Whinge of the day thread...

[Manpa]

The forced removal of children from their parent/parents within days ifor even hours from their birth is an appalling thought and it is too often a sad occurrence in our history.
In SA alone we currently have somewhere in the vicinity of over 5000 children subject to welfare checks and I think over a 1000 considered highly vulnerable. Numerous deaths have been recorded over the past ten years due to failings within the system and a lack of social/welfare workers. Many of these children are toddlers and school aged, every effort should be placed on their safety but also in assisting the parent/parents with the difficulties they are facing. Hopefully this will lead to an outcome where the family unit is re-united sooner rather than later.

 

[Davent]

If you know that area, did you know Clem Coulthard (or his sons at Iga Warta and Neppabunna, eg Vince Jr, Vince Sr, Terence)? I put in tracks with Clem in 1969 during Mt Painter uranium exploration. Clem was the last initiated Adnyamathanha (yura or "rock people") man. I remember his son Vince Sr underwent Pitjatjantjara initiation up in the Musgraves because there were no Adnyamathanha elders left to initiate him. I would walk ahead putting flagging tape on trees and Clem would fire up his clunky old dozer with a spray of aeroguard and follow doing an incredible job (eg Sillers Lookout track at Arkaroola was one of his - photo).

View attachment 7414

man! Coming from the top end, that is like Mt Everest!

 

[Davent]

The forced removal of children from their parent/parents within days ifor even hours from their birth is an appalling thought and it is too often a sad occurrence in our history.
In SA alone we currently have somewhere in the vicinity of over 5000 children subject to welfare checks and I think over a 1000 considered highly vulnerable. Numerous deaths have been recorded over the past ten years due to failings within the system and a lack of social/welfare workers. Many of these children are toddlers and school aged, every effort should be placed on their safety but also in assisting the parent/parents with the difficulties they are facing. Hopefully this will lead to an outcome where the family unit is re-united sooner rather than later.

I believe in some cases, it would be preferable to leaving them with their parents.
It should be on a case by case scenario, and not be based on race. Alice springs is a case in point, where unsupervised kids are running amok, because their parents just don't give a hoot.
if you think the media is beating it up a bit, then you are wrong, the media have been keeping it very quiet to avoid controversy. The state in Alice Springs is worse than 99% of people think. And its NT wide, mainly a result of the Royal Commission.
As for assisting the parents, how would you suggest that? (Alice Springs, NT focus).
Have a look at google maps. have look at the communities in the NT, Have a look at how big the place is, and now put our population into perspective.
@250,000.
Alice is about 25,000 (60,000 including the remote communities). Darwin and surrounds about 160,000, Katherine area combined about 16,000, Gove, Tennant creek, are the other major towns, the rest are small road houses and out stations. The Alice area of 60,000 people, is roughly the same size as Texas.
If you want to get a feel how it is in the NT atm, go to facebook, and search the mango enquirer.

 

[user 4386]

I have no wish to get involved in any discussion about the appropriateness of Australia Day, and I think it is important that people remain polite on this site. However there seems to be some confusion over actual facts, which are not disputed by historians and which people should at least be aware of regarding why we celebrate Australia Day. We should accurately know our own history.
.
1. Firstly, the first fleet arrived in Australia at Port Jackson on 26th January 1788 - here is an excerpt from Bowes Smyth’s journal of their voyage

"Tuesday 25 December 1787 Xmas Day We are now about two thousand miles distant from the South Cape of New Holland, or Van Diemen’s Land, or otherwise Adventure Bay, with a most noble breeze which carries us at 8½ knots per hour, which we hope will enable us to see land in about a fortnight (page 97)

26 January … about 7 o’clock p.m. we reach the mouth of Broken Bay, Port Jackson, and sailed up into the cove where the settlement is to be made … the finest terraces lawns and grottos with distinct plantations of the tallest and most stately trees I ever saw in any noble man’s gardens in England cannot exceed in beauty those which nature now presented to our view "
(there was insufficient water so shortly after they moved on to Botany Bay)

