Post by Pirostitch

With the passion and extremely strong feelings shown on this topic, how can we as the current generation move on from this?

I think the question is what can we do to heal the divide this is actually going to expose? Less than an hour and a half later: show me the money. Instead of doing something real, such as the intervention in the Northern Territory, we're now going to spend time and money debating why we should assume guilt, what that means, why its right or wrong, and why we shouldn't be paying for it either way.

Sorry for the confusion, but I'm not talking about this topic anymore. I'm talking as a nation, given the reality of our issues (which isn't unique to Australia but in reality happens everywhere else), how do we build from these lessons of history? With such a huge focus on money, status, etc these days, it's no wonder why depression is starting to take a stranglehold on people.

No I'm not looking at life through rose coloured, leftist glasses, not for a minute, not for a second. I'm suggesting that given the current harsh struggles that we face daily, it's possible to change the future for the better.

Too often we think that money is the solution to all our problems. Agreed that we need it to survive, but throwing money to fix a solution isn't necessarily always the best course of action. Issues can always only be solved at the grassroot level and that is within the individual. One of the main reasons why this type of approached is scorned on is that it takes longer. Yes it takes longer, however the effect it has will last even longer than just focussing and throwing money around.

oh this money talk just makes me sick. they dont need money, they need infrastructure and help. they need alcohol rehabilitation and education and counselling and a lot of other things, throwing money in without a detailed plan of how exactly they are going to help is only going to make a bad situation worse.

Throwing money at these problems has been largely responsible for growing the problems, and creating new ones. People don't learn when they're simply given things, you need to earn to learn.

well i never saw this coming

Neville Austin launches first stolen generations claim in Victoria

UP to 40 indigenous Australians are preparing compensation claims against the Victorian Government following this week's official apology to the Stolen Generations.

Victorian man Neville Austin, 44, is planning to launch Victoria's first Stolen Generation claim.

His solicitors have briefed barrister Jack Rush QC, who was part of the legal team that won a $4 billion payout from James Hardie Industries for former workers exposed to lethal doses of asbestos.

But the head of Stolen Generations Victoria and Mr Austin's cousin, Lyn Austin, said while she could not comment on Mr Austin's case, dozens more were preparing similar claims.

"I cannot make comment on that case at all, but ... I do know that there are another 30 or 40 that are going to be doing a civil action claim," she said on ABC Radio in Melbourne.

"They have a right to pursue a claim if they wish, they were removed through the policies that were upon them.

"It should be left for the courts and people to have that choice and make a choice of whether they take a civil claim individually or class action."

Mr Austin's writ is yet to be filed and does not nominate a payout figure, but claimants in other states have won between $350,000 and $500,000.

Fellow Victorian Bruce Trevorrow won $775,000 when a South Australian court ruled his removal from his family caused long-term depression.

State fund

Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency chief executive Muriel Bamblett said a state compensation fund would address concerns that urban Aborigines' plight was being overlooked.

"There is a real concern in Victoria we are not viewed as Aboriginal or part of the stolen generation process," she said. "A fund would generate a lot of goodwill."

Stolen Generations Alliance spokeswoman Karen Mundine said state-based compensation remained an option: "It's up to the states to decide."

Position remains

Aboriginal Affairs minister Richard Wynne said the Victorian Parliament had already apologised to the stolen generations.

"No compensation has flowed from this," spokesman Ben Ruse said.

"We support the national apology but our position on compensation has not changed."

WA will set up a fund for those abused in state care, including stolen generations members.

Queensland and NSW have rejected the idea; Tasmania has set aside $5 million for surviving stolen generations members and the children of those who have died.

source: the herald sun

Up to 40. And in the same week? Hardly surprising.

For me, however, money isn't really the issue here. If they were truly stolen, as in kidnapped, and they can prove it then they should be compensated. But such a case is yet to present itself.

Take Neville Austin as in this case. He wasn't stolen. From memory, he was taken to hospital by a relative who told police that his dad was dead and his mother incapable of looking after him due to alcohol. After about six months without his parents trying to find him he was put into the foster care system. Six months without searching for your child speaks volumes about being stolen vs. being helped.

