contents - eureka street · contents catherine marshall ... the checkpoint to leave it in his...

Vol 25 No 631-Mar-2015

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Contents

Catherine MarshallResponsible travel in a broken nation Page 2

Megan GrahamFaceless celebrity maintains ownership of her body Page 4

Tim KroenertThis boy's life on the autism spectrum Page 6

Andrew HamiltonCan speech be free in the Catholic Church? Page 8

John WarhurstGive sporting politicians a sporting chance Page 10

Gillian BourasThe death of bullying victim Vangelis Giakoumakis Page 12

Michele MadiganFunding cut signals the destruction of Aboriginal life in Australia Page 14

Earl LivingsThe other side of religious zealotry Page 17

Tim KroenertFamily's bipolar drama is a laughing matter Page 21

Andrew HamiltonEaster's April Fools Page 23

Fiona KatauskasBill's bills Page 26

Barry GittinsThe General of the poor and the Iron Lady of industry Page 27

Maureen O'BrienWomen are not responsible for violent crimes against them Page 29

Mathew DrogemullerIndigenous youth pay price for ’get tough on crime’ election promise Page 31

Marlene MarburgMy Christ is a raw object Page 34

Michael MullinsNetflix and Fairfax in an uncaring new media environment Page 36

Kate HowarthTriumph over forced adoption practice Page 38

Vol 25 No 631-Mar-2015


Responsible travel in a broken nation

AUSTRALIA

Catherine Marshall

My first visit to Myanmar was made by foot: a short walk across theFriendship Bridge which spans the Moei River and links the pariah state with the Thaiborder town of Mae Sot.

My passport was examined at the immigration checkpoint on the Thai side of the bridge;ten minutes later, upon arrival in this land which for decades had concealed itself fromthe world, I purchased a Myanmar visa for US$10, had my passport stamped, and wascommanded by the stern-faced, uniformed immigration official lazing on a chair insidethe checkpoint to leave it in his possession as I explored the town of Myawaddy.

Feeling both uneasy and conspicuous - I saw only one other westerner there - I failed tomake a deep incursion into this riverside town. I walked the streets closest to the bridge,browsed the shops and tried to converse with locals, but the language barrier and thelooks of surprise my presence provoked made meaningful engagement impossible.

I was in Mae Sot to interview Burmese refugees and migrants who were about tograduate from an Australian Catholic University liberal arts program. Back on the otherside of the border, en route to my guest house, the mini bus I was travelling in wasstopped by armed Thai police, who examined the identity documents of the otherpassengers, all of them Thais and Burmese. The tension radiated by those students I hadinterviewed, by the people on this bus and by the broader population of Mae Sot - a citythat contained several Burmese-filled refugee camps - was palpable.

My second visit to Myanmar happened just days later, when I took a boat from thesouthern Thai town of Ranong across a strip of Andaman Sea to the most southerly cityin Myanmar, Kawthoung. Our small party was hosted for the day by a Burmese Catholicpriest; he drove us in his rattletrap Jeep to the town's lookout, showed us around aCatholic primary school and took us to the home of a local family for lunch. All the while,I felt that we were being watched, followed. I vividly recall the motorbike and its twooccupants that had crested the lookout close behind us, and which had appeared again inour wake as we drove towards the harbour, the driver expelling a draught of betel-stained spittle as he kept us locked in his gaze.

A year later, I spent two weeks travelling around Myanmar; the tension of those earlyvisits had lifted, though the generals' presence still loomed large, in the uniformedofficials that occupied public buildings, the road blocks that operated on many routes andthe look of dispossession cast across people's faces.

I was privileged to return to Myanmar just a few weeks ago - two years after my lastvisit - on a travel assignment for Fairfax. The past, I discovered, was a foreign country:the rigid, authoritarian atmosphere had been replaced by a distinct sense of optimism

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and possibility; commercial high rises were shooting up where defunct governmentbuildings once stood; teenagers who just a few years ago didn't know what a mobilephone was now sat bent over devices of their own. I almost laughed when my guide, inresponse to my query about a flower I had seen, whipped out his tablet and said, 'Let meGoogle it'.

Myanmar is metamorphosing like a vast time-lapse image, sloughing off its old skin andreplacing it with a glittering new facade. But decades of military rule cannot be dismissedso easily, and there is much for the traveller to consider when visiting this newly-emerging destination. In the first place, is it ethical to visit at all? Travellers have longtaken their cue from Myanmar's beloved democracy advocate and Nobel Peace Prizewinner Aung San Suu Kyi, who for many years supported a boycott against her country.But more recently she has welcomed tourism as a mechanism for bringing aboutfundamental economic change and for encouraging further advocacy against too-slowreform.

And what is one to call this country that once bore the romantic moniker of Burma, aname which evokes scenes of steamy, colonial paradise? Locals don't seem to mind whatyou call their homeland, for both names are indigenous, and both bear some historicaloffense: Burma - denoting the ethnic Burman majority - was chosen for the country byits British colonisers; Myanmar - though not inherently disagreeable - was applied by thebrutal military junta.

This nation by any name is just as broken, and its future just as hopeful. If there isanything foreign tourists should do, it is this: travel responsibly, shine a light on ongoinginjustices, and help in some small way to bring Myanmar into the embracing, universalfold.

Catherine Marshall is a journalist and travel writer. Her Myanmar travel featurewill be published in Fairfax's Traveller on Saturday 11 April. You can follow her on Twitterat @zizzyballord.

http://www.traveller.com.au/growing-pains-has-tourism-changed-myanmar-1megdt

https://twitter.com/zizzyballord

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Faceless celebrity maintains ownership of her body

AUSTRALIA

Megan Graham

Since 2013, Australian singer-songwriter and directorSia has not shown her face in magazines, videos or performances. When attendingevents she shows up as an 'inanimate blonde bob' - using a wig to conceal all but a fewfeatures - and in live performances she artfully directs the talents of others to front hermusic.

Her reasons for hiding her face make sense to me, yet she has copped plenty of criticism.To not flash an appropriately beautified face along with her voice has been treatedalmost like a betrayal of the female celebrity contract. The backlash starts along the linesof 'Is it because she is ugly? What is she hiding under there?' And gets nastier fromthere. Her response? It should be about the music and the work - not the face.

'Music is for the ears, not the eyes, right?' is how she recently put it to actor andcomedian Kristen Wiig in a piece for Interview magazine. 'I love that the work that hasgone into it has been behind the scenes. People say, 'Enough of this shit where shedoesn't show her face,' and 'It's a gimmick.' For sure. I'm trying to do this differently, forserenity. I want you to be entertained … I'd just rather it not centre aroundwhether or not I have cellulite.' Her experiment draws a clear boundary between herselfand her role as a female entertainer, one where popularity rests on the obsessive publicscrutiny of appearance.

There's no doubt Sia possesses the raw talent for success. Her voice is phenomenal; hersmash hit Chandelier - about her struggle with alcoholism - was nominated for fourGrammy awards this year. She also composes songs for the likes of Beyonce andRihanna and directs her own music videos. Yet audiences remain bitterly hungry for theglamorous image they think they're owed - and sadly, this comes as no surprise.

Generally it's regarded as incomprehensible if, as a woman, you don't bolster andpromote your looks to enhance your success. This is not just the case in theentertainment business.

At times in my life where I have chosen to shift my focus away from outward beauty, I'vehad some a range of unsolicited comments. A close male relative once told me, 'A littlebit of make-up doesn't hurt, you know. There's no need to be extreme and wear none atall. You're attractive and young, you should make the most of that.'

