Blacks centuries behind us: Perron
by Tony Hewitt
Aborigines are "centuries behind us in their cultural
aspirations", the Chief Minister of the Northern Territory, Mr
Marshall Perron, said yesterday.
Speaking in Sydney to the Foreign Correspondents' Association
of Australia on the hIgh Court's Mabo decision, Mr Perron also
attacked Aborigines for what he said was their lack of
hygiene, unusual relationships with dogs and refusal to live
in houses.
He said one of the greatest misconceptions about the
Aboriginal land rights debate was the belief that the
acquisition of land by Aborigines would improve their lives.
"Part of the problem is they really are centuries behind us in
their cultural attitudes and their aspirations in many
respects," he said.
"Our society" was driven by the desire for possessions.
"Our children want to work to buy cars and things and a hi-fi
set and a house and garden. They want to get married and have
a holiday and whatever. If you remove a lot of those desires,
then you lose an enormous amount of drive that makes a group
of people want to get up and improve their lot..."
After his comments, the Federal Minister for Aboriginal
Affairs, Mr Tickner, who is visiting the NT, told the Herald:
"Is this the kind of statement we'd expect the leader of a
government to be making to the world? It might go down well in
the Tennant Creek pub, but it's totally inappropriate before
such an international gathering.
"It is an arrogant manifestation of purported cultural
superiority."
During his address to about 50 foreign correspondents, Mr
Perron, commenting on aboriginal health, said: "You have a
situation where children are living in and among scabby,
diseased dogs that are sharing the camp and sleeping with
people. We're talking about hygiene levels which you would
find absolutely appalling.
"You can't allow kids to be covered with flies or eating a
bone shared with a dog that's covered in scabs from one end to
the other."
Mr Perron said that he had been told that elderly Aboriginal
men slept very close to their dogs because the dogs absorbed
any sickness and germs from their masters' bodies.
"So the sicker the dog is, the more diseased the dog is, the
better the fella feels."
Mr Perron said Aboriginal people did not want to live in
houses.
"Any of you who get on a plane and go to any number of remote
(NT) settlements and see the hygiene standards on those
settlements, will find that most of them would have had
fortunes spent on houses, which in many cases are vandalised,
or burnt or never been lived in."
Mr Tickner said it was a bitter irony that the NT Government
promoted the territory with Aboriginal culture and identity
and then "dumped on the people in this way."
It was a distortion to suggest that Aboriginal health problems
were mainly caused by a lack of hygiene. If communities did
not have minimal standards of water, sewerage, housing and
infrastructure, people would get sick. There was a backlog of
Aboriginal housing requests in the territory of $1.2 billion,
Mr Tickner said.
Mr Perron said if extreme Aboriginal activists had their way,
the country would be partitioned into separate black and white
countries, or, at best, a federation of black and white
States.
The Mabo decision would be exploited and blacks would have to
be denied the right of veto over activities, such as mining,
on their land, he said.
(ends)
Note - A Dog's life in the CLP Northern Territory - all this
talk of dogs. The Country-Liberal Party candidate in the last
Federal election was Arthur Beau Palmer, a high-flying
ethnological consultant who had previously carried out a
project on the single injection cure for internal and external
parasites in dogs.
I also did some voluntary work on the topic in 1988 and
concluded: "Instead of cutting the dog out to cure the health
problem, the condition of the dogs should be recognised as an
index of well-being of the community. When the dogs are all
healthy, the authorities will be in a position to compliment
themselves on the provision of health services to the
community. The definition of community health needs to be
extended to include the non-human in this case."
The condition of the former healthy camp dogs show that even
they suffer under the living conditions imposed by the Anglo-
Australian authorities. However both Perron (blame the victim)
and Tickner (more infrastructure) dismiss the message of
experience and maintain the pretence that Anglo-Australia can
properly administer life's well-being.
The concentrated population camps in which surviving First
People are confined (one way or another) are no substitute for
being able to live - in accordance with the cultural dictates
which make for a meaningful life - as part of your living
country. But whitefellas (like the backers of Marshall Perron
and the CLP) want that for their cattle.
If Perron sat down and learnt from the First People themselves
even he (our misguided brother) might understand that there is
a world of difference between the values of respect for life
of First People and the policies he promotes.
It is not a matter of ahead or behind in terms of imaginary
timelines of Western linear conceptions of life. It is a
matter of what kind of relationship our Being has with the
larger Being which generates us all.
It is clear that First Peole continue to reject the
superficial trappings which enmortgage the souls of many wage
slaves.
And that message is a real threat to the pretenders of the
Wrongheaded Way.
Bruce Reyburn