Forrest Review – Comments from an Aboriginal Business and Organisation.
Ron and Mena Bradfield partners in BIDES (an Aboriginal Company), also providing
Management to Yulella Inc, a very successful Aboriginal Economic Development
Organisation in Meekatharra WA.
Comments About Aspects of the Review:
1. It is a pity that there is no mention of the fact that the problems besetting the majority
of Aboriginal people are a direct result of the separation of them from mainstream
society for so long, that there are two different understandings of life with so many
subtle differences that they are often difficult to articulate, and only people who have
been immersed in both Indigenous and Mainstream societies at the same time, can
see. Forrest says that the situation is a result of “unemployment, welfare dependency,
poor choices, limited capacity, remoteness, and a lack of education, prenatal care and
early childhood development”, when the separation, banning from education,
relegating to reserves with no housing or decent ablutions, caused Indigenous people
to not even have the same understanding and expectations from life as the rest of us.
Couple that with the interference of missionaries of every persuasion, and the results
have been catastrophic.
2. He is absolutely right “that service delivery be consolidated in responsible, properlygoverned first Australian organisations”.
3. He is also exactly right when he says “We have got a juggernaut of spending that is
wasted because Aboriginal people are not appropriately engaged with the solutions.
When Aboriginal people are engaged with the solutions, not only do they work but
the self-esteem within the Aboriginal community rises”. We do believe that the word
Juggernaut is a huge overstatement however.
4. It is also a pity that this report doesn’t point out that Aboriginal People have a RIGHT
to be assisted to effect their own change and have the same expectations as other
Australians. Non-Aboriginal Australians have grown fat on the proceeds of stealing
Australia’s assets from the original owners, and then marginalising them so that they
received no benefits from its productivity. Aboriginal Australians are where they are
because of what the rest of us did to them, and it is now up to us to spend whatever it
takes to get things right. We need to ignore the protests of the ignorant and bigoted,
tell the racists to “bugger off,” if they don’t like it, and look our history, with all of its
truly dark pages, fully in the face and do something to correct it. This includes telling
history as it actually was in schools and universities, instead of the whitewashed
version far too many Australians want to see.
5. It is hardly unexpected that education is viewed sceptically by many Aboriginal
people. In remote areas there are many Aboriginal parents who had a fair to decent
education, but where did it get them? Unemployed and living on welfare. If we want
Aboriginal parents and children to value education, we have to prove that it results in
something worthwhile, like a good job that the worker values because he/she likes it,
receives good pay and has an equal chance to have a good lifestyle.
6. Universal education for children was enacted to ensure that parents did not keep
children at home working instead of getting an education. So there were penalties for
not complying, meant to deter selfish parents. In those days the vast majority of white
Australians recognised the value of education and it was a very small proportion who
were selfish enough to view child labour as more important. Today the situation is
really “why should I send them? What good did it do me?” Make education really
equal, and relevant, and you’ll get children to come. Aboriginal people are adept at
refusing to comply just because they’ve been told to. Punishing or jailing them over
this issue would be useless and may be counter-productive.
7. The point about secondary education is that if the school is too small, then the
children are never going to get a decent secondary education. I know District High
Schools (K to 12) that have not been able to offer manual arts or domestic science for
more than a decade. Neither do they have science rooms to do practical work, let
alone a science teacher. Children in these circumstances should be boarded in large
centres where there are schools that offer a good secondary standard of education. I
have spoken to remote Aboriginal parents on many occasions going back 25 years,
and that’s what they want for their kids. They even offered to send community people
with the children to act as house parents. Sure this will cost, but don’t focus on that,
focus on the outcomes. Then work with communities to modify their cultural
timetable to allow for local ceremonies and education to happen in school holidays (I
agree with Forrest on that).
8. There is a serious problem with the Remote Jobs and Community Program (RJCP). It
benefits far too many areas that are not remote, and that funding then does not go to
remote areas. There is therefore much less funding available through this program to
remote areas that there was before it was implemented. The senior DEEWR staff will
deny this, but careful analysis will show it is otherwise.
9. You should not deny training to any Aboriginal person just because it is not linked to
a job. The problem with this approach is that we then don’t allow Aboriginal people
to train in a career that has job prospects, like other Australians do. What needs to be
done is that the training needs to be aligned with a career pathway, and we should not
get unduly hung up if an individual changes his/her mind.
10. Drivers licences should not be unique to an Aboriginal person’s location. What we
need to do is get quality training out there for real licences, as that makes people
mobile in respect to job advancement.
11. We need to look seriously at granting freehold title to Aboriginal groups where it is
possible. Land represents the key asset recognised by financial institutions for loans
that lead to economic development. Sure this would cause problems with things like
rates, but that can be handled by moratoria, or by having low rates for unimproved
land, or even by waiving rates until land gets developed, just like what happens for
UCL right now. This would really empower people to get on with their own futures,
and save a lot of money on bodies corporate, and Native Title Rep Bodies.