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On another occasion, a man I was dating at the time thought it appropriate to disillusionme on what clothes men like. One day I said, 'I love the way Ellen [DeGeneres] dresses,her style is so different.' He responded: 'Just so you know, men don't like the way Ellendresses. She looks like a man. That's not what guys find attractive.' Even if he really hadbeen designated a spokesman on behalf of all men everywhere, what was most offensivewas the presumption that my sole aim in choosing what to wear was to attract men.

There is a societal ownership of women's looks and physical appeal that just doesn'tapply to men. It seems anyone is entitled to comment on a woman's physicalattractiveness at any time, in any context. But as pointed out in a recent article about Siain the Guardian, when other artists have chosen to conceal their appearance it hasn'tbeen a problem - because those artists, from bands like Daft Punk and Slipknot, weremen. Yet the calls for Sia to show her face and stop with the perceived nonsense havebeen almost obsessive. Like anyone, she is not immune to societal expectations andpublic perception. 'Of course I want to be loved,' she said. 'So when people say, 'Showyour face, you're not ugly.' I want to say, 'I know. I'm not doing it because I think I'mugly.'

In a 'Women and Hollywood' interview published in March, critically-acclaimed Americancomposer Jeanine Tesori said, of women in the field of music, 'There are some badasswomen who are ambitious and hungry and brave, and they're in pop.' It's easy to see bylooking at the pop artists dominating on an international level - Katy Perry, Lady Gaga,Rihanna and Taylor Swift to name a few.

Women's ability to take control of their careers has increased noticeably in the world ofpop, arguably more so than in other forms of entertainment. Yet their success seems tiedinextricably to their image. While these are undoubtedly talented women, what happensto their success without it? For Sia, this is a reality she has chosen to 'face' by coveringhers.

'I'm 39, and I would like to be able to make great pop music for another 20 years,' shesaid. 'And it feels like creating a sort of inanimate blonde bob and allowing other peopleto play the role of the pop singer, it affords me a little bit more freedom in terms of myexpiration date.'

Not yet in her 40s, it's depressing that such a powerhouse of talent is worried aboutgetting too old for success. Not wanting to give that up based on factors that are neitherwithin her control nor have any bearing on the quality of her music makes a lot of sense.

So what happens when a female artist releases music without selling her whole body aspart of the package? Thanks to Sia we are learning that resisting the pull of good musicis not easy, even if the heartfelt lyrics and beautifully composed melodies are deliveredby a giant blonde bob. This holds a great message for all women - that society does notown your beauty, and your beauty need not be what makes or breaks your success.

Megan Graham is a Melbourne based writer, journalist and occasional blogger.

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This boy's life on the autism spectrum

REVIEWS

Tim Kroenert

X+Y (M). Director: Morgan Matthews. Starring: Asa Butterfield, Rafe Spall, SallyHawkins, Martin McCann, Jo Yang, Jake Davies, Alexa Davies. 111 minutes

A highlight of last year's disability-themed The Other Film Festival was SummerDeroche's short doco about eccentric electric lamp enthusiast Andrew Pullen. The GlobeCollector packed plenty of pathos and humour into its consideration of Pullen, hisobsession, and his life with Asperger's. 'I don't like the term disorder,' he says in thefilm. '[Asperger's is] just another type of person. Another type of personality.'

His words ring true when viewing X+Y, documentarian-turned-feature filmmaker MorganMatthews' coming-of-age film about a boy's life on the autism spectrum. The filmcontains at least two characters who have been diagnosed as 'on the spectrum', and theybear out Pullen's claim to 'another type of personality'. Their 'otherness' is portrayedmerely as a different permutation of normality.

The film's adolescent hero, Nathan (Butterfield), was diagnosed when he was young, andwas encouraged by his parents to view the diagnosis as a gift rather than a curse. Inparticular, it manifests in part as a prodigious talent for numbers and mathematics.Nathan finds order and patterns soothing, and so mathematics becomes a refuge and apassion more than simply an academic interest.

While Nathan's father Michael (McCann) shares a close bond with his son, his motherJulie (Hawkins), despite the depth of her love and her most sincere efforts, cannot seemto connect with him in the same way. The distance between mother and son isexacerbated when Michael is killed in a car accident; Julie's subsequent struggle toconnect with Nathan is X+Y's touching, emotional through-line.

The film follows Nathan's efforts to win a place at a prestigious international competitionfor budding mathematicians. Travelling to Taiwan to train with a group of other prodigiesfrom England, China and elsewhere, Nathan meets Luke, another boy who is 'on thespectrum' but who, with a more abrasive personality than the soft-spoken Nathan, hasbeen singled out for bullying by their peers.

Luke's story provides a sad counterpoint to Nathan's. Nathan's introversion and quietintelligence tends to appeal to those around him (no less than two girls on the camp,Rebecca (Davies) and Zhang Mei (Yang), display a romantic interest in him), and hissocial awkwardness might as well be attributable to adolescence as to autism. Luke, onthe other hand, works hard to fit in, and is ostracised for his efforts.

In one heartbreaking scene, Luke attempts to win the other boys' approval with animpromptu Monty Python recitation, substituting a barbecued prawn for a dead parrot.Now, this is actually really funny, except that Luke is oblivious to the fact that his chosenaudience simply does not get the joke. Nathan, of course, can relate to Luke's failure to

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know the rules of social interaction. Then again, so can we all.

Ultimately this is a film about connection - human lives intersecting like the axes of agraph, and the meaning found at the point of intersection. While Zhang Mei opensNathan's mind anew, Julie bonds with Humphreys, Nathan's cynical but good-naturedtutor (Spall), a fallen genius with multiple sclerosis. In the end he may be able to helpher better understand her son, and so finally connect with him.

Tim Kroenert is assistant editor of Eureka Street.

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Can speech be free in the Catholic Church?

AUSTRALIA

Andrew Hamilton

Some 60 years ago the German Catholic theologian Karl Rahner (pictured) wrote apamphlet on free speech in the Catholic Church. His explorations may seem now to bevery tentative, but were daring at a time when the Pope took positions on disputedquestions and demanded acquiescence.

Rahner's Catholic world was different from that of today. In discussions about the Synodon the Family, cardinals have differed publicly on how to approach irregular relationships.

Priests in England drafted a letter, invited other priests to sign it, and made it public. Inturn, English Cardinal Vincent Nichols rebuked them for caucusing.

Meanwhile Pope Francis has insisted that the participants in the Synod are free toexpress their opinions, urged them to give priority to people at the margins of churchand has proclaimed a Holy Year of Compassion to coincide with it.

In Rahner's time free speech was looked at from the perspective of the teachers of faith.The questions concerned the content of faith, what was open to discussion and what wasclosed, who could speak authoritatively about it, and what were the responsibilities ofthose being taught.

Within this framework Rahner tried to enlarge the area left free for discussion, and toexpand the responsibilities of those receiving teaching beyond passive acceptance. Heagreed that public conversation about faith should avoid confusing people or diminishingthat the expression of opinions should not confuse people about faith or diminish respectfor teaching authority.

Pope Francis also takes for granted that teachers will teach and Catholics will receiveChristian faith. Like Rahner, he encourages lively conversation about its implications,believing that this will enhance the credibility of what is taught and that the truth willcommend itself. His confidence distinguishes him from many Bishops who emphasise thedanger of error and confusion among ordinary Catholics living in a culture antipathetic tofaith. This difference underlies some of the divergences in responses to the Synod.

http://archive.org/stream/freespeechinthec027876mbp/freespeechinthec027876mbp_djvu.txt

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But the deeper differences arise out of Pope Francis' distinctive perspective on thecommunicating faith. He is less concerned with the content of what is taught than withhow it is understood, particularly by those who are at the margins of the Catholic Church.He is concerned that preoccupation with explaining the whole Christian message intechnically correct language often leaves people at the margins of church alienated fromwhat they see as bad news. So he asks how the Gospel can be heard as good news bythose on the edge of Church and society.

