Extract from The Guardian
Australian PM stands by his comments in the face of mounting
criticism from Indigenous leaders, including ‘father of reconciliation’
Patrick Dodson
Tony Abbott
has refused to concede that saying Aboriginal people who live in remote
communities have made a “lifestyle choice” was a poor choice of words
as the father of reconciliation issued a public plea to rebuild
relations with Indigenous people.
The Australian prime minister has suffered near universal criticism from Aboriginal leaders over his “lifestyle choice” comments last week when he was defending the closure of Indigenous communities in Western Australia.
He has refused to apologise for the remarks and stood by them when asked if he would at least concede it was a poor choice of words.
“I’m not going to concede that. I accept people have a right to be critical of me, but I’m certainly not going to concede that,” he told Sky News on Saturday.
“The point I was trying to make was that we need to get the kids to school, the adults to work, we need to have safe communities and in order to sustain a school you normally need a certain number of people, in order to sustain an economy you normally need a certain number of people and in order to have police – and I accept that not every community needs resident police – but certainly in order to have resident police you need to have a certain number of people there.”
Indigenous leader Noel Pearson and the prime minister’s adviser on Indigenous affairs, Warren Mundine, are among those who have criticised Abbott’s comments, but Abbott characterised their responses as quibbling.
“I do interviews every day and people may well quibble over particular words that I have used, and if people want to say that I should have expressed myself differently, that’s their right,” he said.
Indigenous leader, Patrick Dodson, known as the “father of reconciliation” issued a plea over the weekend for Abbott to reconsider his approach to Indigenous affairs saying he could be putting Indigenous recognition in the constitution at risk.
“I don’t think he’s capable of it, despite his good wishes or his best intentions,” he said in an interview with Fairfax Media in Broome. “He just doesn’t have knowledge and without knowledge he’s not going to be able to do much to take the country forward around Indigenous relationships and non-Indigenous relationships. That’s the sad part about it.”
Dodson said in the past there had always been an avenue for dialogue between Aboriginal people and the government, whether it was the Labor party or the Liberal party, but now they were unable to debate.
Dodson said a meeting with Indigenous leaders from across Australia was the first crucial step in rebuilding relations.
“We’ve got to get away from just thinking about program and policy and start thinking in terms of a relationship,” he said.
“Does Australia want to have a relationship with Aboriginal people, or does it not? Or does it simply want to improve the management and control systems over the lives of Aboriginal people? That’s the seminal issue.
“Everything to date has been about management. How do we keep them in the reserves, isolated from the public? Then, how do we force them into some form of assimilation? And now? No one knows where it is going now.”
Abbott was talking to a local ABC station based in the Western Australia city of Kalgoorlie when he made the original comments.
“What we can’t do is endlessly subsidise lifestyle choices if those lifestyle choices are not conducive to the kind of full participation in Australian society that everyone should have,” Abbott said on Tuesday.
“If people choose to live miles away from where there’s a school, if people choose not to access the school of the air, if people choose to live where there’s no jobs, obviously it’s very, very difficult to close the gap.
“It is not unreasonable for the state government to say if the cost of providing services in a particular remote location is out of all proportion to the benefits being delivered. Fine, by all means live in a remote location, but there’s a limit to what you can expect the state to do for you if you want to live there.”
The Australian prime minister has suffered near universal criticism from Aboriginal leaders over his “lifestyle choice” comments last week when he was defending the closure of Indigenous communities in Western Australia.
He has refused to apologise for the remarks and stood by them when asked if he would at least concede it was a poor choice of words.
“I’m not going to concede that. I accept people have a right to be critical of me, but I’m certainly not going to concede that,” he told Sky News on Saturday.
“The point I was trying to make was that we need to get the kids to school, the adults to work, we need to have safe communities and in order to sustain a school you normally need a certain number of people, in order to sustain an economy you normally need a certain number of people and in order to have police – and I accept that not every community needs resident police – but certainly in order to have resident police you need to have a certain number of people there.”
Indigenous leader Noel Pearson and the prime minister’s adviser on Indigenous affairs, Warren Mundine, are among those who have criticised Abbott’s comments, but Abbott characterised their responses as quibbling.
“I do interviews every day and people may well quibble over particular words that I have used, and if people want to say that I should have expressed myself differently, that’s their right,” he said.
Indigenous leader, Patrick Dodson, known as the “father of reconciliation” issued a plea over the weekend for Abbott to reconsider his approach to Indigenous affairs saying he could be putting Indigenous recognition in the constitution at risk.
“I don’t think he’s capable of it, despite his good wishes or his best intentions,” he said in an interview with Fairfax Media in Broome. “He just doesn’t have knowledge and without knowledge he’s not going to be able to do much to take the country forward around Indigenous relationships and non-Indigenous relationships. That’s the sad part about it.”
Dodson said in the past there had always been an avenue for dialogue between Aboriginal people and the government, whether it was the Labor party or the Liberal party, but now they were unable to debate.
Dodson said a meeting with Indigenous leaders from across Australia was the first crucial step in rebuilding relations.
“We’ve got to get away from just thinking about program and policy and start thinking in terms of a relationship,” he said.
“Does Australia want to have a relationship with Aboriginal people, or does it not? Or does it simply want to improve the management and control systems over the lives of Aboriginal people? That’s the seminal issue.
“Everything to date has been about management. How do we keep them in the reserves, isolated from the public? Then, how do we force them into some form of assimilation? And now? No one knows where it is going now.”
Abbott was talking to a local ABC station based in the Western Australia city of Kalgoorlie when he made the original comments.
“What we can’t do is endlessly subsidise lifestyle choices if those lifestyle choices are not conducive to the kind of full participation in Australian society that everyone should have,” Abbott said on Tuesday.
“If people choose to live miles away from where there’s a school, if people choose not to access the school of the air, if people choose to live where there’s no jobs, obviously it’s very, very difficult to close the gap.
“It is not unreasonable for the state government to say if the cost of providing services in a particular remote location is out of all proportion to the benefits being delivered. Fine, by all means live in a remote location, but there’s a limit to what you can expect the state to do for you if you want to live there.”
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