When it comes to youth incarceration, black or white, I reckon the moment disenfranchised kids from horrid home situations come to the courts attention, especially for Ice/ drug offences, there should be some "Educational" facilities, where they live in 5 days a week, until they achieve a certain level of education, (Including cultural studies for indigy kids) and a pass in a "Life skills" component, & dependent on age, maybe a job procuring qual, (eg: Pre App), & maybe, an actual job to go to, before they are allowed to stop attending.
In most cases it comes down to a lack of parental guidance or interest, if there is a functional parent at all, and all they need is some TLC & direction before they stray too far and fall into emulating what they grow up with, & see around them.
The earlier you can take them in & get started the better.
Now those against would likely argue (screech) “The Cost”… “The Expense”, but the money saved from non re offending / jail time, & gained from gainfully employed taxpayers, would smash any economic concerns.
Isn’t that in some ways like what the old missions were supposedly trying to do? If you are talking about forcibly removing young offenders away from their family & trying to re-educating them in a facility then I think you are going to have massive opposition to this type of program. I think it sounds like a plan that may work but I think it will be viewed like stealing the children & the re-education viewed as trying to erase their culture. Is having a job, paying tax & living a more westernised lifestyle actually something they want or even something we believe they should aspire to? I think that’s a massive part of the problem particularly for remote communities. I have no doubt at all that education, employment & economic stability are vital in fighting the lure to crime but again these are western concepts & standards. Is some form of assimilation the aim or not?
I think it is a great speech, dismantling some of our iconic verses and premises this country was built on and saying, let’s look at them from the perspective of the people who had already been here 60,000 years. I love the invitation/challenge for our national anthem to ring true when it says Australians “all” let us rejoice.
He didn’t fully unpack the we are young and free part though. I personally cannot take our national anthem at all seriously because it celebrates that we are a “young” country, we should be able to celebrate we are the oldest country in the world with the oldest continuous culture.
When we can fully celebrate all the peoples of Australia and acknowledge our full history and completely do away with the nonsense/insult of “Terra Nullius”. Terra Nullius was originally used as a “legal” premise for Christians to dispossess non Christians from their land about 1000 years ago, and despite the “enlightenment” not a lot had improved by 1770.
Personally I don’t think we should become a republic until we can fully acknowledge the Aboriginal part of Australia’s history, and have a constitution, national anthem and flag that acknowledges it. The more important part though is getting to that point through genuine reconciliation. I could get into writing an essay on making a genuine effort into improving the health, social and economic wellbeing of Aboriginal people, but I have already written more than most will want to read. The thing I believe is key however is an attitude of respect for Aboriginal people, and sadly on an official level that is still lacking as evidenced by the key symbols and legal foundations of this country.
I agree with Stan, we are better than our history, and an important part of transcending it is acknowledging it, owning it and genuinely and meaningfully changing our national symbols and foundations and officially embrace the Aboriginal foundations Australia was built on.
ok, so I have many different types of friends on FB with many different views on this. I tend to stay out of it. But one thing has got me thinking.
One of my indigenous friends was saying that she dosnt really have a problem with us all celebrating what a great country we all live in, its the actual date. A date that marked massacres and genocide, and if the date was changed it would be different.
So, what date is appropriate, what date wouldn’t offend anyone?
I gave this some in depth thought the other day, & had the idea that when (not if) we become a republic, that will be the day when Australia as a truly fully independent nation actually comes into being.
And, understanding that the whole pop champagne corks on the day that the trad owners regard as the marking of the death of their 40,000 year way of life is completely disrespectful & wrong, then the day we are proclaimed free of Mother Englands apron strings in entirety, could, & should become the brand new Australia day, … the day of our true & full Independence.
Takes care of all the issues in one fell swoop. I don’t really care what day they decide on.
Edit: Maybe the old Guy Fawkes day … or The anniversary of the Eureka Stockade.
I mostly loved the speech, and the passion in the speech.
Tell ya what I didn’t like, though.
Why is it that people feel the farkin need to say 'we’re better than that! your’e better than that!"???
You know what?
NO YOU FARKIN ARE NOT BETTER THAN THAT!
Or your actions would be different.
I mostly loved the speech, and the passion in the speech.
Tell ya what I didn't like, though.
Why is it that people feel the farkin need to say 'we're better than that! your'e better than that!"?????
You know what?
NO YOU FARKIN ARE NOT BETTER THAN THAT!
Or your actions would be different.
ok, so I have many different types of friends on FB with many different views on this. I tend to stay out of it. But one thing has got me thinking.
One of my indigenous friends was saying that she dosnt really have a problem with us all celebrating what a great country we all live in, its the actual date. A date that marked massacres and genocide, and if the date was changed it would be different.
So, what date is appropriate, what date wouldn’t offend anyone?
It doesn’t.
It marks the day that Europeans colonised Australia, which is the precursor to everything, good and bad.
It’s the germination of every step of progress and every massacre, but it doesn’t mark any of them.
There’s no more appropriate date. It is the date.
But there were no massacres, no genocide, not even the thought of plans for either, that day.
That day, Governor Phillip raised the English flag on Australian soil and said this is going to be a European settlement, by which he probably meant about a hundred square miles.
Then history happened.
It does symbolically, not literally.
In the same way as Australia Day doesn’t literally celebrate the invention of the Hills Hoist, AC/DC, and Cathy Freeman lighting the Olympic flame.
When everyone accepts the duality of Australia Day, that it marks both mourning and achievement, it might just change from our most vacuous National day to our most mature.
Changing the date is a cop-out, and quite frankly a lie.
Eh, it’s just what I think, I’m not trying to write poetry here.
It’s not the view I’ve always held, but that’s what it is now.
To change the date of Australia Day would actually be denying history, and I don’t think we should do that.
It would marginalise (if not demonise) Invasion Day if AD were to change anyway.
It should be both. It should be one.
On the 26th of Jan 1788 the first Australians probably welcomed the strange new arrivals to their country. Just like in 2013, when we welcomed an investigation into our football club…
It does symbolically, not literally.
In the same way as Australia Day doesn't literally celebrate the invention of the Hills Hoist, AC/DC, and Cathy Freeman lighting the Olympic flame.
When everyone accepts the duality of Australia Day, that it marks both mourning and achievement, it might just change from our most vacuous National day to our most mature.
Changing the date is a cop-out, and quite frankly a lie.