He answers that Bishops and priests responsible for teaching faith should go outcompassionately to people at the edge of church, not to judge them but to enter theirworld. Then they will find words and gestures to communicate the Gospel as Good News.To teach faith to the marginalised you need to live and learn faith at the margins.

Pope Francis clearly hopes that the way the Synod responds to questions about thefamily will be received as good news by people marginalised in the church. But that willdepend on the participants having entered their experience and being open to it. That iswhy he emphasises the importance of conversion - a new way of seeing the world.

Pope Francis' take, based on Jesus' example, is radical. It naturally stirs debate. He andall the Bishops, though not all Catholics, are agreed in accepting received churchteaching on faith and moral practice. They differ, however, whether particular disciplinarypractices, such as the exclusion of the divorced and remarried from receivingcommunion, are demanded by Catholic faith.

Many bishops differ with the Pope about what should have priority in Catholic life:commending faith to people at the margins of church, or strengthening the faith of thosewho at the centre. Because Bishops hesitate to disagree with Popes in public and becausethe move to the margins by Pope Francis has been so popular, these differences are notalways articulated. But they are clearly present.

Finally, many Bishops would differ with Pope Francis about whether open discussion andexpression of disagreement at the Synod and more generally in the Church willencourage Catholics to recognise the truth or will lead them into confusion.

Open letters and the gathering of petitions raise further questions. Although these formsof expression are integral to free speech in society, one would expect neither PopeFrancis nor Bishops who disagree with him to welcome them in church life. For PopeFrancis they will turn people away from openness at the margins to defence of thecentre. For most of his opponents, public disagreement or politicking from beneath leadto disunity and confusion.

But opinions about faith can be passionately held. And no one likes being on the losingside.

Andrew Hamilton is consulting editor of Eureka Street..

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Give sporting politicians a sporting chance

AUSTRALIA

John Warhurst

Despite often treating sportspeople uncritically as celebrities for their on-fieldachievements, Australians are ambivalent about their place in public life.

The reaction of former Howard government minister Peter Reith to the defection from thePalmer United Party (PUP) of Senator Glenn Lazarus, the former champion CanberraRaiders rugby league forward, provides a good example of such ambivalence.

Reith launched an unfair personal attack on Lazarus as a 'dud from the start' andsomeone unsuited to and unworthy of political life, going on to say that:The broader lesson from the saga is that a candidate for Parliament should not bepromoted simply because he or she was good at sport, like Lazarus, a former rugbyleague player. It happens, but, fortunately, not too often.

Reith's broader lesson is meaningless because it applies to any occupation, even if,couched in such a simplistic way, he may have a point. No one should be promoted toParliament simply because of professional success. Every occupation has something tooffer; it is the whole person which should be judged for their suitability.

Sporting people, amateur and professional, have a long history in political life inAustralia. In A Federal Legislature, Professor Joan Rydon showed how there were manywell-known sporting identities in the early Commonwealth Parliament, including theboxer, Sir Granville Ryrie and the rugby league player, Senator Albert Gardiner. That hascontinued at the rate of close to 10% of all federal MPs since, including the Menzies eraminister, Sir Hubert Opperman, who was a champion cyclist and Melbourne AFL player,Ray Groom (later Tasmanian Premier).

A sporting background may be a political asset because a public profile can be translatedinto votes. Some sports people may even be attracted to politics just because it isanother type of public limelight. But it is a diminishing asset and should be treatedcautiously. Just as Opperman didn't 'cycle into Parliament', nor do today's sporting MPs,like tennis player John Alexander in Bennelong, play their way into parliament. What theydo after their sporting career, like coaching, commentating or running sporting clubs, ora totally different career, may be more important.

Whatever their attractiveness to political parties and whatever their motivation therehave been many politicians with substantial sporting backgrounds. PUP also stood formerWestern Bulldogs star, Doug Hawkins, and former Australian boxing champion, BarryMichael, as candidates. Sporting champions who entered Parliament have includedchampion swimmer Dawn Fraser as an Independent in NSW, St Kilda AFL wizard DarrellBaldock in Tasmania, and hockey player and cricketer, Ric Charlesworth, in federalpolitics.

The current federal parliament also includes hockey player and athlete, Senator Nova

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Peris, and the international-standard rower Senator Cory Bernardi.

Professional sport is a perfectly acceptable occupational background for politicians. Thecharacteristics needed to succeed in high-level sport, including determination,endurance, physical and mental courage, hard work and performing on the public stageare transferable. Success in team sports brings the additional skill of co-operative teamwork.

Some well-known, former professional sports people would make a valuable contributionto public life as politicians; some already do in the non-government and corporatesphere. But some others are unsuitable of because of their other personal characteristics.Like prospective politicians from any background they should be assessed individually.

The general lesson from the example of Glenn Lazarus, who is actually quietly capable, isthat he is as well suited as if he had come from another background, like his fellow cross-bench senators, who have been lawyers, blacksmiths, builders, business and armypeople. It is not only their other personal characteristics that matter, but also theirpolitical environment.

The experience of these cross-benchers is that they are thrust into the lime-light evenbefore they are sworn in and forced to adjudicate on a decidedly unsporting contestbetween the Liberals and Nationals on the one hand and Labor and the Greens on theother. The issues at stake are complex and you can never please everyone.

So don't let your prejudices, for or against, about sportspeople get in the way of a fairjudgement about the job they do when they get into politics.

John Warhurst is an Emeritus Professor of Political Science at the Australian NationalUniversity and a Canberra Times columnist.

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The death of bullying victim Vangelis Giakoumakis

CREATIVE

Gillian Bouras

Anthropologistsstate that the outsider is both dangerous and in danger.

I learned this lesson long ago and in a small way when I started at a new school in aclannish farming community, where the alpha girl and her loyal clique seemed to regardme as a threat: I had come from a bigger town, my father was a teacher at the nearbyhigh school, and I was good at both sport and lessons.

In the days before mobile phones and the Internet, the bullying was a pale shadow ofpersecution today - She's gonna bash ya up this time, for sure - but it was still a burden.My mother, in whom I confided, trotted out the time-honoured saw of 'Sticks and stonesmay break your bones, but names can never hurt you'.

The anxious feeling was slow to leave, however. The later reading of Margaret Atwood'snovel Cat's Eye,for example, was a painful experience, and a salutary reminder of howcruel little girls can be, while an unexpected meeting with my adversary, whom I'd notseen for decades, caused my heart to give a great lurch, and left me feeling tearful andwinded.

Here in Greece, a 20 year old youth learned the anthropologists' lesson in the hardestway possible. Vangelis Giakoumakis (pictured) was a Cretan from near Rethymnon, butwas studying at the Dairy School in Ioannina, in faraway Epirus. The TV photos show asensitive-looking lad, slightly built, and with a shy expression. But one picture inparticular is heart-wrenching: Vangelis is clearly on the verge of tears. Subjected toconcentrated and constant bullying, he eventually could bear no more, and so hewandered away to a lonely death: he lay in a ditch and slit a wrist, not far from the

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scenes of his torment. But it was nearly six weeks before his body was found.

