Native Title and taxation; Mining and Aboriginal Communities; a Charter of Rights for remote Australian citizens

One very famous quote - full of practical wisdom - that came from 

the movie All The President's Men

The phrase covers so many situations. ICAC are busy following the money with Eddie Obeid and 'friends'.  The practice of 'following the money' unmasks criminals.  Following the money is very important in business - especially Australia's big business of mining. University of Melbourne researcher Sara Bice, in relation to overseas activities of miners, asks 

"Just how transparent are our big miners when it comes to payments to foreign governments - and how much do local communities see?"

Aboriginal communities in Australia regularly ask that question.  However, mining companies in Australia long ago (ahead of the mainstream community including our governments, I would suggest) learned that if they sat down and talked to Aboriginal communities it might take a bit longer, it might require a bit of 'splash the cash', but - by and large - they would get to do what they wanted to do.  

Many Aboriginal communities have benefitted from this approach.  Many Aboriginal businesses and some significant Aboriginal employment opportunities have emerged.  Yep - there are still disagreements, locally and nationally.  Some of these involve who speaks for whom; who are Traditional Owners.  All of this makes Aboriginal people no different from any others who are involved or want to be involved in high stakes business deals.  

Now a new issue is emerging.  Ciaran O'Faircheallaigh of Griffith University discusses here the equitable distribution of mining wealth to Aboriginal communities. Mainstream communities believe their best interests are often by-passed as mining companies opt not for building communities as they did in past decades but for FIFO.  Aboriginal communities who are unable to negotiate with a mining company feel that they are missing out on an economic opportunity.  Concerning those Aboriginal communities who do negotiate with mining companies, are they able to negotiate on an equitable basis?

Tracker, the journal of Aboriginal news, reports to-day that a Treasury working group will look at the tax treatment of native title payments after concerns were raised the windfalls could be spent without thinking about how best to benefit future generations.  

This sounds all very worthy.  However, caution needs to be exercised ... given the Commonwealth bullying in the NT of income management through the basics card; given the capacity of governments to give with one hand and take with another; given the inequitable power mechanisms that can be launched by big business and government against Aboriginal people and organisations.  

It would be sensible and good news if there was some way of ensuring that inter-generational benefits were a feature of mining-communal negotiations.  However, will this be an excuse to empower a few favoured blackfellas? An excuse to see a decline in government responsibilities to Aboriginal citizens and their communities?

Already we have seen that some Aboriginal people who have been educated to the highest whitefella levels are favoured by governments ... because the frequently ignorant whitefellas have never lived among Aboriginal citizenry and find that these big fellows speak the dominant whitefella's language.

Already we have seen how capital city citizens and governments do well and remote Australian citizens, whether white or black, do poorly.  My view is that white citizens in remote Australia do badly but Aboriginal Australians do the worst.  

All this talk about Aboriginals getting off welfare and building businesses and economies!  Please show me a first class economy anywhere involving local citizens which can function well without a bitumen road.  A dirt road in the Northern Territory in The Wet doesn't do much for people trying to establish some economic self-sufficiency. Often, communities are not far from a bitumen road that whizzes whitefellas to their destination - but the nearby Aboriginal community can only manage the occasional grade of a dirt road.  In fact, I think that if I was trying to sabotage an Aboriginal attempt at self-sufficiency - and keep Aboriginal people out of sight and out of mind, I would never give them a bitumen road or access to transportation!

Remote Australia is out of sight and out of mind from those who cling to the coastline and provide governments with the majority of their votes.  Remote Australian citizens, white and black, need a Charter of Rights.  It would be possible to do this and have people defined by their remoteness.  The tool for this already exists.  I wish that Remote Australians - black and white - would rise up against their governments. 

After all, Remote Australians have nothing to lose but their neglect!

Marine parks, marine people, and world heritage: how people can be ignored in conservation practice

The Centre for Policy Development (CPD) has to-day published a document by CPD fellow and former Work Bank economist Caroline Hoisington titled Insuring Australia's Marine Future.  I have embedded the document in this post for easy reading or downloading.

The document makes the case for marine protection.  Hoisington posits that Australia's national network of marine parks will act as an insurance policy for commercial and recreational fishing.  I support this concept - in principle.  I have grave reservations about practice based on what I saw happen in my neighbourhood in relation to the World Heritage listed Wet Tropics in Queensland.

