Prime Minister Tony Abbott has responded to Western Australian Premier Colin Barnett’s decision to close nearly half of WA’s 274 remote Indigenous communities in a way that we can sadly only now consider textbook fashion.
Abbott, who once appointed himself Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs during the 2013 federal election campaign, made the unbelievably trivial remarks while defending Barnett’s foreshadowing of the closure of 150 communities. Now that the responsibility to fund remote Indigenous settlements falls entirely on state governments (federal government provided two thirds of the required funding up until September last year), Barnett’s reasoning is that to continue to do so for all 274 communities is, unfortunately, no longer tenable.
“What we can’t do is endlessly subsidise lifestyle choices if those lifestyle choices are not conducive to the kind of full participation in Australian society that everyone should have.If people choose to live miles away from where there’s a school, if people choose not to access the school of the air, if people choose to live where there’s no jobs, obviously it’s very, very difficult to close the gap
It is not unreasonable for the state government to say if the cost of providing services in a particular remote location is out of all proportion to the benefits being delivered. Fine, by all means live in a remote location, but there’s a limit to what you can expect the state to do for you if you want to live there.”
Abbott’s remarks coincide with his rebuke of the United Nations, a report from which earlier this week found that Australia is directly violating the rights of asylum seekers and children in mandatory detention while contravening the UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
subjected to forced assimilation or destruction of their culture. States shall provide effective mechanisms for prevention of, and
redress for:
(a) Any action which has the aim or effect of depriving them
of their integrity as distinct peoples, or of their cultural values
or ethnic identities;(b) Any action which has the aim or effect of dispossessing
them of their lands, territories or resources;(c) Any form of forced population transfer which has the aim
or effect of violating or undermining any of their rights;(d) Any form of forced assimilation or integration;(e) Any form of propaganda designed to promote or incite
racial or ethnic discrimination directed against them.”
“Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and strengthen their distinctive spiritual relationship with their traditionally owned or otherwise occupied and used lands, territories, waters and coastal seas and other resources and to uphold their responsibilities to future generations in this regard.”
Even Abbott’s own advisor on Indigenous affairs, Warren Mundine, has also given a statement to Fairfax stating outright that the PM’s comments are straight up “wrong.”
“It is not about a lifestyle, it is not like retiring and moving for a sea change. It is about thousands of years’ connection, their religious beliefs and the essence of who they are.”
Photo Mark Graham/AFP/Getty Images