I was once with friends in a Cornish churchyard. A local man was also there, and hisconversational gambit was 'You're not from here, are you? You're foreign.' One friendwas a Londoner, but had lived in Cornwall for forty years. 'How many years does it take?'she asked. 'Three hundred,' came the laconic reply. It seemed obvious that we wereirredeemably other. So, it would seem, was Vangelis, although for very different reasons.

Who knows, really, what triggers bullying? Except that bullies, who are always cowards,invariably select as victims people who seem weaker and thus vulnerable to pressure,both physical and psychological. Vangelis seems to have been the sort who could not orwould not fight back.

Perhaps he didn't know how, although he managed to change his accommodation afterhis room-mate proved to be a smoker with a taste for the high life. But this change wasnot enough to enable him to put up with the taunts, slaps and punches, the time spentlocked in cupboards, the water stoppages when he was under the shower and covered insoap, the being chained like a dog and dragged around the school's corridors. There wasalso, predictably, a measure of cyber bullying.

The scenario was complicated - and all the complications may never be known - by thecultural expectation that the Greek male must always be a pallikari, a 'real' man, and sonoted for bravery and gallantry. This expectation, it seems to me, is particularly markedamong Cretans; ironically, some of the bullies were themselves Cretan, so that Vangelismay well have felt himself caught between his extreme suffering and a kind of peculiarlytribal loyalty.

The whole distressing episode has been headline news for weeks, for complaints weremade, apparently, and then covered up and not acted upon. The head of the school hasbeen forced to resign, and the Riot Squad was called when a large group of locals andstudents, chanting 'murder, not suicide,' broke the gate into the school grounds in anunsuccessful attempt to storm the building itself.

Crete is its own world within the Greek one, and so it was that gunshots, applause andloud farewells sounded as Vangelis made his last journey, accompanied by large crowds.TV cameras found the face of Vangelis's broken mother, a sight I will not soon or easilyforget.

Justice is often elusive. But it is now strongly rumoured that certain students are afraidto leave the school grounds. Perhaps they, too, are learning extra lessons, those thatinvolve being other.

Gillian Bouras is an expatriate Australian writer who has written several books, storiesand articles, many of them dealing with her experiences as an Australian woman inGreece.

http://www.gillianbouras.com/

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Funding cut signals the destruction of Aboriginal life inAustralia

AUSTRALIA

Michele Madigan

The Minister for Indigenous Affairs Nigel Scullion seems to be presiding over thedestruction of Aboriginal life in Australia

Aboriginal Communities have very recently been informed about the annual allocations toenable the running of Aboriginal Communities given under what is now known as theIndigenous Advancement Strategy. The stated aims of the IAS is named by the CoalitionGovernment in the terms of get ting children to school, adults into work and building safecommunities.

But in reality - as one of the Aboriginal administrators of a well established regionalAboriginal community in SA explained to me the day after the shock of receiving the IASfunding news, the policy and practice can only be assumed to be about making bothregional and remote communities unsustainable. 'If they don't fund the communities, it isa given that they will become unsustainable.'

In SA the situation is made even more precarious by the unresolved situation of thewater, power and other essential services known as MUNS funding. Back in November2014, the Minister called on the South Australian Government to take responsibility forservicing its Aboriginal residents, just as it does for non-Aboriginal residents.

In a clever media release, he disguised his Government's own abrogation of duty forfunding Aboriginal communities' essential services, known as MUNS funding, byattempting to switch this, their long held responsibility, to the State Governments. The

http://www.indigenous.gov.au/indigenous-advancement-strategy

http://www.nigelscullion.com/media-hub/indigenous-affairs/south-australia-continues-ignore-its-aboriginal-communities

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SA government refused to accept this role.

In contrast, WA had accepted a one off $90 million for their 'transfer' grant andconsequently announced 150 communities would be closed down. This has receivedmuch publicity, and the South Australian situation is much less known.

The SA government, having refused the original one off $10 million 'transfer' offer astotally inadequate, continues to call on the Federal Government to re-assume theseresponsibilities held since 1973.

Some Aboriginal communities in South Australia are large settlements, larger than somesmall mainstream country towns and with a great deal of infrastructure like schools andhealth clinics. All are presently facing a 'future' with no funding to ensure water supplies,power, sewerage and sanitation, airstrip maintenance where this applies for emergencyhospital evacuation - no funding for every possible essential service; services which aretaken for granted by other Australians.

Late in March, the revelation came to various communities in South Australia that thisdesperate situation is not the last word. In 2014 the Minister announced the AbbottGovernment's new framework for Aboriginal funding. All organisations and communitieswould have to apply in a competitive process for funding named (ironically it would nowseem) the Indigenous Advancement Strategy (IAS).

Currently, Aboriginal communities and organisations throughout the nation are beinginformed of their funding - it would seem very much in the form of cuts. These includecuts to health and many other needed community and administrative on the groundservices. Aboriginal people in South Australia, at least, have just discovered thatAboriginal communities have received, in the words of one Community leader 'not even10 per cent of the funds requested ' to run a community.

These are cuts which, as they say, 'in no way will advance these communities into thefuture.' What is going to happen to the many residents and resident workers? Among thepeople, this is incredulous. How can the Federal Government admonish other countrieson how to treat their citizens when it does this to its own?

Many of the Aboriginal communities in South Australia have suffered a 90 per cent cut totheir requested funding under the IAS. The exceptions to this are reportedly, the APYLands - Amata, Pukatja (Ernabella), Indulkana - which will receive no funding at all.These Lands in the north west of the state include these large settlements as well assmaller communities and homelands. There will be no funding for the Maralinga Lands.

On 24 March, The Australian newspaper reported that Minister Scullion 'has bowed topressure' of Aboriginal leaders, both bewildered and angered by the cuts, to release a fulllist of organisations that have received grant funding under the IAS. A further shock, asthe list reveals that just one third of these organisations are actually Aboriginalorganisations and communities. The two-thirds majority includes major organisations,governments, shire councils and large well-funded non-government agencies. SwimmingAustralia, Rugby Union and AFL national bodies received grants.

The Australian summarised that 'thousands of organisations which once received smallgrants will no longer be funded and those funded have received a lesser chunk ofmoney.' The result? 'Many Aboriginal community-controlled organisations … drivento the wall…and forced to lay off staff or close their doors.' Obviously their services

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/indigenous/indigenous-advancement-strategy-funding-revealed/story-fn9hm1pm-1227277037488

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will then no longer exist, or at best, be severely curtailed - with predictable results.

Yalata is a substantial Community in the Far West of SA. Pitjatantjara Elder Mima SmartOAM from Yalata was in Port Augusta on March 28 at the Crisis Summit called for SAleaders in Aboriginal Communities. Mima is worried people will be forced to move. "Iwant the people, the community people, to stay in the country," she said

It's puzzling, then, to know how the drastic cuts to both the Aboriginal communities andto the community-controlled organisations is going to enable the fulfilment of the AbbottGovernment mantra - getting kids to school, adults to work and communities safe.

Similarly puzzling is the response of the Minister when asked to comment on the fundingreality as outlined.

Senator Scullion called it a process to 'deliver the long term, sustainable resultsIndigenous communities want and deserve.' HOW? Aboriginal people are asking. How canthere possibly be 'no service delivery gaps' as claimed? The Minister's 'Strategy' hascreated them. Just how will the Minister 'address' these issues of fixing any funding gapsas promised? Again the explanation is from the people:'These words [of assurance]aren't meant for us but for the broader community to believe Aboriginal people aregetting what they need.'

Will we believe it? Or will we believe the words of the First Nations peoples livedexperience and go the next step to stand in solidarity and protest with them, working, asPope Francis says in Evangelii Gaudium #188, 'to eliminate the structural causes ofpoverty'?