2. Cook missed the party (and was killed a year later in Feb 1779) - he had mapped the east coast of Australia eight years prior to that (as well as NZ, Hawai etc.) He was a great navigator and the sole association with Australian settlement was that he mentioned on return to Britain that there was arable land around Botany Bay suitable for settlement. The remainder of the Australian coast had already been mapped by the Dutch, Portuguese etc but they do not seem to have been impressed by it (much being desert or mangrove swamp), although SE Asians had been trading with north coast aborigines for some time.

3. In April 1879 the first smallpox epidemic hit the settlement at Botany Bay. Governor Phillip estimated that 50% of the indigenous inhabitants died (they had no resistance to it or things like flu and TB and were devasted by STDs soon after First Fleet arrival). Because we took so long to cross the Blue Mountains we have no record of its spread through Australia, but a whaling ship recorded scars around Port Phillip Bay in 1803, 30 years before John Batman founded Melbourne, and Major Michell recorded smallpox scars on indigenous people in the 1830s as he travelled down the Murray River. It is likely that southeast coast aborigines suffered something equivalent to the Middle Ages European "Great Plague" in terms of deaths. So it does not greatly surprise me that some have negative or mixed feelings about celebrating European arrival, although obviously a lot now celebrate along with non-indigenous Australians. We do not definitively know where the smallpox originated, but the timing among people who had never had smallpox seems quite a coincidence.

3. Celebrations on 26th January of the landing of the First Fleet go back to 1808, but were first officially celebrated in 1818 and continued on that date until 1901 (Federation) as a celebration of the forming of the Colony of New South Wales because of the First Fleet landing (i.e. of all Australian inhabitants becoming British colonial citizens at that time), although the Colony was only actually proclaimed some weeks later. The celebration then had various names in different places (eg Federation Day, ANA Day).

4. Colonies only united under the country name "Australia" at Federation in 1901.

5. By 1935 all Australian States and Territories were celebrating the landing on 26th January as Australia Day, and there were already indigenous objections being raised to it.

6. Australian citizenship only existed when proclaimed by Act of Parliament in 1948 - all Australians were "British Subjects" and travelled on British passports until then (I only recently realized that I was born British - perhaps why we sang songs about the British Empire at primary school). This was celebrated on the next Australia Day (26th January 1949) but was not the reason for Australia Day, that had already been officially around for 130 years.

7. In 1994 Australia Day was made a public holiday

We should teach more basic Australian history at school, warts and all and stop wringing our hands - the bad with the good. It has made us a great country, and overall a generous and considerate one.

 

[Manpa]

Don’t disagree Davent, how it’s handled is the difficult part, I don’t have the answers.I do agree in some circumstances the children should be removed for their safety. How do we help the parents, again dependent on circumstance, might be housing, might be alcohol or drug rehabilitation, might be psychological help, each case is different. We certainly have thrown a lot of money at it in the past and will probably continue to.
I certainly don’t think it’s a media beat up, i’ve seen it but I don’t profess to have lived it like those living in the Territory or Alice Springs or outlying communities. Personally, what, black, pink, blue I don’t care if you cannot or are not willing to care for you children intervention of some sort is required.
My original post was more about the forced removal of young children and new borns based on race alone as was done in the past, then a general comment on the state of child welfare in SA.
My daughters partner is indigenous and from an impoverished background and I know from experience and talking with him the struggles he has endured. His concept of family is different to the way non indigenous think and I’m still trying to come to grips with it. We have a beautiful granddaughter and we are fiercely protective of her. Sadly when she was born he did not want her to carry his surname, he felt it was in his words “tarnished by his relatives actions” and he wanted to break the chain.