First part of the sorry plan? Pre-schools. Kids who will never go to a primary or high school are going to be given pre-schools. Where they'll find the people to run them, heaven knows.

And why sorry is to feel good, not change anything;

Lara Wieland spent eight years working as a doctor in Aboriginal communities in Cape York, and has a message for those who cheered Kevin Rudd for promising to never, never again have policies to remove black children. And her account also suggests why many still somehow believe the saved were really stolen:

I could not fathom the possibility that so many people in a community would not care about their children. The dysfunction has become so deep that many people do not even realise the damage that is being done to their young people.

They hardly bat an eyelid at events that would make your stomach churn. A young mother in a drunken state beats her young child with a stick and screams that she is going to kill him. The next day, that same mother, sober, hugs her child and does not even think about the lasting emotional scars. Why would she when her mother did the same to her, and her neighbours do the same, and no one has ever told her that it is wrong?

Children who have had sexually transmitted diseases and have been raped and molested are now parents. No one ever helped them or told them that what happened to them was wrong or not normal. Todays teenage parents grew up in homes with hardly any furniture or toilet paper or soap or toothpaste.

They dont know what it means to make your child wash with soap in the shower or brush their teeth at night. They eat meals that materialise - if theyre lucky - occasionally around pay day

Boys raping younger boys becomes just boys playing gay - to be told off. Yes, young boys do often engage in explorative sexual play but that is completely different to non-consensual acts where pre-pubescent boys sodomise little kids with objects while they scream out no, or where older teenagers or adults watch as they make younger teenagers rape little kids, who then have nightmares....

I can see now what I couldnt understand before - why a person could feed their child hardly at all, sporadically send them to school, yell at them, criticise them, beat them and then still genuinely be heartbroken, despairing and confused when their child is removed from them. Some people, in their heart, really didnt realise that what they were doing was so bad. In fact, youll often hear someone say, But why did I lose my kid for that when I know many other families who are doing the same or worse?

Dysfunction is so entrenched that large swaths of the populations children could meet the definition for removal because of abuse and/or neglect. It is impossible to remove all the children who would meet the criteria for removal. Certainly, children who are at immediate risk or who are in an unsafe situation must be removed immediately, and away from the community

If we dont act urgently, it will be too late for this generation, who will be incapable of functioning in anything other than the surreal world of a dysfunctional community, if that can be called functioning. Children in the middle years - say, Year 4 onwards - need to be given a chance to have a good academic, social and family education This could be achieved by offering homestays during the school term with loving, functional families - someone has suggested that there must be hundreds of good, functional indigenous families in towns who could take a child during school terms and make a difference.

Non-indigenous families could also contribute to this. Before people start expressing their horror, I cannot tell you how many times I have been begged by people from the communities to take their young children to live with us to give them a better life...

But as Rudd so recklessly, so foolishly, so dangerously promised, never, never again will we do such a racist thing. God save these children, because this government surely will not.

A month after Kevin Rudds disastrous sorry:

ELDERS from a far north Queensland community are calling for the removal of children in the face of a comprehensive breakdown of social standards.

Several members of Aurukuns community justice group, led by Martha Koowarta, widow of a local land rights hero, are urging outsiders to take children from age nine for their safety and education.

Sorry, children, but Rudd promised wed never, never again rescue you. See all the fuss the last time that was tried.

First the sorry, now Parliament considers the compo:

A BILL that aims to pay compensation to victims of the stolen generations will be examined by a Senate committee.

Democrats Senator Andrew Bartlett today said the Senate Legal and Constitutional Committee would hold an inquiry into his Stolen Generation Compensation Bill 2008. Under the bill, applicants - who could include living descendants of indigenous stolen generation members - would be paid out of a Stolen Generations Fund

If people in the community who support compensation do not make the case now, the opportunity could well be lost for good, Senator Bartlett said.

What opportunity, Senator? You mean the opportunity provided by Kevin Rudds sorry? The sorry he swore wouldnt generate claims for compensation?