Howard heckled about Aborigines (fwd)

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Howard heckled about Aborigines

Publish Date: Monday,28 May, 2007, at 09:16 AM Doha Time
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=151738&version=1&template_id=39&parent_id=21

An Aboriginal busker performing on a didgeridoo for tourists in front of the
Sydney Harbour

SYDNEY: Prime Minister John Howard was heckled yesterday as he acknowledged
some of Australia’s Aborigines still lived on the fringes of society 40
years after a landmark vote recognising them as full citizens.

At the end of a speech at a ceremony in Canberra, an indigenous woman stood
and shouted at him: “We have been genocided by your government and your
court.”

The outburst was greeted with loud applause by the audience of 400 people,
but Howard made no comment.

He acknowledged that too many of the hopes of those who campaigned for the
1967 referendum were still unrealised.

“As prime minister, I’m very conscious of that,” he said.

“The right of an Aboriginal Australian to live on remote communal land and
to speak an indigenous language is no right at all if it is accompanied by
grinding poverty, overcrowding, poor health, community violence and
alienation from mainstream Australian society.”

But he warned the cycle of disadvantage would only be broken if Aboriginal
communities worked with the government to better their lives. “This vision
can only be realised within a culture of shared responsibility.”

The historic referendum in 1967 was to include Aborigines and Torres Strait
Islanders in the census. Backed by more than 90% su pport of Australians,
it meant Aborigines would no longer be counted among flora and fauna like
kangaroos and koalas.

It also gave the government powers to legislate on indigenous issues in the
hope that the lives of Aboriginal Australians could be improved.

Aborigines, who lived a nomadic existence until European colonists arrived
in the late 18th century, make up about 2.3% of Australia’s 20mn people.

However, four decades after the vote, Aborigines are the most disadvantaged
group, often living in remote areas with limited access to health care, and
have a life expectancy 17 years lower than other Australians.

Indigenous infant mortality and coronary heart disease rates are three times
higher than for non-indigenous Australians, and Aborigines are
over-represented in jails, making up 25% of the prison population.

In some areas, their living standards have actually gone backward since the
referendum, Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough said.

Brough said that for Aborigines living in cities and major regional areas,
there had been enormous progress during the past 40 years.

“There are hundreds, thousands of indigenous people that have been through
university, who have got houses and all of the normal things that all of us
take for granted, jobs, trades, etc,” Brough said.

“But then there is the other side of the coin. In remote communities,
commonly known as the long grass, in other words the fringes of town, there
has been, I believe, not just no progress but in some cases we’ve gone
backwards.”

Commemorations were held around the country to mark Sunday’s anniversary,
but prominent indigenous leader and land rights campaigner Galurrwuy
Yunupingu said he would not be celebrating.

He said Aborigines should have been “left as the indigenous of Australia”
and “given our own sovereignty.”

Fred Chaney, a former Aboriginal affairs minister who is now working for a
non-government organisation, said governments had failed in the area of
life expectancy.

“It overlays a whole lot of other social statistics, in education, in
employment, health and so on all of which need attention, but life
expectancy is a reminder that we’re doing worse than the US, worse than
Canada and worse than New Zealand.” – AFP