Stronger Futures, as seen from poles apart

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The Aboriginal affairs battleground shows just how far apart the two major parties are on this vital topic in the lead-up to the September 14 Federal elections.
 
“Stronger Futures is delivering more jobs for Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory,” intone Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin and Labor Member for Lingiari Warren Snowdon (at left) in a media release.
 
“NT Stronger Futures is a flop,” counters Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Territory Senator Nigel Scullion (at right).
 
Mr Snowdon, apparently with a straight face, takes a bow for having created jobs for 760 Aboriginal people in “services delivered under Stronger Futures,” including 350 in Community Night Patrols; 189 in the School Nutrition Program; 47 as Youth in Community workers, 28 in playgroups, 26 in crèches and 24 as Indigenous Engagement officers – not a single job in the mainstream economy.
 
Hits back Senator Scullion in a release – also apparently with a straight face: “The Coalition will empower Aboriginal people through economic development, not create more welfare jobs and a bureaucrat’s paradise.”
 
He says the program’s first six-monthly report “is full of Government propaganda but shows that over seven years Labor dropped the ball on the intervention and failed to empower Indigenous Territorians by getting people off welfare through economic development.
 
“The jobs Jenny Macklin gloats about in the report are Government welfare jobs, such as night patrols and other make work programs that simply reflect the continuing level of dysfunction in Indigenous communities. The key requirements for economic development are education and real jobs, neither of which Labor offers.
 
Says Mr Snowdon: “The best thing we can do for Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory is to make sure there are good jobs available in their communities. The report shows progress is also being made in other areas, including in early childhood development and education. The proportion of Aboriginal children in the Northern Territory who are vulnerable on two or more indicators in the index fell from 47 per cent in 2009 to 38 per cent in 2012.
 
“We are seeing more young people finish year 12, children are being fed and more people have a decent house to live in.”
 
Senator Scullion: “Macklin should explain why Indigenous education results have gone backwards under Stronger Futures, with atrocious NT NAPLAN figures, such as Year 9 persuasive writing where only 3.3% of very remote Indigenous students in the NT met the national standard, or Year 7 persuasive writing, where it was just 7.1%.”
 
Stand by for more.

5 COMMENTS

  1. All schools should feed all kids.
    I am so sick of the segregation implemented by the Federal Government. All kids should receive the best care. This is the way it should be. A home to live in that is not swamped by relatives and the negative behaviour. Then education.
    Education if it is not reaching our kids and engaging them change the format. We need kids engaging with each other get rid of the segregation set up in schools and other education venues. Socialist governments have no place in a democracy. We will end up like Greece more government employees and less private business. Socialist governments are one step away from communism. What Warren and other ministers who support segregation so easily ignore is what they are pushing in policy is the most sinister form of racism. Racism is alive and well in Labor’s joy in what they have done for indigenous people. No racism would be what they have done for Australia.

  2. Crikey, confusion reigning on Planet Janet today. Segregation? Socialism? Democracy? Her response is like the Book of Revelation, full of sound and fury, but no clear meaning brought to bear on the issue in hand. I think it can be interpreted as meaning whatever Warren Snowdon and Labor say, she’s against it, even if they didn’t say it.

  3. Warren Snowdon supports segregation, in particular segregation separating families on grounds of race.
    Warren Snowdon maintains segregationist land management preventing communities from developing themselves towards their potential.
    Our family was ordered from Kintore by the Central Land Council with Warren Snowdon refusing to respond to requests for assistance.
    After three years CLC acknowledged my wife and our children as “Traditional Owners” with right to live at Kintore.
    My long term refusal to discuss my racial identification – other than admit am Australian by birth, was enough for the CLC to claim the Aboriginal Landrights (NT) Act requires we obtain a lease to enjoy the right to live together, to receive our visitors whoever they were.
    Central Land Council, Haasts Bluff Land Trust, refused to provide leases.
    Recently it became possible to drive on the road out front of the house they are in, but not to enter, as I am still without leases.
    Still no right to live together, no right to receive visitors at Kintore, and no right to exclude others.
    So my family and relations live at Kintore in houses without right for me to visit them in their houses.
    When the ANC were visiting they were horrified asking why we allowed apartheid be built while they still struggling to remove it.
    Warren Snowdon and others still support apartheid, apartheid still strangles progress.

  4. Janet, Greece was stuffed by rampant capitalism, due to bad deals run by Goldman Sachs and their corrupt elite not paying their due taxes … no socialism there.

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