What does labour have to say R.e Obstructing Goverment attempts to help Aboriginal Children?

Question

On the Sunday program (channel 9 26/08/2007) It was revealed that While Labour was publicly supporting the Liberals plan to assist the Aboriginal children, behind the scenes, they were actually going out to communities and instructing aboriginal community members not to cooperate. This is a serious issue. How can Labout play polical points games with the welfare of aboriginal children? Any one who missed that report on sunday, I suggest you watch it to get some perspective

Answer 1

If this issue were really about the welfare of Aboriginal children, this behaviour would be extremely questionable. But there is more to this than meets the eyes.

The Howard Government has been kept informed over the past 5-7 years of the situation regarding child abuse and family violence in remote Aboriginal communities. Even though the NT government pleaded for intervention by the Federal Government, over that same peiod, 85% of federally funded programs and services to Aboriginal communities had been gradually withdrawn. So, of course the NT government could do little to address the situation. Given there demonstrated indifference to the issues that were brought starkly to their attention - why did the Federal Government act now, especially in such an uncharacteristically dramatic manner?
In 2006, Mal Brough, Minister for Indigenous Affairs, went around offering Aboriginal communities truck loads of money to give up their land leases to the Federal Government for 99 years. They refused.
John Howard has a "Grand Plan" for a nuclear future for Australia. Central to this is the dramatic increase in uranium mining. Most of Australia's uranium deposits are on Aboriginal land.
It is naive in the extreme to think that this land aquisition, which cannot in any way have any bearing on the problems of sexual and physical abuse of Aboriginal children or on any of the social problems that Aboriginal communities are dealing with, has nothing to do with Howard's Grand Plan.

The Federal Government has used the issue of the welfare of Aboriginal children to gain control of Aboriginal land so that large scale uranium mining can take place unhindered.
No-one in Parliament has disputed that something needs to be done about the abuse of Aboriginal children, or any children for that matter. What is questioned, as is borne out by the recent Senate debates, is the burning question:
Why is this government taking their land?
This question has been asked countless times by every member of Parliament and the Senate aside from those in the Liberal Party Coalition, and the silence coming back in answer from the Howard Government has been deafening.

Answer 2

As far as I know, the Labor Party was making sure that the Lib's were not taking their land. This is not beyond these pack of Baskets doing this. Liberals - Humanity, Does not add up. Uranium to me makes more sense. It is so easy to slip under the radar and sell this Junk to all and sundry. First you must be sneaky and tricky and tell the Public it is in their int rest, Then just ship it out to all that have Nuke reactors to convert it to Plutonium for bombs. Some of us know the real reason. Thanks John, But you will be gone soon.

Answer 3

Liberal motivation does seem related to nuclear issues - they are negotiating with indigenous leaders for a waste facility. I am unsure what Labor's position is but the fact that they have not tried to prevent it is disturbing. How the Libs were able to cut funds for nearly 10 years is a disgrace.