Aussie PM labelled `a racist'`

[toerag]

Aussie PM labelled `a racist'`
VERNON SMALL - The Dominion Post | Tuesday, 10 July 2007

Maori Party MP Hone Harawira has branded Australian Prime Minister John Howard a racist whose policies to stop child abuse in Aboriginal communities will breed more anger.

"John Howard is a racist bastard imposing racist policies on a people who are not in a position to fight back," Mr Harawira said on Maori TV's Native Affairs programme last night.

He compared Mr Howard's move in the Northern Territory, with its mineral wealth, to United States President George Bush's invasion of Iraq, allegedly to control oil. A similar move in New Zealand would be met with violence from the Maori community.

"If they tried this up north, we'd be out with guns. It wouldn't happen."

He told Australian press agency AAP he stood by his comments: "If I was an Aboriginal man in the Northern Territory I would feel like absolute shite right now.

"I would have the leader of my country saying I am an alcoholic, I am into pornography, I am into sexual abuse. All I would want to do is go out and smash someone."

He was commenting on Mr Howard's plans for fighting abuse and poverty in remote Aboriginal communities, including bans on alcohol and pornography, tight controls on welfare payments, and extra police and troops.

Those measures were announced in response to a report by the Northern Territory board of inquiry into the protection of Aboriginal children from sexual abuse.

"All Howard has done is generate more anger and bitterness in the Aboriginal community, a lot of which is going to be internalised," Mr Harawira, the MP for Te Tai Tokerau, said.

The plan was ill thought out and aimed at helping Mr Howard to win an election later this year. His Liberal-National coalition was well behind the Labor Party in recent polls.

"The report that he is basing his recommendations on is already 10 years old. Why didn't he do something about it back then?" Mr Harawira said.

A spokeswoman for Prime Minister Helen Clark said Mr Harawira's comments were "most regrettable".

"John Howard has been a good friend to New Zealand and it concerns her that any MP from any party would lash out in this way."

She would not say whether Mr Harawira's attack would damage trans-Tasman relations.

Mr Howard declined to comment.

Earlier he angrily rejected a claim from Australian Capital Territory chief minister John Stanhope that the policy was racist and heavy-handed.

Mr Harawira also discussed sending a Maori delegation to support protests in Australia next week and called on iwi leaders to speak out on attacks by the Australian Government on Aborigines.

Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples appeared to support Mr Harawira's sentiments, saying that in context they reflected the level of concern the situation had generated in Australia.

"From our initial analysis, we would not have thought military intervention to be at all appropriate in dealing with the sensitive nature of the situation outlined in the report."

The Maori Party welcomed, however, a commitment by the Howard government to genuine consultation with Aboriginal people and the over-riding emphasis on child protection, community justice and community involvement.

Dr Sharples tried to water down the impact of Mr Harawira's criticisms, saying the party caucus would discuss the issue before making any further response.

"It is critical that careful analysis is undertaken of all of the information to hand about the focus of the report before any further comment is made."

A party spokeswoman said Mr Harawira was not available for further comment.

Sorry it's so long. Tried to do a search in the on line local paper "The Press" guess what it was no longer available for viewing. Funny that.

[Lux]

Good on him I say. Helen would kittykat foot around the issues, her Government is guilty of modern day land grabbing too.

[bingbong]

RE Howard labeled a 'racist bastard' i think an addition of stupid applies to some Australian's as my friend in Australia said he heard on a Radio Station about the story Hone's named pronounced "Honey" Harawira please!!

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Lol bingbong! Honey Harawira? Hmmmmmm. Yes, good on him I say. Howard has shown how ruthless he'll be to keep power (see Tampa and the child throwing for example) ...

BTW: Has Howard exercised the same powers with the Catholic Church in Australia?

[bingbong]

Re Sparrow Well Howie being a racist of course he wouldn't be bothered with the Catholics abuse as we all know Racists are selective and xenophobic types who have a whole level of offensive levels. Where when one is no longer in vogue another is standing by to take over and a "good" racist is like a juggler they can kick, "throw" [as you referred in your thread] spit , strangle like in custody [probably why the Police are involved, modern day torture]

An where is Australia's Amnesty International? They only do international not local as it is easier to achieve the unachievable overseas and not do local where they could affect some change. Like the local New Zealand branch here only popped up with the Algerian fella in Auckland [eyes rolling.]

[Lux]

Some links that might be of interest

mathaba.net/news/?x=557307

www.nit.com.au/News/story.aspx?id=7215

www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,22027237-948,00.html

[sparrow]

bingbong said:

Re Sparrow Well Howie being a racist of course he wouldn't be bothered with the Catholics abuse as we all know Racists are selective and xenophobic types who have a whole level of offensive levels. Where when one is no longer in vogue another is standing by to take over and a "good" racist is like a juggler they can kick, "throw" [as you referred in your thread] spit , strangle like in custody [probably why the Police are involved, modern day torture]

An where is Australia's Amnesty International? They only do international not local as it is easier to achieve the unachievable overseas and not do local where they could affect some change. Like the local New Zealand branch here only popped up with the Algerian fella in Auckland [eyes rolling.]