Michele Madigan is a Sister of St Joseph who has spent the past 38 years working withAboriginal people in remote areas of South Australia and in Adelaide. Her work hasincluded advocacy and support for senior Aboriginal women of Coober Pedy in theircampaign against the proposed national radioactive dump.

APY lands image from sbs.com.au

http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium.html

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The other side of religious zealotry

CREATIVE

Earl Livings

Libation

To the earth my ancestorsOffered the best or the first-Hindquarter, sheaf of wheat, blood-Respect for those spirits feltIn tree, stream, stone, mystery:How and why sun and moon dance,How creatures and crops followThe seasons, where the dead go.

In my childhood, taught and blessedBy revelation dogma,I gave thanks to that one godI soon judged didn't exist,The bounty at our tableNot his to bestow, but ours-The marvel of jump-stump ploughs,The charge of superphosphates,The chain gears in abattoirs-Man's inventions helping man.

This full moon night I openA bottle of Welsh whisky,Pour some on the rooted earth

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Of our apple tree, listenTo the wind jostle the leavesOf my thoughts. I have watched manLand on the moon and track signsFor alpha and omegaIn the folds of particlesAnd the spiral attractionsOf galaxies, flowers, shells.Have heard reasons for murderIn common streets, holy sites,The control of hierarchies.Have felt the chaos designsOf weather and human touch.

Though I can never be sureOf anything, life itselfA mask out of mystery,I have once or twice found graceIn meditation and outOf the corner of an eye,In forest, at sea-shore,With lover or new-born,A scintillation, a keen trace,Unplucked string resonatingOne part ceremony, one part dance, Presence that encourages And deserves honour,some chance For alliance-planet, self, Winds that rattle, disappear.

Little Wattlebird

When I open the front doorHe has arrived at last,Swinging on the telephone wireAbove the pink Camellia bush.

After each May Day, wheneverBuds goose-bump its branches,I await his appearance, gold-winged,Advance scout for a family

Come to breedGeneration after generation,This bush their nest barricade,Their nectar restaurant.

And each day he broadcastsAny one of nine sounds-The soft throaty Yekkop yekkop,That shnairt! of alarm,

Those squeaky trill-flourishes-Here I am, Keep clear,This is mine, The sun is shining-Often rousing us to our day,

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His and theirs already started:Build a nest, feed a family,Teach fledglings to trust feathers,Perch on wire or branch, watching,

Till the nectar runs dry,The weather changes tune,The fledglings preen for mating-Time come for nomads to criss-cross

Latitudes and longitudes,Navigating by star, by magnetic field,By tang of air and moisture,Wingtips angling towards sunset,

Ancestral flight paths forever loopingBack to old haunts, new blossoms.And a door somewhere creaks with welcome,Generation to generation.

Scripture in the Round Sacred, an exhibition at the British Library, September 2007Somewhere outside, the addled cultures of exclusivity clash, and clash again, as have allzealots, all purgers of scapegoats, all crusading armies, to the same breathless end. Inhere, Jew, Christian, Muslim, the curious, the lapsed or distant, circle these Abrahamicaccounts, variations on the one theme of listening to the source of all blessings. Wecannot touch the papyrus unearthed from the rubbish tip of ancient Oxyrhynchus, thegold and vibrant ink letters and images on vellum, the marriage contract, the ceramiclamp, all transfigured by the music of visionary tongues, can only stand before eachTorah, Gospel, Qu'ran, as if before an opening star, and know them as incarnations ofthat lush silence that inspires believer and non-believer to Truth, Beauty, Good, which wecarry outside, the heart thrumming.

The Enterprise of Dust

By the time you read thisat least 50,000 cellsof your body will die.

And with each person metwe handshake cells,mix and match electronsthat swarm about us...

Everyone on this planet,everything, renders the otherthrough at most seven tradesof touch, every moment.

When we die, afterso many seven-year cyclesof new cells, new electrons,

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same pivot of mind and memory,

the planet reclaims us,with all those folded-in livesof labourer and sage,insect and blossom,

and our children's childrenwill share and shed us,

until winds and magnetic currentsfling us into further orbitsof planets, stars, black holes.

Earl Livings is a Melbourne writer of poetry and fiction who focuses on nature, mythologyand the sacred and is currently working on a Dark Ages novel and his next poetrycollection.Ultra Orthodox Jew image by Shutterstock.

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Family's bipolar drama is a laughing matter

REVIEWS

Tim Kroenert

Infinitely Polar Bear (M). Director: Maya Forbes. Starring: Mark Ruffalo, ZoeSaldana, Imogene Wolodarsky, Ashley Aufderheide. 88 minutes

Mental illness is not a laughing matter. Except when it is. David O. Russell's 2012 mentalillness-themed romantic comedy Silver Linings Playbook proved that a film could treat itsafflicted characters with warmth and dignity, while also celebrating the humour thatarises from said characters' (extra)ordinary human foibles. Infinitely Polar Bear achievessomething similar, against a more domestic backdrop.

Set in 1970s Boston, the film centres on Cameron (Ruffalo), a man with bipolar disorderwho takes on the sole care of his two young daughters, while their mother Maggie(Saldana) is in New York, studying, in pursuit of a career in order to better support them.The sensitive and strong-willed girls do not make Cameron's task easy; but neither aretheir mother's absence and their father's illness easy on them.

Some critics have worried that the film's generally sweet, humorous tone risks makinglight of Cameron's illness, which is severe enough that he has been institutionalised atleast once. He is on lithium but tends to neglect it, preferring to self-medicate withalcohol. The character's love for his wife and his daughters is palpable, but there is nodenying that at times he is irresponsible, to say the least.

It's no accident though that all of this is viewed through a glaze of nostalgia, evennaivety. The film is a dramatised version of writer-director Forbes' childhood, and Amelia,the elder of Cameron and Maggie's girls (and played by Forbes' own daughter,Wolodarsky), is a version of Forbes herself. Amelia also narrates the film, so it's fair tosay the story is literally being told by the filmmaker's inner child.

No wonder then that Cameron, who is as prone to aggressive outbursts and emotionallymanipulative behaviour as he is to endearing eccentricity and genuine tenderness, isportrayed with a sense of deep, complicated affection. Ruffalo excels in the role,balancing reams of manic energy against a deep well of pathos. It is a powerfulperformance that humanises a complex character.

He is matched in this effort by the remarkable performances of Wolodarsky andAufderheide (who plays Amelia's younger sister, Faith), who go toe-to-toe with theseasoned character actor and prove worthy foils in both comedic and dramatic terms.The relationship between Cameron and his daughters is the film's emotional fulcrum andall three actors more than do it justice.

Vitally, Forbes also pays careful attention to the would-be working mother Maggie'semotional arc: her struggle to get a job in a male-dominated business world; her agonyat being away from her daughters; her patience with and even love for Cameron, that istempered by a desire for self-preservation and to protect her daughters. Ruffalo may be

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the film's star, but Saldana's Maggie is its unsung hero.

Tim Kroenert is assistant editor of Eureka Street.

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Easter's April Fools

AUSTRALIA

Andrew Hamilton

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This year April Fools Day comes earlier in the week leading up to Easter. The conjunctionof the most solemn week of the Christian year and the day when jokers are let loose isthought provoking.

Jokes are also part of the story of Jesus' killing. They are not harmless, but are bittermockery. After Jesus is sentenced he is mocked by the bored soldiers guarding him.

He claimed to be a king, so they throw purple rags on him and a crown of thorns on hishead. As he hangs writhing on the cross, the bystanders and the local authorities alsomock him because he claimed to be the Son of God. They tell him to come down fromthe cross if he is for real.