 

[user 4485]

I have no wish to get involved in any discussion about the appropriateness of Australia Day, and I think it is important that people remain polite on this site. However there seems to be some confusion over actual facts, which are not disputed by historians and which people should at least be aware of regarding why we celebrate Australia Day. We should accurately know our own history.
.
1. Firstly, the first fleet arrived in Australia at Port Jackson on 26th January 1788 - here is an excerpt from Bowes Smyth’s journal of their voyage

"Tuesday 25 December 1787 Xmas Day We are now about two thousand miles distant from the South Cape of New Holland, or Van Diemen’s Land, or otherwise Adventure Bay, with a most noble breeze which carries us at 8½ knots per hour, which we hope will enable us to see land in about a fortnight (page 97)

26 January … about 7 o’clock p.m. we reach the mouth of Broken Bay, Port Jackson, and sailed up into the cove where the settlement is to be made … the finest terraces lawns and grottos with distinct plantations of the tallest and most stately trees I ever saw in any noble man’s gardens in England cannot exceed in beauty those which nature now presented to our view "
(there was insufficient water so shortly after they moved on to Botany Bay)

2. Cook missed the party (and was killed a year later in Feb 1779) - he had mapped the east coast of Australia eight years prior to that (as well as NZ, Hawai etc.) He was a great navigator and the sole association with Australian settlement was that he mentioned on return to Britain that there was arable land around Botany Bay suitable for settlement. The remainder of the Australian coast had already been mapped by the Dutch, Portuguese etc but they do not seem to have been impressed by it (much being desert or mangrove swamp), although SE Asians had been trading with north coast aborigines for some time.

3. In April 1879 the first smallpox epidemic hit the settlement at Botany Bay. Governor Phillip estimated that 50% of the indigenous inhabitants died (they had no resistance to it or things like flu and TB and were devasted by STDs soon after First Fleet arrival). Because we took so long to cross the Blue Mountains we have no record of its spread through Australia, but a whaling ship recorded scars around Port Phillip Bay in 1803, 30 years before John Batman founded Melbourne, and Major Michell recorded smallpox scars on indigenous people in the 1830s as he travelled down the Murray River. It is likely that southeast coast aborigines suffered something equivalent to the Middle Ages European "Great Plague" in terms of deaths. So it does not greatly surprise me that some have negative or mixed feelings about celebrating European arrival, although obviously a lot now celebrate along with non-indigenous Australians. We do not definitively know where the smallpox originated, but the timing among people who had never had smallpox seems quite a coincidence.

3. Celebrations on 26th January of the landing of the First Fleet go back to 1808, but were first officially celebrated in 1818 and continued on that date until 1901 (Federation) as a celebration of the forming of the Colony of New South Wales because of the First Fleet landing (i.e. of all Australian inhabitants becoming British colonial citizens at that time), although the Colony was only actually proclaimed some weeks later. The celebration then had various names in different places (eg Federation Day, ANA Day).

4. Colonies only united under the country name "Australia" at Federation in 1901.

5. By 1935 all Australian States and Territories were celebrating the landing on 26th January as Australia Day, and there were already indigenous objections being raised to it.

6. Australian citizenship only existed when proclaimed by Act of Parliament in 1948 - all Australians were "British Subjects" and travelled on British passports until then (I only recently realized that I was born British - perhaps why we sang songs about the British Empire at primary school). This was celebrated on the next Australia Day (26th January 1949) but was not the reason for Australia Day, that had already been officially around for 130 years.

7. In 1994 Australia Day was made a public holiday

We should teach more basic Australian history at school, warts and all and stop wringing our hands - the bad with the good. It has made us a great country, and overall a generous and considerate one.

