{"id":3616,"date":"2007-08-17T16:06:14","date_gmt":"2007-08-17T16:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paradisec.org.au\/blog\/2007\/08\/those-who-do-not-learn-from-history\/"},"modified":"2011-02-05T07:47:05","modified_gmt":"2011-02-05T07:47:05","slug":"those-who-do-not-learn-from-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.paradisec.org.au\/blog\/2007\/08\/those-who-do-not-learn-from-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Those who do not learn from history&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230;doom other people to repeat it. In this case, the other people are Aborigines.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theage.com.au\/news\/National\/Govt-hails-passage-of-NT-indigenous-laws\/2007\/08\/17\/1186857735561.html\">Govt hails passage of NT indigenous laws<\/a>, August 17, 2007 &#8211; 12:39PM, <em>The Age<\/em><br \/>\n&#8220;A historic day for Aboriginal people&#8221;,  according to the Government. Indeed, and this is what Bob Brown wants us to remember it for:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Senator BOB BROWN (Tasmania \u2013 Leader of the Australian Greens) (7.50 pm) Hansard 16\/8\/07<br \/>\n&#8230;We know from experience right around the world \u2013 from the Gaelic experience to the experience of people in the Americas \u2013 that the loss of language brings great anguish and depression, which visits people for centuries afterwards. Yet this government seems to have put that aside in the move \u2013 which must be very clear about here \u2013 to say to Indigenous people, &#8216;Take up the predominant culture or else.&#8217; [&#8230;]. I want that on the record, so that no-one reading about this moment in history 10, 50, 100 or 500 years from now can say, &#8220;If only they had known what they were doing to Indigenous culture in Australia.&#8221; We all know. The government has made its choice. It has the bulldozer; it has the numbers, and we do not. But let nobody in this place say that it did not know what this would do to Indigenous culture, custom, law, language, pride and wellbeing into the future of this nation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\nMinor in the scheme of things, but in the more specific area of this blog, some senators had good questions about the Government&#8217;s view of Indigenous languages during the debate.<br \/>\nThese included:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Federal Government&#8217;s withdrawal of funding for Indigenous language programs in the budget (Christine Milne, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aph.gov.au\/hansard\/hanssen.htm\">Hansard<\/a> 13\/8\/07).<\/li>\n<li>Whether there was any intent for the new secondary boarding schools to include Indigenous language and culture (there&#8217;s no mention of it in the legislation and appropriation). (Bob Brown, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aph.gov.au\/hansard\/hanssen.htm\">Hansard<\/a> 14\/8\/07). It is of course critical to the survival of Indigenous languages and culture.<br \/>\n<b>Answer<\/b>: Not my department.<\/li>\n<li>How people would be given formal warnings about their child&#8217;s poor school attendance leading to docking their social security benefits (Ursula Stephens and Bob Brown, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aph.gov.au\/hansard\/hanssen.htm\">Hansard<\/a>  16\/8\/07). Senator Scullion said it would be in writing and in a &#8216;personal interview situation&#8217;. He elaborated:<br \/>\n<blockquote><p>Senator SCULLION (Northern Territory \u2013 Minister for Community Services) (11.59 pm) \u2013 On the second question first, I understand that is the reason that Centrelink provide a personal interview situation for that. They ensure that they are able to provide it in a language that is understood.<br \/>\nSenator Bob Brown&#8217;their first language?<br \/>\nSenator SCULLION \u2013 That is not always the language of choice. It is the language that the individual uses. I am not trying to get around it but I am not sure about the term &#8220;first language&#8221;. But it is the language that person is most familiar with this \u2013 yes, that is clearly the intent, Senator.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Intent is not enough. Without a regulation requiring an interpreter, no harassed Centrelink staff is going to bother with intent and an interpreter; they&#8217;ll just speak extra extra loudly in English.<br \/>\n<b>Other reactions today<\/b>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.crikey.com.au\/Politics\/20070817-Stop-the-land-grab.html\">Banduk Marika<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/andrewbartlett.com\/blog\/?p=1645\">Andrew Bartlett<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/notahedgehog.wordpress.com\/2007\/08\/17\/stifling-debate\/\">Not a hedgehog<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/matjjin-nehen.com\/2007\/08\/17\/a-shakespearean-change-in-the-weather\/\">Matjjin-nehen<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/ntert.wordpress.com\/2007\/08\/17\/alcohol-restrictions\/\">The Knee-jerk response taskforce<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230;doom other people to repeat it. In this case, the other people are Aborigines. Govt hails passage of NT indigenous laws, August 17, 2007 &#8211; 12:39PM, The Age &#8220;A historic day for Aboriginal people&#8221;, according to the Government. Indeed, and this is what Bob Brown wants us to remember it for: Senator BOB BROWN (Tasmania &#8230; <a title=\"Those who do not learn from history&#8230;\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.paradisec.org.au\/blog\/2007\/08\/those-who-do-not-learn-from-history\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Those who do not learn from history&#8230;\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-indigenous-australia-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paradisec.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paradisec.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paradisec.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paradisec.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paradisec.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3616"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.paradisec.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3616\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4327,"href":"https:\/\/www.paradisec.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3616\/revisions\/4327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paradisec.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paradisec.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paradisec.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}