Pilate puts a placard on the cross that mocks both Jesus' and Jewish aspirations. Itdescribes him as the King of the Jews. The tortured and degraded figure dying beneaththe placard will put an end to Jesus' kingly nonsense. The demonstration of Roman poweralso mocks any Jewish hope that they will ever have a king who is not a Roman puppet.

The Christian Gospel writers could include these mordant jokes because they believedthat within three days the joke was on the jokers. In Matthew's story the soldiersguarding Jesus are knocked senseless when radiant angels appear by the empty tomb.

Jesus' resurrection reveals the conventional wisdom, that his life could be destroyed bydeath and his claims falsified by torture, to be a charade. The Easter joke is that theworst efforts of solemn minded and practical human beings to ridicule, kill, discredit andisolate a person who represents truth and love are futile. Life and forgiveness will burst

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out of the apparently nailed down tomb.

In the light of Easter, April Fools Day does not need to be deplored. Serious people donot need to take seriously jokes against them; mockery will always mock the mocker.When love is stronger than death, faith and politics can alike be the subject of laughter.

That message might be apposite this Easter time. Our national life is suffused with a highearnestness in which the entrails of jokes are carefully examined for incorrectness, pollsare honoured as Gods, and any disrespect for economic orthodoxy and acquisitiveness issmartly corrected. And adult commitment to matters of state is demonstrated by lockingup children. April Fools Day cannot come too soon.

Ultimately, the events of Easter are about compassion. They allow tears for those whoselives are precious but are treated as expendable. They allow laughter at the childishnessof those who believe that brutality will bring good or lasting results. But laughter atEaster is not despairing, but compassionate even for the uncompassionate.

Kings may demonstrably have no clothes, but they do have fine bodies. So do we, andbodies can come in handy once we recognise our nakedness and see other human beingsas our brothers and sisters. April Fools Day and Easter are both about finding unexpectedpossibilities in front of our faces.

Andrew Hamilton is consulting editor of Eureka Street.

Image: Christ on the Road to Calvary - Giovanni Battista Tiepolo - wikiart.org.

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Bill's bills

CARTOON

Fiona Katauskas

Fiona Katauskas' work has also appeared in ABC's The Drum, New Matilda, TheSydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Australian, The Financial Review and Scribe's BestAustralian political cartoon anthologies.

Vol 25 No 631-Mar-2015


The General of the poor and the Iron Lady of industry

INTERNATIONAL

Barry Gittins

On 20 March, General Eva Evelyn Burrows AC, the 85 year old Australian retired worldleader of the Salvation Army, was 'promoted to glory' (Salvo-speak for having left thislife). As I will suggest, her life of service paralleled and contrasted markedly with anotherprominent female leader, Baroness Margaret Hilda Thatcher, who died on 8 April 2013.

General Burrows was much loved and respected. She was a deep thinker, a giftedspeaker and, rarer still, a big-picture strategist who was also an 'implementer'. Thesecond woman and second Australian to lead the Salvos' international, this Christianfeminist preached Christ and led a rear-guard action against poverty, unemployment andhomelessness.

Burrows spent many retirement years at the Salvos' digs at 69 Bourke Street, caring forunemployed, homeless, marginalised and sometimes mentally ill Melburnians. She'dsometimes front up at 3 a.m. to help distribute blankets and soup, and saw it as aprivilege to wash the feet of homeless people at Eastertime, thus imitating Christ.

Eva's corps officer - the equivalent to her parish priest was Major Brendan Nottle. Hementioned that the General annually opened her home to 'Order 614' -twentysomethings taking on a gap year program to reinforce the Salvos' work withhomeless Melburnians.

'They'd sit there with Iced Vovos and orange cordial, and think they had this littlegrandmotherly figure worked out,' Nottle recalls. 'Then then they'd go into her office andsee photos of the General standing with Ronald Reagan, Queen Elizabeth II, Fidel Castro,Mother Teresa, Mikhail Gorbachev, Bob Hawke, Margaret Thatcher, etc. It blew theirminds - all of a sudden they were exposed to this amazing woman.'

Speaking of that divisive diva Margaret Thatcher, I've always been intrigued by theconnections between these two prominent women, and, indeed, the disconnect.Interviewing Burrows in 2009, I found she praised many leaders she'd met while inoffice, yet was respectfully critical of the Baroness.

'Margaret Thatcher was a disappointment,' the General said. 'I felt she didn't have adeep, true feeling for the poor. I invited her to come out on the soup run indirectly andsaid it wouldn't be a media event, we'd go incognito, but the answer was no…well,I didn't get an answer in a sense…

'Mrs Thatcher always had about her a certain, almost aristocratic, style. You might evensay arrogant style, which I would never want to copy. There was a formidability to her.She was not the kind of woman you could sit down with and have a little chat.'

Tackling the same formidable subject with ABC radio interviewer Margaret Throsby, thatsame year, the General added, 'she didn't accept the invitation…I was a bitsad…She may have been a strong leader [and] she spoke so often about

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compassion, but I would have liked her to have shown a bit, that time.'

In 1996, Burrows had told Australian Biography Project interviewer Robin Hughes that 'Ididn't really hold with Margaret Thatcher's position, which seemed to imply that, youknow, if you worked hard you'd pull yourself up by your bootlaces [as] so many peoplewho are disadvantaged don't have any chance to pull themselves up.'

The Baroness reigned as PM from 1979 to 1990. Burrows' candid insights were notformed in a void; she knew Thatcher's Britain well. She'd 'joined up' as a Sally officerthere in the '50s, served in London from 1970-75, headed up the 'women's socialservices in Great Britain and Northern Ireland' from 1975 to 1977 before leading theScottish Sallies for three years from 1979 - all before taking on the head Salvo job from1986 to 1993.

The Australian saw the devastating effects of Thatcher's policies in Scottish, Irish, Welshand English communities. Cruelled industries, broken communities, sweepingunemployment, crippled unions. Wars waged, lives lost and damaged for generations.

Ruling contrasting 'realms (politics versus the 'fields of the Lord'), deploying differentstyles (autocratic versus consensus), opposing philosophies manifested. Thatcher'sbrinksmanship with the Soviets compares clumsily with Burrows' quiet conciliation as shefinessed the Salvos' re-entry into post-Cold War bastions such as the former EastGermany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Russia.

Burrows' belief in a Divine preferential option for the poor was decidedly not shared bythe British PM. The General grew up in poverty herself, as one of nine children born toSalvation Army officers. She once declared it is 'injustice when a small fraction of thepopulation grows richer by the year, while others ache and suffer for lack of the mostbasic necessities [and] there is gross inequality in how a nation's resources aredistributed'.

'Poverty diminishes people… I have seen people competing with dogs on therubbish heaps of many large cities of impoverished lands,' Burrows once said. 'The poorare not just some conglomerate group which can be dismissed as an economicallynonproductive sector of society…While politicians are tallying up the economic costsof unemployment, I wish they'd be more aware of the social and moral consequences.'

Then there was Burrows' strong international stance against apartheid and admiration ofNelson Mandela (feel free to compare and contrast), and her passionate advocacy againsthomelessness and inequity (think Thatcher's Poll Tax).

Both women knew actions are decibels louder than words. Their respective preferredcourses of action, however, often diverged.

The best 'last words' for General Burrows devolve from her encounter with MotherTeresa; a woman she highly esteemed: 'Mother Teresa said, &'I have helped people talkto the poor, and not just about the poor&'…that's very important to me, too.'

Barry Gittins is a communication and research consultant for the Salvation Army.

