Lia and Co. need to not only ‘hear’ what Yinija Guyula has to say but also ‘listen’ to him.
If the CLP wants to be relevant over the next 4 years, it needs to listen to the voices of reason and not just bulldoze its political agenda through parliament because they ‘have the numbers’.
Gerry Wood is also another voice they should listen to.
Frankly, I see hypocrisy dominating the positions of all parties to this narrative.
Representing a government department, I visited a community council. They told me I was the 60th delegation they had received in the past six months. They had smiled and said yes to all but had no idea what any of the officials were talking about. This has been the common situation across the NT for half a century, so why are we pretending there is genuine consultation about anything? It gets worse.
Legal Aid has persuaded gullible judiciary to send Aboriginal offenders to ‘homelands’ to be regulated and rehabilitated by Aboriginal Law. The reality is that no such process happens and such court orders are regarded by offenders as “getting off scot-free”. Nobody involved has the actual authority or capacity to invoke otherwise very-effective Aboriginal law.
Meanwhile, the former +ALP NT Government moved to transfer funding from the Yolngu Nations Assembly, whose membership is made up of Law men and women, to an organisation with zero capacity to function adequately. The motivation was clear: silence the genuine community voice.
Today, MLA Yingiya has accused the new government of systemic racism, yet he himself did not attend a single meeting or event designed to regulate community behaviour. Basically, he was invisible for four years or wasting time on federal issues, which is not a MLA’s job.
But the new Government has rejected any opportunity to work with genuine Aboriginal authority figures, even though full documentation has been made available to the NT Minister for Aboriginal Affairs.
So let’s get down to basic socio-economic reality: it is logistically impossible to reconstruct a sustainable NT economy with one third of the NT population welfare-dependent. Those who have invested the prerequisite decades of consultation and practical application are aware that less than 1% of traditional people have the English language skills necessary to communicate effectively with the thousands of government and NGO liaison people employed so expensively by the taxpayer. If these frauds cannot speak one of the thirty or so most commonly spoken NT languages, they are useless. An inherited suntan is not a qualification.
Before all else is achieved, Government must sack the parasites and employ people who can speak Aboriginal languages, appreciate Aboriginal communication protocols, and recognise Aboriginal law within the communities. Simultaneously, they need to grasp that hardly any traditional people comprehend anything about western law so of course they are oblivious to transgressing. But their own law is respected and feared by all so why are we not using such an available tool?
Naysayers wail about the unacceptable barbarity of thigh-spearing, but this was never a feature of traditional law and was the concoction of ignorant urban activists in the 1970s. Aboriginal law is way less barbaric than western law, but nobody wants to admit this.
So, NT Government, listen to the electorate and do not rely on your own homespun wisdom because you have none. The obvious negotiable compromise is: mainstream Territorians recognise Aboriginal languages and Law in their own home communities, and Aborigines recognise the serious offence they are causing by their outrageous behaviour in urban centres. This is what negotiation is all about: win/win.
All they had to say was, “it’s not a priority for us right now” and proceed to make fun of non-gov MLAs for having nothing else to do
Lia and Co. need to not only ‘hear’ what Yinija Guyula has to say but also ‘listen’ to him.
If the CLP wants to be relevant over the next 4 years, it needs to listen to the voices of reason and not just bulldoze its political agenda through parliament because they ‘have the numbers’.
Gerry Wood is also another voice they should listen to.
Get some action going and if not working change it. Well past time something was done to sort the mess the territory is currently experiencing.
Frankly, I see hypocrisy dominating the positions of all parties to this narrative.
Representing a government department, I visited a community council. They told me I was the 60th delegation they had received in the past six months. They had smiled and said yes to all but had no idea what any of the officials were talking about. This has been the common situation across the NT for half a century, so why are we pretending there is genuine consultation about anything? It gets worse.
Legal Aid has persuaded gullible judiciary to send Aboriginal offenders to ‘homelands’ to be regulated and rehabilitated by Aboriginal Law. The reality is that no such process happens and such court orders are regarded by offenders as “getting off scot-free”. Nobody involved has the actual authority or capacity to invoke otherwise very-effective Aboriginal law.
Meanwhile, the former +ALP NT Government moved to transfer funding from the Yolngu Nations Assembly, whose membership is made up of Law men and women, to an organisation with zero capacity to function adequately. The motivation was clear: silence the genuine community voice.
Today, MLA Yingiya has accused the new government of systemic racism, yet he himself did not attend a single meeting or event designed to regulate community behaviour. Basically, he was invisible for four years or wasting time on federal issues, which is not a MLA’s job.
But the new Government has rejected any opportunity to work with genuine Aboriginal authority figures, even though full documentation has been made available to the NT Minister for Aboriginal Affairs.
So let’s get down to basic socio-economic reality: it is logistically impossible to reconstruct a sustainable NT economy with one third of the NT population welfare-dependent. Those who have invested the prerequisite decades of consultation and practical application are aware that less than 1% of traditional people have the English language skills necessary to communicate effectively with the thousands of government and NGO liaison people employed so expensively by the taxpayer. If these frauds cannot speak one of the thirty or so most commonly spoken NT languages, they are useless. An inherited suntan is not a qualification.
Before all else is achieved, Government must sack the parasites and employ people who can speak Aboriginal languages, appreciate Aboriginal communication protocols, and recognise Aboriginal law within the communities. Simultaneously, they need to grasp that hardly any traditional people comprehend anything about western law so of course they are oblivious to transgressing. But their own law is respected and feared by all so why are we not using such an available tool?
Naysayers wail about the unacceptable barbarity of thigh-spearing, but this was never a feature of traditional law and was the concoction of ignorant urban activists in the 1970s. Aboriginal law is way less barbaric than western law, but nobody wants to admit this.
So, NT Government, listen to the electorate and do not rely on your own homespun wisdom because you have none. The obvious negotiable compromise is: mainstream Territorians recognise Aboriginal languages and Law in their own home communities, and Aborigines recognise the serious offence they are causing by their outrageous behaviour in urban centres. This is what negotiation is all about: win/win.