The Bluewater Ranges between Townsville and Ingham

It is all very well to provide legislation to protect. But this is not a set and forget game. I used to live in a place where, if you went up to the end of my road, the World Heritage Listed Rainforest began .... and was uttlerly neglected. 

Based on my experience, two things must accompany legislation. Local residents must be involved and supportive. In my neighbourhood I felt like my family were the only people who knew of the close-by world heritage area even fifteen years after its declaration. The locals are important because, if something is going wrong and they are supportive and watching over the area, they will be first reporters. The second thing is that management plans for the entire area must be available immediately or almost immediately after declaration. 

The world heritage area near me - after chasing tiny sleeper cutters out on 31 December 1988 - became an area of great weed infestation and the wild pigs and cattle more problematic than they had been previously. There was no management plan for a very, very long time. The Army and the Air Force had facilities in this area but I saw no evidence that they shared an environmental interest in this world heritage area to the extent of hastening a management plan or assisting in management of the area. 

So as someone who lived beside the reef for most of her life, I am supportive of marine parks, I am also sympathetic - based on my experience of living in the shadow of world heritage - with the fishing family in the Gulf who say they have never been consulted and yet they hold extensive knowledge of the Marine Park. 

I am also unsympathetic to the scientist I saw on the same TV program who seemed to be totally reliant on far-away computer modelling and mapping. This may be a major factor in mapping marine areas. It will not, in one iota, keep marine parks in excellent condition. Only co-operative human interest and involvement at the local level under sound management plans can do this.

Further to my comments about the locals being ignorant that they were living in the shadow of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Listed Rainforest, here is an entry for the town of Bluewater.  There is no mention of the close-by Bluewater Ranges and their world significance.  In my view, this is because local people were not consulted nor were they part of the demands for the world heritage listing. Most of that noise happened in the Cairns region.  The local people feel little or no responsibility for the world heritage area.  Whether people there feel a connection to the area is unknown to me. I only know that my family did.  My late husband was a regular visitor to the area. He formed a friendship with one of the sleeper cutters who had a small mill on the banks of Keelbottom Creek.  We valued that area. Whether the sleeper cutters should have gone and the military allowed to stay, I don't know.  The sleeper cutters were a part of the forest heritage too ... but, to some decision makers, people and their social history have little value.

Further reading: Reef faces permanent coal, climate change damage

Eva Cox to Bill Shorten: stigma, disincentive, ineptitude & nastiness implementing Newstart and parenting payments

Picture at left is from here.

Eva Cox has written to-day to Bill Shorten.  

I receive the Aged Pension.  I am about to get a rise in the pension.  I can do with it.  However, I am embarrassed and sad.  As I get more, the Newstart people get a rise that borders on the infinitesimal and single mothers who are not in the workforce (as if it is so darn easy to park the kids and get off to work!) will have money taken away from them when the children reach a particular age to 'encourage' them to work.  I'm old enough to remember the outcry from women in this country that single mothers - women with children unsupported by a male bread-winner - be allowed to receive social security payments.  

My mother-in-law was widowed twice by the time she way 38 years of age - and each marriage produced two children.  My husband was the eldest.  His mother used to make pies and my husband used to sell them door to door getting around on a push bike.  There was real poverty in this household.  A household with a working mother, undoubtedly.  

Anyway, let's hear from Eva.....

18 Mar 2013

Dear Bill Shorten

By Eva Cox

Bill Shorten

Is Bill Shorten sincere about addressing changes to a welfare system "so stupid" that it can't support payments for sole parents? Eva Cox suggests that the policy itself is what's causing the grief

Dear Bill,

When Wendy Tucker asked you on Q and A whether sole parents’ benefits were targeted because single mums are "simply the easiest to take down", your apparent sincerity suggested that you might take the problem seriously. "I cannot believe that … this system is so stupid we can’t alleviate your concerns," you said.

However, your best efforts so far suggest that you haven’t recognised that the policy itself, not its implementation, is the cause of sole parents’ dismay.

To quote from your staffer, Steve Michelson’s letter to a constituent:

"I appreciate the time you have taken to bring your concerns to the Australian Government’s attention. The Government understands the difficulty many parents, especially single parents, face caring for their children while on income support."