Vol 25 No 631-Mar-2015


Women are not responsible for violent crimes againstthem

INTERNATIONAL

Maureen O'Brien

Bashings, beatings, rapes and murders of women are daily occurrences in every countrythroughout the world. When details of these heinous crimes are made known there isoften an outpouring of public outrage and grief.

There is often also a lot of soul-searching about why this violence has occurred, andanswers can include various degrees of blaming the victims.

The proposition that any woman, in any circumstances, is responsible for the violentcrimes that some men perpetrate against them is totally unacceptable and yet in avariety of ways it repeatedly raises its ugly head.

In an interview with one of the men convicted of the gang rape and murder of a womanon a bus in India, the man reportedly said that women would not be killed if they didn'tstruggle and attempt to fight off their rapists.

A defence used in our own courts, by legal representatives for men accused of rape, isthat the women did not struggle, and thereby consented to the act. Women everywhereare invariably in a no-win situation and the victims, not only of their attackers, but alsoof a range of values held in the society in which they live.

A woman's character, attitudes, way of dressing, lifestyle, and habits are all potentiallycited as contributing to the violent crimes perpetrated against them. Recently a seniorpolice officer, investigating the murder of a 17-year-old Melbourne schoolgirl, said that

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females shouldn't be alone in parks. The girl was walking in the early evening less than akilometre from her home.

Suggestions that women are 'asking' for violence to be meted out against thempermeates in the most subtle ways in societies that are predominately patriarchal. Acrass example of this occurred recently when a priest, speaking to a congregation wherethe majority were primary-school-aged children, held up a newspaper with a photo ofconvicted rapist and murderer Adrian Bayley. Reportedly, he then said that if Bayley'svictim, Jill Meagher, was more 'faith-filled' she would have been home instead of out lateon the night when she was raped and murdered.

Not surprisingly a spokesman for the Melbourne Archdiocese responded with animmediate apology for the priest's 'totally inappropriate' and 'offensive' comments. Laterthe priest himself issued an apology citing his ignorance of the circumstances of thecrime which occurred three years ago, a year before he took up his position inMelbourne. Undoubtably he was unaware of the community response at the timesymbolised by 30,000 people marching along Sydney Road in Brunswick, where thecrime occurred.

Arguably, this lack of knowledge on his part is a weak excuse for his remarks. JillMeagher's husband, Tom, has described Olickal's comments as symptomatic of'dangerous and misogynistic views' adding that this was 'a truly abhorrent message toteach to children'. Other family members, both here and in Ireland, have defended Jill as'if not particularly religious, certainly a very spiritual person' who shared with herhusband 'a strong code of ethics'. The burning question is why Jill's family have beensubjected to more pain and placed in the position of having to defend their wife,daughter and relative who was the victim of a previously convicted opportunistic rapistout on bail.

Judgmental attitudes towards women who are victims of male violence are never far fromthe surface. Perhaps this is why there is greater, certainly more widespread, 'moraloutrage' when women whom a society considers are 'virtuous' are beaten, bashed, rapedand murdered. By contrast women who, for example, work in the sex industry often elicitless sympathy when they are victims of male violence.

The contradiction in attitudes here is at the heart of what is faulty, even rotten, in theway people blame victims. For as long as we focus on 'reasons', such as lifestyle, andbelieve they justify violence, we remain incapable of true compassion. Fortunately thereare from time to time notable examples of compassion untainted by judgements.

Maureen O'Brien is a Melbourne writer with articles published in The Swag, LimelightMagazine and The Melbourne Anglican.

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Indigenous youth pay price for ’get tough on crime’election promise

AUSTRALIA

Mathew Drogemuller

The Western Australian Government wants to increase mandatory prison sentences forburglars, in an attempt to keep their election promise of reducing crime.

Amnesty International Australia, however, is running a campaign against the HomeBurglary Bill, with support from organisations like the Aboriginal Legal Service, claimingthat the proposed changes will force judges to send 16-17 year olds to prison relativelyminor property crimes, and therefore increase the already stark rate at which Indigenousyouth are incarcerated in the state.

According to the WA Corrections Minister Joe Francis, who put forward the proposal, the'high rates of Aboriginal youth in detention are an unacceptable waste of young lives andpotential.'

To that effect, he has personally promised to reduce the number of Indigenous people inprisons, and yet one criticism of the Home Burglary Bill is that it will do exactly theopposite. Amnesty International claims that the bill, far from deterring burglars, will onlyserve to worsen the state's overwhelming Indigenous incarceration problem: already fourout of five juveniles in custody are Indigenous.

But the problem of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youths being introduced to thecriminal justice system early in their lives is not limited to one state or territory. AlthoughWA has the highest rate of Indigenous incarceration in the country, as recent ABSstatistics show, it is an issue we are facing across the nation. In the Northern Territory,

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for example, last year 78 per cent of people before criminal courts were Indigenous,whereas they account for only 30 per cent of the general population.

Many more of the young people, aged between 10 and 19, before the courts areIndigenous; almost half of the juveniles in custody in this country are Indigenous. Theyare sent to prison twice as often as young non-Indigenous people, a trend seen across allstates for which data is available.

Indigenous youth are also more likely to be charged with burglary and other propertycrimes, a problem that the WA bill seeks to address. Under the current sentencingregime, implemented in 1996, burglars in WA face a minimum of 12 months' jail time ifthey break the 'three strikes' rule: three strikes and you're incarcerated. Research hasshown, however, that the system has been ineffective at reducing home burglary crimes,which is presumably why the Minister feels it is time to increase the punishments.

Under the proposed law, penalties for home burglars would be increased, which wouldmean WA would see more Indigenous youth and Indigenous people sent to prison. Notonly that, but the bill would cost $93 million to implement, a further $43 million to payfor the extra prison beds (costs not factored into the WA budget for 2015), and thatdoesn't include the social costs of further criminalising the state's youth.

According to Thalia Anthony, a senior lecturer at the University of Technology, Sydney,who has published widely on Indigenous relations with the law, mandatory sentencingregimes have been proven by research to be ineffective as a deterrent, and yet Ministersseeking to appear 'tough on crime' continue to turn to them, despite the lack of evidencefor their efficacy.

'Mandatory sentencing is imposed for effect, rather than because of evidence-basedresearch.'

Thalia says the price paid by Indigenous youth is a high one, and disproportionate to theoffences committed. 'The major concern about having property crimes targeted is that itis a crime commonly committed among younger people and what could be regarded asminor offenders, rather than people who commit crimes out of malice. So it is targetingpeople who are not as culpable as people more deserving of imprisonment.'

Another commonly cited criticism of mandatory sentencing regimes is that they fail totake into account the underlying causes of the crimes they seek to punish. They removethe discretion a judge has to avoid a sentence of imprisonment, and thereby limit thestate's response to the individual's crime.

'Crime generally is reflective of a social problem, and I would say caused by socialproblems. Racial problems, perhaps, or problems that ensue from colonialism anddispossession. There's a whole range of factors that underpin those crimes and theresponse [the bill] isn't about redressing those causal factors. It's a punitive response.It's a criminal justice response.'

The bill is expected to send an extra 206 adults and 60 juveniles to prison in the nextfour years.

Mathew Drogemuller is a journalist, songwriter and fiction typer, whose articles, stories

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and lyrics focus on social issues. Tweets @matdrogemuller.

Prisoner image by Shutterstock.

