This page of our website contains all the media articles
(145) about issues relevent to the Block for the year 2005
Article Index - [2008] - [2007]
- [2006] - [2005]
- [2004]
2005/Dec/20 Tough times for Sartor
- REDWatch
2005/Nov/27 Aboriginal boss says
needle bus must go - The Sun Herald
2005/Nov/24 Faulty thinking clouds
the drugs debate - SMH
2005/Nov/20 We bought lethal heroin
with help of drug worker - The Sun Herald
2005/Nov/12 Architecture: The
barefoot brainstormers - SMH
2005/Oct/27 Climbing the stairway
to basic social norms - SMH
2005/Oct/21 Local Liberals call
for Aboriginal future in the Block - Liberals Media Release
2005/Oct/09 Claims of plot to
'crucify' Mundine - The Sun Herald
2005/Oct/06 Redfern tour - Daily
Telegraph
2005/Oct/06 We'll allow more Block
houses: Debnam - SMH
2005/Oct/05 Redfern rallies -
Koori Mail
2005/Oct/05 New body to lead fight
for Redfern - Koori Mail
2005/Oct/05 Minister snubbed -
Koori Mail
2005/Oct/05 Opposition plans to
support Block redevelopment - Daily Telegraph
2005/Oct/04 Sartor's hurtful comments
- NIT
2005/Oct/04 A minister of the
crown? - NIT
2005/Oct/04 Michael Mundine's
open letter to boycott Frank Sartor and RWA - South Sydney Herald
2005/Oct/03 Redfern organisations
unite under Sol Bellear - NIT
2005/Oct/03 Sartor boycott bid
- Daily Telegraph
2005/Oct/01 The contempt for disrespect
- Daily Telegraph
2005/Oct/01 Plans drawn in black
and white - SMH
2005/Sep/30 Labor are the real
hypocrites in Brogden's fall - SMH
2005/Sep/29 Mundine snubs Sartor
- SMH
2005/Sep/19-23 Timetable of Events
in relation to the Frank Sartor Racial Slur
2005/Sep/08 Is Sartor taking the
Micky? - Central Courier
2005/Sep/07 Open letter from Michael
Mundine to Frank Sartor - Central Courier
2005/Sep/05 RIP Aboriginal protest?
- NIT
2005/Sep/02 An open letter from
Frank Sartor to Mick Mundine
2005/Aug/29 Sartor refuses to
budge on the Block - SMH
2005/Aug/03 Loyal and likeable
but largely ineffectual - Daily Telegraph
2005/Jul/15 Sacred land and official
secrets - Southside News
2005/Jul/15 Land and secrets on
The Block - Southside News
2005/Jul/15 Pemulwuy inspires
battle for The Block - Southside News
2005/Jul/15 Friend or foe Sartor
has final say - Southside News
2005/Jul/15 How Moore's 'kinda'onside
with RWA - Southside News
2005/Jul/06 Fighting to save The
Block - The Guardian
2005/Jul/02 Black and Blue - SMH
2005/Jun/29 Power of one best
for city planning: adviser - SMH
2005/Jun/27 NSW: The future of
Redfern should be based on need not greed: says Welsh - ABC
2005/Jun/21 New planning code:
trust us, we're the experts - SMH
2005/Jun/20 Redfern Redevelopment
- Living Black - SBS
2005/Jun/16 Aboriginal Community
Kicked In the Guts - Christian Democratic Party
2005/Jun/16 It's not Mr Whippy,
it's the needle van - Daily Telegraph
2005/Jun/15 Minister Frank
Sartor on SBS Aboriginal Radio program
2005/Jun/15 Residents step
up needle fight - Daily Telegraph
2005/Jun/08 Religious leaders
claim Block policy 'racist' - ABC Sydney
2005/Jun/06 Labor `shame'
at Block plans - The Australian
2005/May/31 The Block under threat,
says AHC - The Courier Mail
2005/May/26 The last thing Redfern
needs [needle exchange] - SMH
2005/May/25 No Black Faces on
the Block? - Signature, UK
2005/May/20 Redfern residents
strongly opposed to needle exchange - ABC
2005/May/18 Redfern - Alan Jones
Editorial - 2GB
2005/May/17 Aborigines' ochre
vision for Redfern - SMH
2005/May/16 Redfern Needle Exchange
- Alan Jones Editorial - 2GB
2005/May/15 Sydney South West
Area Health Service letter and AHC's response - The Australian
