case contact graysond49@yahoo.com