Senator Nigel Scullion, the Toronto Star and “bullshit”
v,hv,h
A few weeks ago I caught up with Toronto Star reporter Rick Westhead while he was passing through Darwin. We had a long chat over couple of cups of bad coffee and I gave him my views about the NT Intervention and race relations in this country.
Late last night Rick sent an email telling me that his piece had been published and that my “comments made the cut.”
Rick’s piece is a well-written and balanced overview of the current state of indigenous affairs in the Top End and just about as good a job as a stranger in a strange land could do of this most complex aspect of Indigenous affairs policy on short notice. He obviously put considerable time and effort into the piece and spoke to many people with views right across the spectrum of opinion about the NT Intervention.
Rick also spent a few days out at the remote Arnhem land coastal community of Ramingining and attended a community meeting called to consider proposed changes to the NT Intervention.
Among those he spoke to while at Ramingining was Senator Nigel Scullion, the Australian Opposition shadow minister for Indigenous Affairs.
Last night I emailed Rick and corrected his tag for Scullion as a member of the “Labour” party. Rick has changed Scullion’s tag to “Liberal”, which is partly correct. Scullion sits in the Senate as the Senator for the Northern Territory, elected as a member of the NT’s conservative party, the Country Liberal Party, or CLP.
Scullion’s comments caught my eye, firstly because of his use of the swearword “bullshit” to describe reactions to alcohol bans – particularly as Ramingining has always been a “dry” community – but also because many of his comments appeared ill-informed or seriously out-of-step with contemporary policy and thinking – even within his own side of politics.
Here is what Scullion had to say to Rick while he was at a community meeting to discuss the changes to the NT Intervention – now called Stronger Futures – as reported by Rick Westhead in his piece in Saturday’s Toronto Star:
Senator Nigel Scullion, a member of the Liberal Party, stood to the side and defended the intervention.
“Look, you can’t have it both ways,” Scullion said. “You want to talk about preserving the old ways and rejecting modern society, but you want to drive around doing your hunting in Land Rovers?”
One of the criticisms of the intervention has been that a blanket prohibition of alcohol wasn’t necessary because some communities such as Ramingining already banned booze.
“That’s bulls—,” Scullion said. “I’ve been here when the whole place is pissed. The fact is there are big problems in Aboriginal communities. Look at the teen pregnancy rate. Look at how many 10-year-olds are contracting STDs. Don’t tell me they’re getting them off toilet seats. Men are trading them cigarettes for sex.”
…
Scullion said few locals are willing to report or condemn the crime of sex with minors.
“In an isolated place like this, community is everything, and if you stand out, you’ll be ostracized and that’s it,” he said. “They might even kill you.”
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Categories: Australian politics, Fun stuff, Northern development, Northern Territory politics, Some places I've been, Stupidity
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I love it when the scabs like Scullion dare to claim that the recent language of the country must be the only language.
by shepherdmarilyn on Jun 11, 2012 at 5:12 am
Sleazy Nige does it again. If you thought John Herron was woeful as Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Nigel is heading for a new nadir. It’s interesting that his idea of ‘facilitating people to communicate’ doesn’t include giving new teachers, as well as other whitefellas intending to work in remote Aboriginal committees, lessons in Djambarrpuyngu or the other languages that many speak as first languages. Nor does it seem to occur to him that it has been known for whitefellas to rape under-age Aboriginal girls.
by Michael Duffy on Jun 11, 2012 at 1:14 pm
I lived in Ramingining for ten years (not in the one stint). I think that if community members knew that Scullion publicly, and internationally, stated that ” “I’ve been here when the whole place is pissed” they would “kill” him – no bullshit. He, it seems, is full of bullshit…on so many levels.
Not to be trite, but if he had used his eyes, even for such a minor observation, he would have seen that Toyota’s are the vehicle of choice, not Land Rovers. Vehicles actually facilitate people being able to communicate, and provide an interface with modern life. The region around the settlement of Ramingining has a number of outstations where people live, the airstrip is 5k out of town and the Barge Landing (for incoming goods) is a 20 minute drive from town, if the road isn’t bogged down, as it is so frequently in the “wet”. Duh! Scullion, how did he get into town from the airstrip?