2005/May/14 Protest against needle
exchange - Herald Sun
2005/May/12 Selling out the people
of Redfern - The Australian
2005/May/11 Needle exchange a
bad fit for cleaned-up community - The Australian
2005/May/10 Madness rules the
metropolis - SMH
2005/Apr/15 Redfern community
centre on chopping block - SMH
2005/Apr/15 Radio Interview -
2SER
2005/Apr/11 Redfern revamp: Sartor
seeks $36m - SMH
2005/Apr/11 NSW misled over Redfern
redevelopment costs: Opposition - ABC
2005/Apr/08 Redeveloping The Block:
the battle drags on - South Sydney Herald
2005/Apr/06 Joining Forces For
Redfern - Sydney Central
2005/Mar/23 Sartor out to remove
Aboriginal housing - Green Left Weekly
2005/Mar/15 Psst: Sydney's future
is on the line - SMH
2005/Mar/11 Tough-talking Sartor
targets the Block - Australian Financial Review
2005/Mar/11 Sartor is undoing
years of work on the Block - SMH
2005/Mar/08 No point arguing around
the Block all over again - SMH
2005/Mar/08 Hardly a Black face
on the Block in Redfern - Canberra
2005/Mar/07 It's time for a Frank
explanation of Redfern plan
2005/Mar/05 Hardly a black face
on the Block - Sartor's vision for Redfern - SMH
2005/Feb/22 Council wary of Redfern
revamp - SMH
2005/Feb/19 Moore rethinks her
Redfern job - SMH
2005/Jan/15 Redfern team set for
long haul - SMH
Click here to view the 2004 news
archives
Tough
times for Sartor
Dec 20, 2005 - REDWatch
Nami Kwon The Southside News 4/2005 p8 reports: Relations between the Aboriginal Housing Company, (AHC) and Frank Sartor, Minister for Redfern-Waterloo, boiled over in public a few months ago and discussions about redeveloping The Block as part of the Redfern Waterloo development plan came to a standstill.
Mick Mundine, CEO of the AHC, threatened legal action against Sartor for his now infamous "black arse" jibe on radio and urged a local boycott of the minister.
In an open letter to the community, Mundine said if residents turned "a blind eye for long enough" the Minister would sell off other infrastructure in the developers.
"Redfern cannot move forward if Mr Sartor is still in charge," said Mundine.
The AHC was also angered by a report the NSW Government would try to oust Mick Mundine as CEO of the Aboriginal company.
The sticking point between the AHC and the minister has been the number of houses which should be built on The Block. The AHC want 62 but Sartor is adamant 19 houses should be the limit
Earlier this year Frank Sartor was under pressure to resign the Redfern-Waterloo portfolio. Opposition Leader Peter Debnam added his voice to the demand.
"Minister Sartor and Labor clearly want to remove Aboriginal residents from The Block so Treasury can reap top dollar," said Debnam in a press release.
Both the Liberal Party and the AHC wanted the Premier, Morris lemma, to lake over the Redfern Waterloo portfolio. The new premier backed Frank Sartor.
A spokesperson for the Minister confirmed his resolve to keep the portfolio. "The Minister is committed to his role as the Minister for Redfern-Waterloo... and Mr Sartor said he would continue to work diligently as Minister for Redfern-Waterloo," said Zoe Allebone.
Meanwhile, as both sides continue to row 250 Aboriginal families wait for homes on The Block.
REDWatch reported last week that there may have been a meeting between Mundine and the Minister in a bid to re-open discussions on the development of The Block. The meeting could not be confirmed.
The AHC wants the Minister to assess housing company's development application for The Block on its merits.
