aboriginal injustice

If there was anything that a complacent nation needed to wake itself up - this is it. Australian aboriginal settlements remain strife with violence, rape, child mollestation, illiteracy and heartbreaking poverty. The last few days have seen the issue swept into view of the mainstream Australian media by Nanette Rogers, a Australian crown prosecutor from the Northern Territory. In an interview on ABC's Lateline, Nanette was told that the Federal Minister for Indigenous affairs didn't think Australians were ready to hear about children being raped. She disagreed. The transcript of the Lateline interview is horrifying in it's description of events that are taking place in the Northern Territories.(Warning: transcript is graphic in detail)

It did the trick, and the issue, all of the issues facing native Australia, are on the table - and everyone is calling for action. Rightly, the Federal Government ruled out marshal law, in the highlighted community of Wadeye, but have yet to do anything of substance - except call a summit. Critics have been swift to warn of creating another lost generation by dismantling communities and crushing traditional values. The State and Federal governments of Australian are between a rock and a hard place, trying to balance the clear need for the rule of law and actually doing something that will permanently lift the Aboriginal communities out of poverty and substance abuse.

This isn't the time for blaming and finger pointing. Australian authorities, and it's people, need to unite and deliver real solutions for it's most disadvantaged people.