Apparently, it’s outrageous to expect ‘Australia’ to subsidise remote communities. Unless you happen to be a farmer living in one, of course.
Yesterday, WA premier Colin Barnett flagged the closures of between 100 and 150 of the state’s remote Indigenous communities as a result of the imminent transition from Federal to state responsibilities.
Which, in actual English, means the Federal Government cut its funding and the state doesn’t want to pay.
In passing the buck, or lack of, Abbott managed to put his foot in it. Just for a change.
He said that living in a remote community was a “lifestyle choice“, and that the Government shouldn’t be paying for it.
And his reasoning for not supporting the funding of these remote communities is “the cost of providing services in a particular remote location is out of all proportion to the benefits being delivered”.
Ah, “the benefits being delivered”.
Who decided what those benefits are? Tony Abbott did, apparently. Because he spends a week a year in remote communities he is the ‘suppository of all wisdom’. He used the example that it was hard in those regions for kids to get a good education. As if that is the only measure upon which benefits of living out there should be judged.
There are two important issues here and it’s essential not to conflate them because they are both important on their own.
Read more: Tony Abbott talks about living in indigenous areas as a ‘lifestyle choice.’
Firstly, every single day, the government funds what could certainly be deemed rural Australians’ “lifestyle choices”, through grants, tax breaks and all manner of things.
– The bush nurses the government funds for rural communities are providing for people’s ‘lifestyle choice’ of living in the bush and daring to need healthcare.
– The tax breaks for drought stricken farmers are paying for their ‘lifestyle choice’ to stay on the land.
– Electricity services to rural regions are usually run by governments at a loss and, again, are catering to people’s ‘lifestyle choice’ to live outside a metropolitan area.
– And the Child Care Rebate is paying for the “lifestyle choice” of having children in the first place.
All of these are examples of where the Government pays for people’s lifestyle choices. As they should. Because there are enormous cultural benefits.
Then there are examples that are far more debatable as to their justification:
– When private schools receive government funding, the government is paying for people’s lifestyle choice not to send their child to a public school.
– When rich superannuates receive tax breaks so they can retire in even greater comfort, the government is paying for people’s lifestyle choice not to struggle through old age.
– When the government allows people to negatively gear their second, third and fourth investment properties, the government is funding their lifestyle choice to get rich.
So there is no doubt Abbott is happy to fund lifestyle choices. As long as they are choices he values. And provides benefits he understands.
Which brings me to the second, and most important, point.
Tony Abbott does not seem to understand that living in a remote Aboriginal community IS NOT A LIFESTYLE CHOICE.
Read more: How Meryl Dorey is affecting Aboriginal health.
Warren Mundine, the chair of Abbott’s own indigenous Advisory Council, said “It is not a lifestyle choice for them. It is actually about their culture, their very essence, of their religious beliefs.”
And “In areas where native title areas have not been determined, relocating residents would jeopardise their claim to continuous connection to their land.”
And Brian Lee, the chair chairman of WA’s Kimberley community of Djarindjin said:
“For our people, it’s an obligation to your ancestors to look after your country and you have to be on your country to look after it.”
The absolute cultural insensitivity of Abbott is astounding, but not surprising. This, after all the man who said Australia owed its existence to “a form of foreign investment by the British government in the then unsettled or, um, scarcely settled, Great South Land.”
Do we need to make sure kids in these communities are getting access to education? Yes. But closing down their communities isn’t the way to do that. A proper NBN, regional boarding school options, teacher incentives- there are a whole host of other measures that don’t involve ripping people off the land on which they have lived for million of years. God knows we have done enough of that over the past 200 years.
This not about making lifestyle choices, it’s making funding choices as a country that makes us civilised, decent people who value the traditional owners of our land.
What do you think about Abbott’s comments?
Top Comments
Problem is: Capitalism! I m not a communist, I'm in favor of a market economy, based on resources use and distribution according to our needs and no SPECULATION; meaning: no stock exchange. They are responsible for all this misery the world is facing. This system of credit we live in is slavery. We are born with DEBT. They stretch the currency 10 times as to maximize their profits. In a system where one person makes a profit on someone else s time or work, there can never be balance. That's why our governments only think about $$$ when making decisions. Its all about balancing the budget for them. The problems we face are structural, not marginal. If we don't re-structure our system, we are doomed.
Stealing 60,000 dollars from students who have actually earned and really need it is also a lifestyle choice. But that's an acceptable one if you're a rich white upper class girl, apparently.
No, she didn't earn it. "Ms Abbott paid just $7,546 for her $68,182 degree. At the time Tony Abbott was the Leader of the Opposition. Documents obtained by New Matilda showed Frances Abbott had a single meeting with the college’s owner Leanne Whitehouse, and after graduating from the three year course was also given a job at the Institute. Internal registers revealed that unlike the college’s 73 other employees, Frances Abbott had no assigned role." And there were several other students with better or equal marks to her. https://newmatilda.com/2014... - but that's ok. It's rich white people, so no worries.
Indigenous people certainly need support and access to more choices. It is clear the way some of them live is neither healthy or sustainable - I have read and listened to their own stories and clearly there are some deep and dangerous problems to face http://www.alicespringsnews...
However, I do not claim to have all the answers and I am certainly not pig ignorant enough to pretend I am an expert on things I have no experience of - unlike our Minister for Women and Indigenous Affairs. This ludicrous joke of a man is disrespectful and crude, over entitled and lacking humility in his approach to everything.
Let us be in no doubt about this - Abbott has zero interest in helping indigenous people. He simply wants to stop them receiving any money. He is only interested in assisting the wealthy to become wealthier. He always has the funding for anything he thinks is important. He holds indigenous people in utter contempt. And that is what the country is reacting to.
We see you, Abbott. We see you very well.