The company also wants guaranteed consultation with the Aboriginal community before anything on redeveloping The Block is included in the Redfern Waterloo Plan.
BACK TO TOPAboriginal
boss says needle bus must go
November 27, 2005 - The Sun Herald
By John Kidman
ABORIGINAL community leader Mick Mundine has renewed calls for Redfern's needle exchange bus to be scrapped, after claims that one of its workers organised a drug deal that led to the deaths of two men.
"Enough is enough. This needle bus has to go," Mr Mundine said.
"The employee at the centre of the allegation should be investigated, and if found guilty, prosecuted to the full extent of the law."
The Aboriginal Housing Company chief executive said the NSW Government should also be held accountable.
His comments follow allegations that an employee of the needle exchange program organised a heroin deal that led to the fatal overdose of 40-year-old father of four Edward "Zorbie" Carr in Redfern last year.
The evidence of the fatal overdose was contained in police statements for a recent murder trail; it was not used but has been referred to the coroner.
The overdose led to the revenge killing of David Spencer Martin by Carr's best mate, Phillip Dale Harrison. Martin was one of three men who shared the lethal heroin, but survived.
Police alleged that Harrison used a long-bladed knife to slash Martin's throat in Caroline Lane in Redfern as he believed Martin had administered the hot shot that led to Carr's death.
Harrison was found guilty of murder by a Supreme Court jury nine days ago.
But the seven men and five women were not told the deal was facilitated by a man working for the needle exchange program.
Carr's partner of nine years, Davina Robb, said she was shocked and distraught to learn about the allegations.
"I was a witness in the Harrison trial and the police never told me anything," she said.
Carr's aunt, who is on the board of a rural drug rehabilitation clinic and asked not to be identified, said: "It's so upsetting for the family. It's not a thing that should be happening in this world."
Opposition Leader Peter Debnam, who has been one of the needle bus's most strident critics, said he was appalled by the circumstances of Carr's death.
"Needle exchange programs are worthwhile initiatives but they should be run from health facilities by qualified professionals and not from a van in a residential area," he said. "These allegations have to be urgently investigated."
Mr Mundine said he had given evidence at last year's parliamentary inquiry into the Redfern riots that drug dealers were obtaining needles from the bus, then selling them with heroin.
NSW Health, which runs the needle exchange, declined to comment.
Faulty
thinking clouds the drugs debate
November 24, 2005 - SMH
Heroin users need guidance from professionals, not reformed addicts, writes Miranda Devine.
It is desperately sad for Nguyen Tuong Van's family that he is to be hanged in Singapore for heroin trafficking next Friday. You can only hope that last-ditch appeals for clemency are successful.
However, we should not allow our sorrow for Nguyen's imminent death to cloud our hatred of his criminal act.
In much of the public outrage over Singapore's death sentence for the 25-year-old Australian there has been a morally repugnant subtext: that he doesn't deserve to die because he did nothing wrong, or, indeed, that he is a victim of the Federal Government's tough on drugs policy.
One writer of a letter to the Melbourne Age this week claimed Nguyen had committed a "selfless act born of a desperate situation".
In this newspaper's letters page, Al Svirskis of Mount Druitt claimed: "Those more responsible than Nguyen Tuong Van for the wasted lives of heroin users … are the zero-tolerance anti-drug warriors." Legalised prescribed heroin would "save the lives of many users as well as 'mules' like Nguyen".
The reason Nguyen doesn't deserve to die is because we don't believe in judicial killing. But he does deserve severe punishment because what he did was very wrong, regardless of whether he agreed to import heroin to enrich himself or to pay his twin brother's debts. A lot of people have debts and don't stoop to heroin trafficking.
As Singapore's Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, said last week, the 396 grams of heroin found strapped to Nguyen's body and in his backpack at Changi Airport in 2002 were the equivalent of 26,000 doses on the street.
It is not "zero-tolerance anti-drug warriors" who are responsible for lives wasted on heroin. Legalising heroin, which is the ultimate goal of harm-minimisation advocates, might reduce overdose deaths but the normalisation of drug use would only expand the number of addicts.