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My Christ is a raw object

CREATIVE

Marlene Marburg

my christ

nothing is sanitised.

a raw object,raked by their eyes,i am small and lowly

at the feet of my Christ.my hair is sharp like needles on his skin.my tears wash the dirt stuck to his wounds.

like perfume, i cling.our cries merge as water and bloodbursting from our bodies.

we do not hear the thunder,do not see the darkness fall on us.we feel the senseless suffering, we are

too weak for anger.

Body of Christ

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Go into the bare chapel.

On the wall you will see a crucifix,cold and uncompanioned.Jesus hangs peeling,plaster broken off one leg,exposing a rod,the rusty interior -bare.

Go bare into the chapel.

Marlene Marburg is a poet, spiritual director and formator at Campion Centre of IgnatianSpirituality, Kew, in Melbourne.Crucifix image by Shutterstock.

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Netflix and Fairfax in an uncaring new mediaenvironment

AUSTRALIA

Michael Mullins

Serious TV viewers have been celebrating last week's arrival of legal Netflix on demandcontent, which offers 'all you can eat' streaming for just $8.99 per month.

On the one hand, it makes pay TV more accessible to low income earners, who untilrecently were looking at an unaffordable $50 entry level Foxtel subscription.

But on the other, it's really not good news for any of us, because effectively it will meanan end to the telling of Australian stories, as our screens become increasingly floodedwith overseas content.

The big media corporations are lobbying Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull towaive licence fees and reform ownership rules so that they can consolidate and be readyto compete against the likes of Netflix in a new on-demand media environment that willsee the end of media forms we know today, including printed newspapers and'appointment' or scheduled network television.

Turnbull feels sorry for our media executives, who are suffering from the reality that theinternet has lowered the barriers to entry to the media and, on face of it, fosteredgreater competition and diversity. This has enabled overseas publications such as TheGuardian and the Daily Mail to establish themselves here with a modest outlay, takingsignificant market share while providing only a limited amount of Australian content.

But it seems our media companies are expecting the government to change the rules intheir favour without a corresponding commitment to maintaining localism. Much of thecontent of both the Murdoch tabloids, and Fairfax titles - and other media - is networked,with little or no recognition that there are still discrete cultural markings in different partsof Australia that demand particular treatments of national stories and adequate space forlocal stories.

It was only a few years ago that readers were crying foul when Fairfax announced plansto merge the Canberra bureaux of The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. It wasargued that Victorian and New South Wales readers needed different coverage of federalpolitics to reflect their particular needs and concerns. That battle was lost.

Now it is drastic staff cuts that will reduce the ability of Fairfax's regional newspapers tocover local stories and address concerns of their readers. Independent MP CathyMcGowan told Federal Parliament last week that regional newspapers such as her localAlbury-Wodonga Border Mail play an important role providing local news, and job cutsand work practice changes would have an adverse impact on the region. The ABC'sMediaWatch addressed the issue last Monday, highlighting the newspaper's proud pastrecord in campaigning on behalf of the local community.

Netflix and the Daily Mail and the Huffington Post don't care about whether people in alocal area get a cancer centre, mental health resources, or safer roads, or if they know

http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s4203389.htm

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about what's going on in their backyard. Nor, it seems, does Fairfax, or Murdoch'sNewscorp.

There was a time when nearly all media outlets were independent of each other, andlocally owned, by proprietors who cared as much about the welfare of their regions andcities as they did their own bottom line. That was the case with the Border Mail, whichwas established by the Mott family in 1903 and held by them until Fairfax bought thepaper in 2008.

Big media companies don't deserve favours from the Federal Government until they candemonstrate a commitment to localism. In the meantime, consumers may as well takeadvantage of the technological advances of the internet and enjoy Netflix and the DailyMail.

Michael Mullins is editor of Eureka Street.

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Triumph over forced adoption practice

AUSTRALIA

Kate Howarth

My career focus from a very early age was to become a writer. The first blow to thisambition came when I was taken out of school when I was just fourteen years old, oneweek before I'd sit the intermediate certificate.

Being a junior with no skills I took the first job that came along which was stackingshelves in Woolworths at Ermington in Sydney. When I was fifteen and working in afactory at Ryde I was approached by the management with regard to a trainee laboratoryassistant position.

The thought of getting off the production line and looking all important walking aroundthe factory in a white coat with a clipboard, had a lot of appeal.

I knew that it would only be a year before the gig would be up and I'd have to producethe Intermediate Certificate to enrol at Granville Tech. But I thought what the heck. Theway my life went anything could happen in a year. Six months later I found that I waspregnant.

I was sent to St Margaret's Home for Unwed Girls, with the expectation of all around methat I would surrender my son for adoption. For four months I worked in the hospitallaundries and kitchen, without pay or even adequate food, withstanding pressure thatwas tantamount to torture from the hospital administrator as she tried to wear me downand obtain my consent for adoption.

On Boxing Day 1965, two weeks before my sixteenth birthday, when I still hadn'tbuckled, I was tossed onto the street with very little money and no idea where I was, orwhere I was going. Help finally came and I was able to keep my son.

Two years later, I was back where I started. Homeless, penniless, abandoned by myfamily and I'd lost the son I fought so hard to prevent being taken for adoption.

In order to survive I had to create a new identity. Having had my education cut short, Ihad to make up ground if I was going to make something of myself, and be someone myson would be proud of when we were eventually reunited. Having to get up and faceevery day, without my son, was a pain that can only be understood by someone who haslost a child. Every step I took over the next fourteen years was calculated to bring meone step closer to him.

Due to a combination of pure front and good luck, by the time I was 25, I'd worked myway into a senior executive position, unusual for a female at the time and probablyunheard of for an Aboriginal woman. One could say I smashed through the glass ceilingbefore I even knew it existed.

At 27 I found my niche in the personnel industry, and became the co-owner and directorof a company that would become a leader in the industry. It was a time when men felt itwas their perfect right to 'touch-up' the secretary, and a time when if a woman

Vol 25 No 631-Mar-2015


announced she was pregnant, she was looking for another job. In my company at least Ihad the power to level the playing field. But being married to the other director, whoreally did believe women should earn less than their male counterparts, my work andhome life became a constant battlefield, which eventually brought everything undone.

In more recent years, following the publication of Ten Hail Marys, my name wasmentioned in a scathing attack by a Melbourne journalist, among a group of successfulAboriginal women, as having used our 'Aboriginality' to get ahead. In my experience,being a female in this world has never put me at any particular advantage, except forchildbirth. And I don't recall any free passes being handed to me because I am anAboriginal woman. Because none of us mentioned are dark skinned Aboriginal women, itwas insinuated that we were frauds and that somehow claiming to be Aboriginal gave ussome kind of edge.

I went from rock bottom to rise to the top of my field, only to have everything I hadworked for pulled from underneath me. It felt like I was under attack by the 'boys club'and they were determined that I would not win. But in the end, I did win. Not in the waythey expected, but in a way that no amount of money can compensate for.

After being taken down as far as I could go, I managed to get back up again, with mydignity intact, never having resorted to tactics that caused me to put aside my principles.I came away poorer financially for the experience but with a renewed sense of self-worth.This enabled me to go forward and realise my childhood dream of one day becoming awriter and, in doing so, lend a voice to tens of thousands of young women who lost theirchildren in what is now known as 'forced adoption' practices.

Not long afterward I opened my phone messages to receive a text from my son, thankingme, and telling me what a great role model I am to his daughter, and that I taught himthe true meaning of unconditional love. How could I not feel victorious?

Kate Howarth's first book Ten Hail Marys won the Age Book of the Year (Non-Fiction) andexposed her experience of forced adoption practices. The sequel - Settling Day - will bepublished in April by UQP.

http://www.uqp.uq.edu.au/book.aspx/1339/Settling%20Day

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