I particularly take umbrage at his claim that “I’ve been here when the whole place is pissed.” –When the settlement was created in the early/mid-1970′s, the traditional owners themselves proclaimed it a “dry” area. –What did he mean by being there when the “the whole place is pissed”? What? The Land Rovers were pissed?….Learn to speak English man!
It’s a very scary thought that if the Liberal-National Party Coalition wins the next Federal election, Nigel Scullion is slated to become our next Indigenous Affairs Minister…
by Belinda Scott on Jun 11, 2012 at 1:17 pm
Michael – surely you meant “remote Aboriginal communities” rather than “remote Aboriginal committees” …
Belinda – thanks for your thoughts. I’m wondering if we could get some local response/s to the Senator’s comments. Any ideas?
by Bob Gosford on Jun 11, 2012 at 5:27 pm
It is disappointing to read such negative and shallow comments from a Senator who might possibly become the Minister responsible for ‘Indigenous Affairs’.
In my view, no politician should be considered for such an important portfolio unless they undertake a course in at least three Aboriginal languages.
Furthermore,policy initiatives should enable an elected Aboriginal Advisory Committee in as many Communities as possible that is encouraged to communicate their own proposals for Community Development to the Minister or his appointed representatives directly.
Changing the name of the ‘Intervention’ to ‘Stronger Futures’ is not the solution any more than prohibition is not a solution to educating Aboriginal people how to handle alcohol.
Fly-In-Fly-Out is not the way to conduct consultation either any more than it is the way Australia should develop mining communities
by maracas on Jun 11, 2012 at 9:16 pm
They are violent. drunk. abusive. Should abandon own languages in favour of English. Can’t apply introduced technologies to traditional culture.
Yep. Ticks all the redneck boxes of narrow-minded racists of the NT.
However the one line the really bothers me: “They might even kill you”. That is downright slanderous and defamatory.
I don’t suppose he pointed out that this community also brought us one of the best and most successful Australian films of the last decade: Ten Canoes. A bit of respect please.
by wamut on Jun 11, 2012 at 11:20 pm
The meeting that Nigel attended was the Yolŋuw Makarr Dhuni / Yolngu Nations Assembly. It was not just a community meeting but a gathering to speak on behalf of all the Arnhem region. See http://www.concernedaustralians.com.au/ for their statement.
At the meeting the Senator was not forthcoming with the idea’s presented by Rick in the Toronto Star. His only defence of the Coalition position to support the Stronger Futures bills was to say that they were forced to consent because the Labour government had been “tricky” by connecting “10 years of funding for indigenous communities” to the bills, and the Coalition did not want to say no to the money.
The group decided that even if this was true, money connected to repressive laws was useless money.
Travelling with Nigel Scullion was the CLP candidate for Arnhem in the upcoming NT parliamentary elections, Larissa Lee of Jawoyn connect. From the way she conducted herself, which was respectful, I wonder what she would make of the Senators secret views and generalisations.
by Kendall Trudgen on Jun 12, 2012 at 7:38 pm
Great headline for the story but there is little of a story here. Some of the comments appear to have more local information than what the journalists wrote.
by Plane on Jun 14, 2012 at 4:08 pm
I hope that the past Sen Scullion is stuck in is just before 16 June 1976. In South Africa 36 years ago the government tried to enforce teaching in an uwanted second language. The resulting protests were a turning point in the liberation struggle. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soweto_uprising
Duncan
by oneduncanone on Jun 15, 2012 at 11:28 pm
Wow what a arsehole, fancy wanting aborigines to learn english so they can actually communicate with the rest of australia and actually become a part of the broader society. Fancy wanting to get them out of the clutches of alcoholism and reducing assaults and sexual assaults. Fancy wanting them to spend there money on necessities and making sure there children are looked after, What the hell is the world coming to?
by andrew36 on Jun 16, 2012 at 1:11 am