There is an unfortunate tension between the Federal Government's successful crackdown on drug importation and distribution, which has led to a heroin drought and reduced deaths in recent years, and the implied acceptance of drug use by state-funded harm-minimisation industries.
If, for instance, needle exchange programs are supposed to provide a first point of contact with drug rehabilitation opportunities, what was a health worker at a needle van in Redfern doing facilitating a heroin sale?
This extraordinary story, uncovered by Sun-Herald police reporter John Kidman last weekend, is contained in police statements in a recent murder trial.
The death by heroin overdose of 40-year-old father of four Edward Carr in Redfern in 2004 led to the revenge killing by Carr's best friend, Phillip Harrison, of one of three men who helped buy the heroin. Harrison was found guilty of murder by a Supreme Court jury last week.
But buried in the police brief of evidence is the damning claim that the fatal heroin deal was organised by a man who worked for the needle exchange program.
In a sworn statement dated August 6, 2004, Surry Hills Constable Heath Clark says: "Darrell Martin told us that [he and] Edward Carr approached a male whom Martin knows to be employed by the needle exchange program.
"This male was standing next to the needle exchange bus and [Martin and Carr] inquired about scoring heroin. The needle exchange worker used a mobile phone on their behalf to arrange the purchase of some heroin."
Martin and Carr went to a children's swing in a park near The Block and bought heroin from the dealer, which Carr later injected with fatal consequences.
The claims have never been investigated. A spokesman for the Sydney South West Area Health Service, which runs the Redfern needle exchange bus, said yesterday no action had been taken because "we haven't been given any evidence".
There is no suggestion of any wider involvement by the needle exchange bus or any of its employees. But there is a general perception that workers involved in harm-minimisation programs hold ambiguous moral attitudes towards illicit drug use, perhaps because some themselves use drugs.
It is a curious observation that people who are dependent on drugs or alcohol are often drawn to welfare work aimed at alleviating the misery caused by just such addictions. They are thus incapable of providing clear moral persuasion to steer addicts away from the alcohol or drug abuse. Unwilling or unable to practise abstinence themselves, they cannot advocate it for others.
This is the perception of Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson, who maintains a strict no-alcohol rule for all those who work with his Cape York partnerships. They advocate abstinence in Aboriginal communities, and therefore believe they should walk the walk.
Nothing could be further from Pearson's clear-eyed reality than the notorious case of Marion Watson, the ACT community health worker awarded the Order of Australia medal for her work helping drug addicts. The problem was that Watson's idea of helping was to sell them heroin - about $10,000 worth a week. She was arrested and jailed in 1998.
Watson was the poster girl for the harm-minimisation lobby in the ACT. Her downfall was proof of the folly of non-judgemental programs which advocate "responsible" drug use rather than prevention and treatment.
Attempts to minimise Nguyen's crime do not alleviate his plight. They simply reinforce an attitude in Singapore that Australians are moral relativists, unable to recognise wrongdoing and ever ready to excuse it.
We should be grateful to Singapore for apprehending him, and make the point that he is a criminal, but he is our criminal and we would like to punish him in our own way.
We
bought lethal heroin with help of drug worker
November 20, 2005 - The Sun-Herald
By John Kidman and Erin O'Dwyer
A health worker at Redfern's controversial needle exchange bus is alleged to have facilitated a "hot heroin" deal which has left two men dead and another in jail for murder.
The over-strength heroin, which was bought on Redfern's notorious Block, is blamed for the death in June last year of Aboriginal man Edward "Zorbie" Carr, police statements before the NSW coroner show.
The fatal overdose also led to Carr's best friend later trying to avenge his death by brutally killing a man he mistakenly believed responsible.
On Friday, a Supreme Court jury found that Phillip Dale Harrison slit the throat of David Martin - one of three men who were with Carr when he died - in Redfern's Caroline Lane in September 2004.
Carr had died behind a disused recreation block in Sydney's Prince Alfred Park three months previously.
Three of Carr's mates who shared the heroin were rushed to hospital and recovered, but the 40-year-old father of four died at the scene.
