Blog closing

This blog will no longer be updated, it was too hard getting Google to index it. I don't know enough about computers and Google was completely opaque. You can go to the Facebook page if you want to stay connected with Myall Creek.

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064367095175

Survival Day commemoration, Moree

Myall Creek has sent out this tile announcing a “survival day’ commemoration gathering on 26 January at Moree, on the NSW tablelands. A quick Google search tells me they have done this before, although it’s not widely known in the cities. The Waterloo Creek massacre is remembered in Roger Milliss' boo, where he also talks about Myall Creek.

Hopefully Waterloo Creek will be better known if more people go along to events like this. It would be good to see media representatives also getting out, however they can, to remember all the slaughter than happened in the time of our ancestors. I come from a family with roots in Victoria and South Australia but it wouldn’t be hard to find occasions when they – at least knew about, and said nothing – massacres of First Nations people.

My great-grandfather lived in Leongatha before moving to Melbourne so his family wouldn’t have been completely unaware that this sort of thing was taking place. No stories about massacres have come down to my generation, THAT much is sure. This is why we need these memorial events: to let us remember so that we can be fully aware of what it means to be Australian.

Just whose Australia are we advancing.

Change the date change the flag

Maybe there’s a way to heal after the trial of the Referendum, a way to ease the pain felt by so many people and a way to bring people together for one cause. The Australia Day debate goes on every year and 2024 will be no exception, I can almost feel the anger expressed on social media, it’s like they’re already arguing.

What about changing the flag at the same time as we change Australia Day. By doing both at once we can both acknowledge our debt to Britain while, at the same time, acknowledging the importance of First Nations people who were so grievously let down by the Crown. What I suggest is a way to move forward and change a defeat into something that works for all citizens regardless of their background or allegiances.

Myall Creek is a seminal event in the country’s psyche. Not only was it the first and last time White people were convicted of killing Aboriginal people, but it is celebrated for what it can offer all of us today. Both descendants of perpetrators and descendants of survivors come together on the Kings Birthday weekend every year in rural NSW. If we change the flag at the same time as changing the date of Australia Day to match this celebration, we can alleviate the anguish of First Nations people. 

Just look at the two designs I have made.

The first I rejected because it brings in the additional connotation of France, who arrived on our shores just days after the First Fleet.

Now if we get rid of the red and white stripes we can arrive at a design that centralises FN. It keeps the signal Southern Cross, which is so beloved of everyday Aussies (I can’t count the memories I have of calves of other body areas with a Southern Cross tattooed).

The red black yellow Aboriginal flag hasn’t been approved for use but perhaps we can just take some of its colours. This lets us introduce something original and distinctive – there is no flag even remotely similar to this in the whole world – while at the same time recognising FN heritage as a central pillar of national identity.

But keep Australia Day on the Kings Birthday. Some things have to stay the same. It’s safer that way. I think it is important to acknowledge FN people but also to acknowledge people of British heritage whose forbears worked so hard to make this country the best country on Earth. After all the Uluru Statement from the Heart talks about the three strands of the national story: Aboriginal, British, and immigrant.

We should be talking about the Voice

It’s been a few months and the only answer that seems to have any currency is that Australians are “racist” but is that true? As long as Labor refuse to bring up the failed referendum we’ll never know. It’s like some sort of curse, something that you never wake up from like one of those movies where the lead characters is doomed to repeat exactly the same steps from waking in the morning until he’s killed again and again. With another Australia Day coming up it’s probably a good idea for Albanese to bit the bullet, publicly confess to having botched the poll, and start a discussion about ways forward that will actually help to improve the situation.

Knowing Albo however – he’s a seasoned political player – this won’t happen. Meanwhile the gap is as large as ever and while other people grow rich and prosperous Aboriginal people continue to experience poverty, high rates of incarceration, and low academic achievements for youth. Aren’t these things more important than the fortunes of a political party?

It seems not.

Politicians are addicted to power, it is the fuel that keeps the engine of government running, not anything like human rights, individual liberty, or equality of access to social benefits. Power is the goal of every politician who enters Parliament to ostensibly “serve” the people. What they want and what they get are people serving their interests. If you manage to get to the pinnacle of the structure, for example as prime minister, you will be particularly well served.

Once you have that access it’s difficult to give it up. It would require qualities in a person that the job of politician is singularly well engineered to weeding out. Nobody with the general interest at heart has a gnats chance in a snowstorm of getting to the top. Albanese for all his apparent sincerity is just another power-mad creature.

What I mean by all this is that to even ask the right questions is something that the business of politics prevents. Since it’s not possible to be a Good Person and a politician at the same time (since to rise to the top you need to be a gaslighting narcissist) then it follows that the interests of the people ostensibly served will instead be ignored in favour of the narcissist’s own interests.

So here we are in 2024 no closer to closing the gap. Instead the gap is used as a cudgel to beat the Opposition around the head because that’s politically expedient. No movement on important metrics, no improvement, nothing. Because it’s against the interests of the very people who have been elected to fix the problem. As long as there’s a problem it will be exploited in order to cause pain to the people on the other side of the Chamber.

No Voice?

The Opposition are racists. It follows like night follows day. This is the only possible takeout. The government will continue to blame the Opposition for not supporting the Voice and there will never be any reconciliation. Reconciliation is not feasible where, in a Westminster system, opposition is the modus operandi of all players.