No, your government doesn’t, or you wouldn’t have brought in the appallingly designed cuts to sole parent payments, which are not able to meet the intentions you claim below:

"Newstart Allowance is designed to provide a balance between financial support and incentives to find and maintain employment. Transitioning parents onto Newstart Allowance creates better incentives for parents, including single parents, to return to the workforce and recognises that most parents’ capacity to undertake work or other activities increases as their children get older."

There are two assumptions in this claim. First, that Newstart offers adequate support — an idea considered laughable by almost everyone but Cabinet. Second, that Newstart offers better incentives to return to the workforce.

The basic payment is considerably lower; the allowable earnings before a 40c withdrawal rate is applied are much less than on parenting payments; and most of the obligations on recipients and support on offer were there before the change. You have also cut support for new studies!

"Better incentives" ignores your own DEEWR statistic that 60 per cent of the transferred sole parents already were in paid work. Most lost over $100 per week and some lost all support, because they were earning too much. For some of them, the incentive was perverse; to give up employment because the loss of weekly income and valuable concessions made it even harder to balance time and money demands.

To say sole parents will be able to earn $400 more a fortnight is again misleading. It does not refer to parenting payment earnings but the appallingly mean means test for other Newstart recipients — which does discourage employment.

In fact, your own statistics show fewer people on Newstart are earning than those on parenting payment. This would suggest that Newstart itself is a disincentive. Perhaps starving people into paid jobs doesn’t work after all!

The new benefits are available to all allowance recipients, not just sole parents, as is the tax free threshold and other payments and services you mention. $4 per week does not compensate for losing $62.

"Parents can meet their participation requirements in several ways, including by looking for part-time work of at least 15 hours per week or by undertaking part-time employment, study or voluntary work (in some circumstances) for 30 hours per fortnight. Parents are also able to undertake a combination of activities, for example part-time work and study, to meet their participation requirements."

Two basic facts are ignored here. The first is that parents on parenting payments who had complied by taking on 30 hours paid work per fortnight now have had substantial cuts to their income.

Some now find their net income doesn’t cover basic expenses of going to work plus weekly spending but they are no longer eligible to be registered as job seekers. This makes no sense. Neither does including another nearly 20,000 sole parents who are again not registered to look for jobs because of other reasons, as will be shown below.

The Government removed this arbitrary distinction from 1 January 2013 to provide greater equity and consistency in the Parenting Payment eligibility rules by ensuring that all parents are assessed the same, regardless of when they first claimed income support.

Here the letter raises the equity issue. Some 40,000 sole parents had already been transferred from parenting payment to Newstart since the change came in July 2006. So equity for your government means reducing all sole parents with children older than eight to the lowest common denominator.

As there is no clear evidence that earlier changes increased the workforce participation of sole parents affected, this is impossible to justify. The most recent ABS data showed the annual employment rates of sole parents from 2005-2011, which rise and fall in ways that cannot be correlated with the policy changes, let alone validate any claim for causality.

A fairer equity policy would be to move the 40,000 sole parents who have been on Newstart longer back onto Parenting Payments as well as the 67,000 who have more recently been cut. Then they would have a basic frugal income that recognised their important job of caring and would be effectively encouraged to engage in job seeking and training.

These sole parents were obliged to look for paid work when on parenting payment as their child turned six, so there was no change when they were transferred to Newstart. The 40 per cent who have not been successful in finding appropriate jobs that fit around school hours are facing the job scarcity, longer commutes, biased employers and wider prejudices based on age and lack of recent experience.

Probably close to 20,000 sole parents have additional carer responsibilities for children or other adults, or significant health and personal problems. There are also some older recipients and others who are doing voluntary work as they are having particular difficulties even applying for jobs.

It is inept at best and nasty at worst to push all of these diverse groups onto a payment that is widely seen as inadequate and that does not, according to available evidence, encourage or sustain additional workforce participation.

Sole parents should be entitled to income support payments that allow an appropriate mix of adequate paid working time and time to be a good sole parent. Workforce data show that as their children get older, sole parents do re-enter the workforce for longer hours. It is not necessary to persecute them in this way to save limited funds at the expense of an already stigmatised group.

I hope that this policy isn’t just another silent dog whistle to tout conservative tendencies.