At the time, a magistrate was told Harrison believed Martin had administered Carr a "hot shot" - a deliberate overdose.
But only at the conclusion of Harrison's trial can The Sun-Herald reveal what the jury were never told - that Martin allegedly scored the fatal deal with the involvement of a needle exchange health worker.
Details of the allegations are contained in the statements of at least two police officers who attended the discovery of Carr's body. Both spoke to Darrell Martin - believed to be David Martin's brother, and another of the men who overdosed on the heroin - the same night in Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.
"Darrell Martin told us that [he and] Edward Carr approached a male whom Martin knows to be employed by the needle exchange program," Surry Hills Constable Heath Clark says in the statement.
"This [employee] was standing next to the needle exchange bus and [Martin and Carr] inquired about scoring heroin. The needle exchange worker used a mobile phone on their behalf to arrange the purchase of some heroin."
After buying the drugs from a man in the Block, the pair walked to Prince Alfred Park, where they injected it.
Constable Heath Clark's statement says: "Darrell Martin told us that he has noticed Mr Carr in a sleepy state and has gone for a walk to 'bludge a cigarette', and that when he returned he noticed Mr Carr in an unconscious state."
The allegations concern only one worker at the needle exchange bus, and there is no suggestion of any wider involvement of the needle exchange program.
Sydney South West Area Health Service (SSWAHS), which administers the needle bus, said it was unable to locate any record of the events.
"SSWAHS takes the issue of ethical behaviour of its staff very seriously," a spokeswoman said.
"The Area Health Service is committed to providing needle syringe programs in a safe and responsive way to reduce the spread of HIV and AIDS.
"Access to clean injecting equipment has been a major contributor to the reduction of HIV and Hepatitis C infections across Australia."
Defence solicitor Luke Adamson said the allegations were contained in the police brief of evidence at Harrison's trial but were not raised before the jury.
He was dismayed the claims were never investigated, saying it was possible the alleged incident was not a one-off. "I was absolutely spellbound that ... a health worker made a phone call to arrange a deal ... [and] that police have taken absolutely no action in relation to that behaviour," he said.
The Sun-Herald has learned that police inquiries concerning Carr's death, including statements made by Constable Clark, have been reported to the coroner.
Aboriginal Housing Company chief executive Mick Mundine said heroin was devastating the community and the needle exchange bus was not helping. "It is very poorly if that has happened," he said. "They have just come here to strip this community and destroy it, if that has happened."
Vehicle of controversy
The needle exchange bus service is temporarily halted in January 1999 when the disturbing image of a teenage boy shooting up in the street after receiving his injection kit from the vehicle is published on The Sun-Herald's front page.
Aboriginal Housing Company officials demand the removal of the bus following the 2004 riots because of claims that hundreds of clean syringes are being passed on to drug suppliers who sell them as part of package deals.
In May this year, plans are announced to replace the bus with a permanent needle exchange centre opposite Redfern railway station. The idea draws immediate condemnation from the Redfern community.
NSW Health says access to clean injecting equipment has been
a major contributor to the reduction of HIV and hepatitis C.
Architecture:
The barefoot brainstormers - SMH
November 12, 2005 - SMH
By Elizabeth Farrelly
Innovarchi architects is a small practice with a big presence and a flavoursome mix of ethics, intelligence and style. Best known until recently for its role as the Sydney face of Renzo Piano's Aurora Place team, it has also garnered admiration for its inventive Timber House in the 2004 House of the Future project and its masterplanning work on Redfern's Red Square at The Block, pro bono work that nevertheless gives a seriously smart design edge to a politically delicate situation.
Innovarchi is Stephanie Smith and Ken McBryde, plus helpers. Being partners in both life and work is less unusual than the way they manage it. Reluctant "to suddenly find one of us was the architect and one the parent", they decided early on to share child care 50-50. This sounds obvious and easy, but it means that while each works 40-hours-plus a week, as expected, neither is reliably around during office hours - requiring project-sharing to the point of being able to double for each other at meetings, negotiations, site visits and lectures. Brain-sharing, essentially.
