The indigenous cabinet minister Marion Scrymgour’s lecture on the Howard government’s intervention plan in Nortern Territory
The indigenous cabinet minister Marion Scrymgour will give a lecture on the government national emergency at Sydney University. The details are below (www.usyd.edu.au):
Australia’s first ever female Indigenous cabinet minister, Marion Scrymgour, will discuss the Howard Government’s National emergency when she delivers the Charles Perkins Oration this week.
Unable to address larger issues such as environmental destruction, or the marginalisation of Aboriginal people, the Howard Government has preferred to focus on Aboriginal children in the Northern Territory, she says.
“Unwilling and unable to resolve these big picture issues, on 21 June 2007 the Howard government seized on a report dealing with the abuse of children on Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory to launch a new ‘children overboard’ strategy in an election campaign that looks difficult to win.”
Ms Scrymgour is a Labor member of the Northern Territory’s Legislative Assembly, representing the seat of Arafura which covers western Arnhem Land and the Tiwi islands.
But she also points blame at her federal Labor colleagues who, in “scrambling for power themselves, have proved incapable of doing much more than hang on to the Coalition’s political apron strings.
“From Caboolture to Kirribilli, the crisis within settler society is deepening. That is the real national emergency.”
The Dr Charles Perkins AO Memorial oration was established in 2001 to commemorate the University of Sydney’s first Indigenous graduate, Dr Charles Perkins.
This year’s lecture will be held this Tuesday in The Great Hall at the University of Sydney. Three Indigenous students will also be awarded the Dr Charles Perkins AO Memorial prize on the night.
More information and bookings details are availableonline.
What: Dr Charles Perkins AO Annual Memorial Oration and Prize
When: 6pm, 23 October 2007
Where: The Great Hall, The University of Sydney Contact: Kath KennyPhone: 02 9351 2261
The latest news is that the Federal Indigenous Affairs minister, Mal Brough has called for Scrymgour’s resignation, apparently for being against the Intervention. In the Herald article I read about it, he chastised her for opposing his policy, especially because she is an Indigenous woman.
Interesting, I thought that calls for resignation were usually directed at politicians for breaking the law, immoral conduct, corruption, gross incompetence and so on, not for the heinous crime of expressing a political viewpoint. I was under the odd impression that debating policy was precisely what politicians were supposed to do. It would also appear that if you’re Indigenous you have even less cause to express your point of view … if it’s at odds with government policy that is.