2012 Global Food Policy Report from the International Food Policy Research Institute

To read more please go here

Dale Hess's Calendar 13-03-18

Until Sunday 24 March: Cultural Diversity Week.
 For details, see: 
http://www.multicultural.vic.gov.au/projects-and-initiatives/cultural-diversity-week

Until Sunday 2 June, beginning at 8.30 am on weekdays and 11 am on weekends: 

Exhibit: Protest! Archives from the University of Melbourne. 

An exhibition of posters, pamphlets, badges, etc exploring Melbourne University's rich history of protest. 

Venue: Leigh Scott Gallery, Level 1, Baillieu Library, University of Melbourne. 

For further information see: 

www.lib.unimelb.edu.au/collections/archives/exhibitions/protest/index.html

Tuesday 19 March: Following the US to War: Lessons from Iraq. Speakers will include Paul Barratt (Campaign for an Iraq War Inquiry); Dr Jenny Grounds(MAPW); Professor Richard Tanter; and Maki Yonaha (Japanese for Peace). Venue details soon!  For more read this. Facebook.

Wednesday 20 March & Thursday 21 March, 9 am – 5 pm, lunch and refreshments provided: Anti-racism Workshop.Refugees,Survivors and Ex-Detainees (RISE) is presenting a series of anti-racism workshops for organisations. The online registration form is up and running! Resisting Racism Victoria project, the first of its kind in Victoria, which will see the running of anti-racism workshops in 2013 for staff/volunteers of organisations that service communities of colour. Register online https://docs.google.com/a/riserefugee.org/forms/d/1lR0d5elFUl-zG_eNgMxin_J79thgPk-lY4pLh6xLFE8/viewform. Spaces filling fast! Find out more http://riserefugee.org/what-we-do/anti-racism. Watch the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3HHEbT9djo.Please contact us at resistingracism@riserefugee.org if you have any questions. Later workshops 24 & 25 April, 22 & 23 May and 26 & 27 June. Melbourne CBD.

Saturday 23 March, 9.30 am-5 pm: 
Vision 2020 for Creating Sustainable Societies Event. 
Two free workshops showcasing the new ˜Jump Up" program 
for Primary school children (9.30 am to 11.30 am) 
and a 'Wake Up' Event for the young and young at heart. (12.30 pm to 5 pm). 
Click Here for further details about these free workshops. 

Venue:  Swinburne University, Wantirna Campus.

Sunday 24 March, 3 pm-5 pm: 
The Edge Ubuntu Youth Stage. 
The ever-popular ubuntu stage is back! 
It features the fresh talent of some of Victoria's most talented young performers. 
Viva Victoria Cultural Diversity Week at Federation Square, Melbourne. 
http://multicultural.vic.gov.au/projects-and-initiatives/cultural-diversity-week/viva-victoria

Friday March 29 to Sunday April 7:  Friends of the Earth's Radioactive Exposure Tour.  Register your interest now - places fill fast! These tours have exposed thousands of people first-hand to the realities of 'radioactive racism' and to the environmental impacts of the nuclear industry. After travelling from Melbourne to Adelaide we will head through Port Augusta and visit the Aboriginal Tent Embassy. Then we'll travel north to the SA desert, we'll visit BHP Billiton's Olympic Dam uranium mine at Roxby Downs, the largest uranium deposit in the world. While the expansion of Olympic Dam is currently shelved, the mine is still an environmental and social disaster in itself. The costs are: concession $500 ($450 from Adelaide); waged $750; solidarity $950. If cost is a barrier, contact the organisers to discuss funding ideas. If you're interested in joining in the 2013 Radioactive Exposure Tour, contact radexposuretour@gmail.com or call Gem on 0421 955 066. Information on Radioactive Exposure Tours in previous years is posted at www.foe.org.au/anti-nuclear/issues/oz/radtour

Register here- https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dGxZRUJlZ0xaMkpfU2loYm5INFdBblE6MQ

Friday 5 April and Monday 8 April: Advanced Community Development Course. Feel more confident in practicing community development in your workplace; Examine the issues, challenges and dilemmas of Community Development; Connect theory with practice; Hold conversations with decision makers and other Community Development workers; Access to further learning resources; Use the modes of head (intellect), heart (feelings), hands (practical work with people) and feet (groundedness); Think creatively about your organisational context; Interfacing with the wider context. Led by Jim Ife, Jacques Boulet and Rob Nabben. Contact: 9819 3239, 2 Minona St, Hawthorn, icd@borderlands.org.au. Cost: $350 full / $300 con. Both courses: $600. Bookings essential. 