And it seems to work. Having met when both were working in Piano's legendary Genoa office, they were "on the same mission", McBryde says. What mission? "Process," they chorus, meaning a first-principles approach, an interest in problem-solving by material means, a commitment to research-based design and a determination to extract each brief from client and site. "We test and test ideas, dump them if they don't work, or save them. We won't start until we have the idea right."
It's a fairly abstract working method and it has cost them a signature style, which can be a problem in the recognition stakes. It also means, though, that they have a vast range of work, from Gold Coast gloss to truly barefoot architecture, with assorted elegant shacks, mansions, museums and churches in between.
It's not just that, though. There's a few pioneering genes in the mix as well - McBryde's great-grandfather was a pioneer of the sugar industry in Queensland while Smith's great-grandmother was the first white woman to explore Australia from western Queensland to Darwin.
In many ways, Smith and McBryde's master's degrees, which they completed jointly and would have shared if university rules allowed, show similar exploratory concerns. McBryde, with timber engineer Bruce Hutchins, produced a timber-prefabrication system designed to minimise off-cut wastage yet produce "sexy structural shapes" that were easily manipulated on site by two unskilled people and could be clad without the usual awkward jointing problems. The result is Gracemere Anglican Church, near Rockhampton; the structural parts, arriving with nail holes already marked, were assembled and erected in a day.
This interest in prefabrication led naturally to the award-winning Timber Future House (though they insist it should be titled Next House, to emphasise its immediate plausibility), which experimented with complex, computer-cut forms, on-site water recycling and new materials such as ETFE, a super-thin screen-printable teflon.
Smith, meanwhile, being determined to understand why government housing for Aboriginal people still so regularly and spectacularly fails, took her master's at the University of Queensland with Aboriginal housing specialist Dr Paul Memmott. The project immersed them in six years of self-funded field-based research at Goodooga, a small town at the end of the bitumen near Lightning Ridge. Goodooga "was voted the most boring town in NSW three years in a row", McBryde says.
It also boasts one of NSW's last Aboriginal fringe settlements, the Goodooga Reserve, where people still remember having to leave town by 6pm. Smith and McBryde painstakingly measured and drew the reserve's self-built dwellings. Not just houses, entire encampments - or "tin camps" - including the house, the sleeping spot, even the timbers for dragging the dog kennel around with the sleeping spot.
"I needed to see what the issues were," Smith says. "You could see how many people had failed in that. And you could see why. We'd be working there, helping people plan their houses so they could see who was coming and fit the kinship patterns, when some whitefella from the Public Works Department would turn up in a four-wheel-drive with drawings of breezeblock houses and hoodwink them about what they were getting and how much choice they had. They couldn't even choose their consultants. Half the time all they got to choose was the colour of the tiles. It's like giving someone a set of crystal glasses, and saying that's it, for the rest of your life, then wondering why it doesn't work.
"There's always this assumption that Aboriginal people haven't designed houses and need to have it done for them. But this study shows that for 200 years they've been designing and building houses where they can see people coming and people with epilepsy get to live on the ground as they need to; houses with workable plans and no termites. It's just they don't look the way we want them to."
But it's not all barefoot stuff, hand-measured and drawn up, like the tin camps, on a card table with "kids and flies and dog bones and Fanta being spilt on the paper". Other Innovarchi projects - such as the Q1 retail podium - use sophisticated "3-D scripting" software, enabling you to performance-test a design in the round before it so much as leaves the drawing board.
Q1 is the world's tallest residential tower, the 80-storey, Ian Thorpe-endorsed Gold Coaster that outstrips Melbourne's Eureka by a mere metre of spire. Q1, from the stable of Iranian developer Soheil Abedian - whose company Sunland is also behind the fabulously tacky Palazzo Versace - might seem an unlikely gig for the small design-led Sydney firm. But here, as elsewhere, Smith and McBryde are clearly enjoying themselves.
They got the job, McBryde explains, when "I went up there to give a talk on urban design, and Soheil asked me to look at their ground plan." McBryde's response? "I was gentle but frank," he says. It worked. Innovarchi landed the redesign.
