Debra Jopson is an investigative reporter with a conscience and a very good record for exposing the crimes that continue to be committed against Indigenous people of Australia. Her latest expose, in a series of articles in the Sydney Morning Herald on August 21-22, was of a multi-million dollar robbery of funds allocated to address the Third World-like conditions of Indigenous Australians. And who was the robber? The Howard government.
The articles, written with Joel Gibson, reveal that hundreds of millions of dollars that the federal government had allocated to Indigenous affairs have never been spent, have been spent for other purposes or have gone towards opposing Aboriginal native title claims.
The articles detailed the shameful story of the living conditions of the most impoverished section of the population in one of the richest countries in the world. The August 21 article "Black dollars go everywhere but to blacks" is available on the SMH website, along with a moving slideshow. I would urge every reader to have a look.
If this doesn't fill you with rage, then you must be missing a conscience or a heart.
So are we going to let PM John Howard and Mal Brough, his jackbooted minister for Indigenous Affairs, get away with this gross act of racism? Are we going to allow even the slightest concession to the lie that the Howard government's intervention into Northern Territory Aboriginal communities has anything to do with saving the plight of Aboriginal children? Are we going to let the Rudd Labor opposition's support for the laws enabling this intervention to pass unnoticed? Shame on Labor!
I urge readers to join Green Left Weekly in its call to rally the forces for justice and make an independent stand in the federal election campaign. I urge you to add your name to the call by Indigenous leader and Socialist Alliance Senate candidate Sam Watson for a new vision for Australia.
"It's time to put the shameful and disgusting politics of the major parties into the rubbish bin", says Watson. "Most of all, it's time to build a political alternative that rejects the economic rationalist agenda ...
"The alternative we need must put people and our planet before the profits of the giant corporations. It must enshrine the principles of democracy, solidarity and cooperation. It must learn from Indigenous tradition and respect and live in balance with the natural world."
You can join the growing number of Australians who are endorsing this call for a new vision for Australia at <http://www.socialist-alliance.org>.
You can also help us take this vision for another Australia further afield by making a donation to the GLW Fighting Fund.
Last week our supporters raised $5721 for the Fighting Fund. This brings the total our supporters have raised this year to $141,726 or 57% of our 2007 target of $250,000.
You can make a donation to the GLW Fighting Fund at: Greenleft, Commonwealth Bank, BSB 062-006, Account No. 901992. Alternatively, send a cheque or money order to PO Box 515, Broadway NSW 2007, phone it through on the toll-free line at 1800 634 206 (within Australia), or donate online at <http://www.greenleft.org.au/fogl.htm>.