For those interested in reading more.
This ebook is based on a transcript of Arthur Bowes Smyth's Journal, compiled during 1787, 1788 and 1789
http://www.gutenberg.net.au/ebooks20/2000051h.html#jan88

 

[Nightjar]

Stolen Generation does not only apply to our Indigenous population.
Many would not know about all this. Thousands of young girls on the other side of the divide suffered but they have never received an apology!!!!
Here is a short extract of one of the proceedings:
''My name is Margaret Hamilton,'' she began. ''I'm from ALAS - Adoption Loss Adult Support. There are over 250,000 white mothers who lost their babies to forcible removal at birth by the same past illegal adoption practices as Aboriginal mothers. How do you feel personally? Should they receive an apology?''
The PM replied: ''I see in the media - and have heard sometimes face to face - some of the stories of women who face very devastating circumstances of having children taken, or being put under intolerable pressure to relinquish their children, in a different age and a different time.
''So, as a human being, of course you extend your sympathy to anybody who lived through that and through years of not knowing what happened to their child. So I think it's something we can all say, we're sorry that ever happened in Australian history.''

It was a ''SORRY'' heard by few that has since reverberated to broken-hearted middle-aged and elderly women across the land.
These are the mothers of the ''white stolen generations'', so-called to distinguish them from the mothers of the indigenous stolen generations, though their suffering is shared.
In the five decades up to 1982, the newborn babies of these young, unwed women were forcibly removed from them for adoption. Their stories are shocking. They were drugged, tethered to beds, not allowed to see their babies, told they were dead.
Margaret Hamilton had a son taken from her in Queensland. For Christine Cole - the founder of the Apology Alliance - it was a daughter. She says institutions such as Crown Street Women's Hospital in Sydney engaged in institutionalised baby farming, whereby those deemed inferior were taken and assimilated into the middle class.
Cole was 16 when, in 1969, her mother took her to Crown Street, where she was given military-style mind-altering barbiturates in the lead-up to the birth. She never saw her baby daughter's face. After five days on drugs to dry up her milk and sedate her in her grief, she was made to sign adoption papers and sent home.

 

[Moneybox]

Mod Edit

Tenant Creek is far enough away from the majority of the population to be ignored by politicians and the media. It doesn't sway the votes and it doesn't create enough financial gain in the media so these problems just get swept under the carpet. There are plenty more regional centres with serious social problems that are just controlled to some extent but not given the priority status needed to resolve the underlying issues. Alcohol consumption is used as an excuse but the problems are only being masked by the alcohol.

 

[user 4386]

Mod edit

It is a huge issue, but I'm not sure why you consider it being kept quiet - try Googling "aboriginal child sexual assault" and you will get pages and pages. It was the primary aim of "The Intervention", which received huge criticism, and I would have thought few would not have heard of it.

"The Intervention was initially justified on the basis that Australia was fulfilling its obligations under CRoC by preventing sexual abuse of Indigenous children. The Intervention was instigated to tackle the disproportionately high levels of child sexual abuse in the NT"

I have been reading reports for decades. and aboriginal women have given it major publicity.

Otherwise I agree completely - it is shameful.

There is another terrible figure as well:

 

[Davent]

Yes mate, all those figures are absolutely tragic and disgraceful, and no one has any answers.
It's really only being spoken about now in a low voice, it was whispers before... everyone blames each other, and we'll meaning people create divide by tying to say the nice things rather than the truth.

 

[Davent]

It is a huge issue, but I'm not sure why you consider it being kept quiet - try Googling "aboriginal child sexual assault" and you will get pages and pages. It was the primary aim of "The Intervention", which received huge criticism, and I would have thought few would not have heard of it.

"The Intervention was initially justified on the basis that Australia was fulfilling its obligations under CRoC by preventing sexual abuse of Indigenous children. The Intervention was instigated to tackle the disproportionately high levels of child sexual abuse in the NT"

I have been reading reports for decades. and aboriginal women have given it major publicity.

Otherwise I agree completely - it is shameful.

There is another terrible figure as well:
View attachment 7448

Terrible stuff, and I have personally dealt with the issue you have highlighted.
Would appreciate if you delete my quote, my job dosnt like me speaking freely, although sometimes I find it a good way to unload.