Friday 19 April, 7 pm to 9 pm; Saturday 20 April – Sunday 21 April, 9 am to 5 pm: Biochar Workshop. As a soil additive, biochar offers numerous benefits. It increases the capacity for soil to hold water & nutrients, greatly reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, enhance crop yields and capture and store carbon for the long term. Learn to make and operate a simple biochar reactor; produce a range of different biochars at different temperatures; carry out basic tests on your biochars; make biochar/compost/mineral blends.  Faciltators: Prof Stephen Joseph, University of NSW, Paul Taylor PhD, Author of “The Biochar Revolution”, and Russell Burnet, Biochar Energy Systems. Workshop cost – includes lunch both days & Friday evening intro: $195 before 1st April; $250 regular price. Only $149 for extra family member or partner. Venue: Friday night: Bendigo Bank Theatre at The Capital, 50 View Street, Bendigo; Saturday & Sunday: A1203 Goornong-Mayreef Rd, Elmore. Website: http://kynetontransitionhub.com/home-4/biochar/biochar-workshop/ 

Picture from here

Sunday 21 April – Saturday 27 April: Nonviolent Action from the Strategic to the Prophetic. For young, emerging activists (18-30) who feel deeply that the present order with its emphasis on dominance and economic expansion is unsustainable, and are ready to develop commitment and skills in nonviolent ways to help promote change, this is an opportunity to learn from two very experienced activists, Margaret Pestorius and Simon Reeves.

This course is subsidized and a special application form must be used:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/jh2trfcr0dxyn5n/Nonviolent%20action%20%281%29.pdf.  

The cost for full board & accommodation, plus materials, is $200. 

Participants will cover their own travel costs, to and from 

Silver Wattle Quaker Centre Ltd -1063 Lake Road, Bungendore NSW 2621 

Ph: 02 6238 0588 

Saturday 4 May - Tuesday 28 May: The Walkatjurra Walkabout. The walk will continue to be a celebration of Wangkatja country, a testament to the strength of the community who have fought to stop uranium mining at Yeelirrie for over forty years, and a chance to come together and continue to share our commitment to a sustainable future without nuclear.  It is a chance to reconnect with the land, and to revive the tradition of walking for country. Register here to be a part of the walk:http://walkingforcountry.com/registration-to-walk-for-country/

Sunday 12 May – Sunday 19 May: Kanyini Intensive (working with Uncle Bob Randall and his family). 7-day intensive (Sunday to Sunday, plus travel time) retreat located with in the Uluru National Park and surrounds in the Northern Territory. This is a unique opportunity to receive teachings from Bob Randall on the principles of Kanyini and Aboriginal culture. This will be a profound experience towards integrity in cultural counter-flows, a re-alignment of the importance of personal spirituality, and towards acknowledgment of 70,000 years of Aboriginal knowledge and traditions. Uncle Bob will share his wisdom and belief that spirituality is the ultimate answer to reconciliation in Australia. Uncle Bob will share his wisdom on aspects of Kanyini including, connections with the dreaming, place, family relationships and the spirit. Teaching Kanyini and sharing Aboriginal culture, knowledge and spirituality with all Australians and beyond, are an integral part of Bob's vision. Further information: email info@oases.edu.au or call 03 9819 3502.

Sunday 18 August to Wednesday 21 August: JCMA's 10^th Winter Conference: Sorry is the Hardest Word: Forgiveness and Repentance. JCMA conferences are intended for anyone from one of the three Abrahamic faiths. Participants include men and women, academics, those working in support or welfare roles, tertiary students, and members and leaders of faith communities. Sunday Taster Opportunity:1 pm - 9.45 pm. Cost: $55. Sunday, the first day of the conference, will provide an overview of the main themes. People who unable to att­end for the whole conference are welcome to come to this Sunday taster. Applications closing date: Friday 19 July 2013. Conference Centre PallottiCollege, Millgrove Melways 289 A2. An application form for registration is available from www.trybooking.com/CFGA.