On Australia's Amnesy International - good point bingbong! Where are they? Why not the "local"? Reminds me of the debates around the Springbok Tour when people were happy to protest racism abroad, but not at home.

[Lux]

FINLAY MACDONALD: Harawira: indelicate but spoke for many
> Sunday Star Times | Sunday, 15 July 2007
> By FINLAY MACDONALD
> What Hone said about Johnny might not have been from the handbook of
> diplomatic etiquette but it deserved to be said. While the Australian
> prime minister probably doesn't think of himself as a racist, and being a
> bastard is almost a prerequisite in federal and state politics, his
> response to a report on Aboriginal child sex abuse in the Northern
> Territory only enhanced his image as an opportunist bigot pandering to the
> great white underbelly of Australian prejudice.
>
>
> John Howard is also an exceptionally skilful politician, as his more
> astute critics have long recognised. His deployment of the army to take
> control of remote Aboriginal communities has been likened to his use of
> the Tampa refugee "crisis" to snatch victory from the jaws of electoral
> defeat in 2001. Despite pretty conclusive proof that his government
> knowingly lied about claims asylum seekers had thrown children overboard
> in order to be rescued, Howard effectively hijacked the One Nation vote
> without ever having to make the kind of overtly xenophobic noises Pauline
> Hanson did. Labor's Kim Beazley was outflanked largely because the
> bipartisan paranoia that determines Australia's immigration policy left
> him lamely agreeing with his wily opponent.
>
> Now once more trailing a reinvigorated Labor under Kevin Rudd, Howard
> knows he must again set the agenda before the next general election (to be
> held by January 2008 at the latest). The Northern Territory Board of
> Inquiry into the Protection of Aboriginal Children from Sexual Abuse -
> known by its emotive title, the "Little Children Are Sacred" report -must
have looked like just the ticket.
>
> One newspaper cartoon depicted Howard at his desk surrounded by piles of
> old reports into the plight of indigenous people, exclaiming in mock
> surprise, "Oh - those Aborigines!"
>
> Increasingly, the draconian approach Howard advocated is looking like
> window dressing, not the mark of genuine concern. Tellingly, the plan to
> conduct compulsory health checks on all indigenous children under the age
> of 16 (presuScably meaning compulsory bodily examination) was quickly
> abandoned and will now take place only if police have legitimate evidence
> that abuse may have occurred - in other words, the status quo.
>
> In fact, the inquiry never recommended any of Howard's outlandish tactics
> in the first place, and was at pains to point out that the sexual abuse of
> children is hardly an Aboriginal tragedy alone. That's not to say the
> report denies the seriousness of the issue, but it does so in this
> context: "... the incidence of child sexual abuse, whether in Aboriginal
> or so-called mainstream communities, is often directly related to other
> breakdowns in society. Put simply, the cumulative effects of poor health,
> alcohol, drug abuse, gambling, pornography, unemployment, poor education
> and housing, and general disempowerment lead inexorably to family and
> other violence and then on to sexual abuse of men and women and, finally,
> of children."
>
> That those social evils are concentrated in the Aboriginal population is
> well known. No one pretends it isn't a hugely complex problem, either.
> Aside from all the standard symptoms of economic deprivation, the
> fundamentally non-materialistic nature of Aboriginal culture - which to
> some extent explains living standards that to outside eyes can look like
> abject squalor - confounds if not offends European sensibilities. It also
> turns the so-called welfare trap into an outright conundrum: what values
> are supported or encouraged when little or no value is placed on the
> ordinary trappings of wealth?
>
> But to paint Howard as the tough love champion of practical solutions is
> more than a stretch. His government has presided over a decrease in
> funding for social programmes in remote Aboriginal communities, in
> particular youth and public health initiatives. An enlightened federal
> system of controlling and funding the Aboriginal art trade - one of the
> significant means by which such communities could earn income and avoid
> welfare - has also been progressively dismantled under the Liberals. No
> wonder so many view the latest moves as part of a sinister covert agenda
> to further disenfranchise the Aborigine minority.
>
> Specifically, the extension of mining and exploration permits into
> Aboriginal land, and another Howard proposal to use tracts of the Outback
> to store nuclear waste, have been raised as possible deeper motivations to
> move indigenous communities off their land. If that sounds like classic
> conspiracy theory, maybe surviving what has been called attempted genocide
> makes a people slightly suspicious of authority.
>
> As well they might be, for more immediate reasons, too. Howard's
> calculated dog whistle came immediately after a Queensland jury found one
> Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley not guilty of the 2004 death in custody of an
> Aboriginal man known as Mulrunji. Hurley, a large and physically powerful
> man, admitted he must have caused the fatal injuries, including cleaving
> his victim's liver in two, but argued it was accidental due to falling on
> him. Knee first.
>
> Some called the verdict vindication, others a day of shame. Either way, an
> Aboriginal death in custody is far less remarkable than the fact that this
> was the first ever prosecution of its kind, and one the Queensland state
government brought only reluctantly. You might still call it progress.
>
> Hone Harawira was indelicate, but politicians are merely representatives
> of their people. He represents the opinion of plenty of New Zealanders,
> and the target of his opprobrium is certainly representative of many
> Australians.
>