 

[user 4386]

Yes mate, all those figures are absolutely tragic and disgraceful, and no one has any answers.
It's really only being spoken about now in a low voice, it was whispers before... everyone blames each other, and we'll meaning people create divide by tying to say the nice things rather than the truth.

I agree. I don't think one can see child abuse and neglect, youth suicide and the crime issues of places like Alice Springs as unrelated. Obviously one has to act immediately to protect the public in the case of crime, but the other issues need to be addressed longer-term if we don't want to keep locking up more and more people forever. And no, I don't have easy answers but I have seen some things change. I remember young kids walking around with petrol in coke tins held under their noses - the introduction of Opal was a fairly effective practical solution. Things like alcohol and drug reduction have some effect, but I see their use as more of a symptom of something more fundamental. I have seen the impractibility of things like drug raids in remote communities - not singling out the named communities, but by the time the police arrive in remote places like Purnunu or Kunawaritji the dealers are ready and forewarned because of travel times. And of course a lot of that is out of sight out of mind - by the time it spills over into places like Alice Springs and impacts on non-indigenous people, the groundwork has been done for the young indigenous people who spill into the city. In the end any solution (or problem) relates to parents. Kids who feel loved and proud are far less likely to go down that path in any society.

I think it is the same in any society. I had a friend at the start of High School who was easy-going and friendly. Initially he used to make embarrassed jokes about his father hitting his mother, falling drunk through the lounge window etc. Over the next couple of years his mood changed, he became aggressive and drank more and more himself. By year 9 I avoided him. Take love, fun and pride away and you get angry and drunk older teenagers. I was so lucky myself.

 

[nucopia]

When my children were in primary and my son in 1st year high school , we lived in Wellington NSW for a few years.
Every Monday and Wednesday we would walk from home to Judo practice at the masonic hall in town. Often on the way home around 8-8:30 we would pass by the main park in the centre of town and see hanging around the park or the library children that where from my children’s classes 8-12 year olds hanging around together. There explanation fir being out so late unsupervised was that their parent or parents where either not at home or were at home drinking..and they were waiting to go home when itvwas safe to do so.. it wasnt just the Indigenous There was a mix of backgrounds grouped together waiting.. drink drugs Domestic violence apathy and unemployment probably a whole host of reasons and excuses for their parents neglect.
With out stability at home these children turned to each others and roamed the streets. I know a little later some of them began drinking using drugs and committing petty crimes ..
its a very hard situation and it encompasses all levels of society in every town and city around Australia
Sad to see and know nothing is being done to address these problems..

 

[Moneybox]

Whinge of the day...........

I'm not seeing much emphasis on gold and treasure on the forum lately. Let's see some more positive input

 

[Davent]

Whinge of the day...........

I'm not seeing much emphasis on gold and treasure on the forum lately. Let's see some more positive input

I'm positive I have cabin fever!
Cantvwait to get out again

 

[EVIE/BEE]

Whinge of the day...........

I'm not seeing much emphasis on gold and treasure on the forum lately. Let's see some more positive input

C'mon Phil you can do it!

 

[user 4386]

More positive input on Whinge of the Day???

 

[EVIE/BEE]

My whinge.
Ok GR; How about this.
I'm fed up with activists ruining this country. Why do we have these courses in our universities.
These kids have no options having failed high school, unemployable and can't get a real job.
Ban these couses i say. That's my whinge.

This subject is probably political but is worth discussion.

 

[Wishfull]

Two 17-year-old " Children", were in "Childrens Court" this morning charged with MURDER. FFS when is this country going to start standing up for the good, honest, hardworking, law-abiding, God-Fearing citizens and stop pussy footing around with youth criminals? The other day i heard on the radio that a youth had over 80 previous convictions but because he always pleaded guilty, no conviction is recorded. These kids are smart, but they need to be taught a lesson.

A year in the military as soon as they leave school.

 

[Moneybox]

The ones making the decisions on the future of these people are the ones being rewarded financially when they reoffend