Their scheme has a streaming, laminar-flow kind of feel, designed to maximise views, ease shopper navigation and transition between the tower-scale and a street that includes the neighbouring "fakey dakey" Spanish Mission flats. Still several weeks from completion, it has already had spin-offs for the young firm; another Gold Coast podium redesign, in Broadbeach; a very-small-footprint 18-storey spot-tower, one apartment per floor, at Surfers Paradise; and, more exciting still, Sunland's next, a $400 million big one in Dubai which, briefed to evoke the Sydney Olympic torch, looks at this stage elegantly Aurora-esque, its furled glass layers like "pearlescent veils on the edge of the desert" in McBryde's words.
There's also a big house in Centennial Park, where the modernity versus heritage compromise was struck by framing traditional elements (a formal entry, say, or a balcony) within an overtly modern structure; a smaller one in Victoria where two separate pavilions are joined by a lap pool; a 16-building masterplan on the edge of the Auckland CBD; and a competition-winning geological museum near Beijing designed to evoke its faultline site.
The conversation comes to the question of constraints. McBryde embarks on his favourite quote, from Columbia University's architecture dean, Bernard Tschumi. "Don't," Smith says, "I hate that." But McBryde continues. "Architecture is like bondage; the tighter the constraints, the more pleasurable it becomes." There's truth in it, but you can see her point.
Climbing
the stairway to basic social norms
October 27, 2005 - SMH
By Miranda Devine
After decades of failed welfare policies, the tide has turned for Aborigines, Miranda Devine.
FOR some well-meaning white people, the solution to entrenched Aboriginal deprivation is more taxpayer money and some vague concept of "reconciliation" for which they will walk over the Sydney Harbour Bridge at least once.
But after 30 years of failed socialist welfare policies, the tide has turned. Aboriginal leaders, most notably Noel Pearson, are preaching heresy to those progressives who have laid claim to being Aborigines' greatest champions. They are talking about concepts of mutual obligation, smashing welfare dependency, encouraging mobility of young people, land reform and, most controversially, about rebuilding moral capital in their broken-down communities.
At the Australian Stock Exchange on Bridge Street on Tuesday night, Pearson, the director of the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership, delivered his "inherently conservative" message in a lecture for the Centre for Independent Studies, a think tank.
He wryly used the metaphor of "stairs of social and economic improvement" rather than the discredited "ladder of opportunity". But the very foundation of those stairs is what he says many of his well-heeled audiences around the country find "unpalatable". It is the "re-establishment of basic social cultural norms that underpin any society".
The expectations that any healthy community takes for granted - that children will be brought up safely and well, of mutual obligation between citizen and society, of public order and safety - have collapsed in welfare-dependent indigenous communities as an epidemic of substance abuse and passivity takes hold.
Families must be supported because the decision to climb out of poverty and disadvantage was a decision for individuals and their families.
"No one has invented a mass elevator for a community to ascend all at once," he said. Progress is made by families investing in individual members and urging them on.
Pearson was struck by Lee Kwan Yew's belief that Singapore's success was "really a credit to the mothers because he got them to understand the importance of maths and science. If you can get the mothers behind the kids, and hopefully the fathers, [you have] an important resource for improvements in education".
Pearson, 40, has talked before of his hometown of Hopevale, a former mission on the Cape that had been "poor but socially stable" when he was growing up but had since disintegrated after a generation of "progressive and small 'l' liberal" policies.
One of the great paradoxes he sees on the streets of his region, he said on Tuesday, is how "people who have such tender love and regard and infatuation with their own children, and their own families, can then act so detrimentally in their interests, in the way they spend their money and … divert their attentions … So much love, and yet the incentives are so tragically misaligned that love does not translate into a full tummy or attending school at 8.30 when the bell rings."
He spoke of grandmothers who can "write beautiful letters and read the bible backwards", yet their grandchildren can barely write their own names.
"There has been some kind of collapse in teaching reading in our home region, which we are urgently setting out to resolve." A pilot reading program employing systematic phonics instruction in a school north of Cairns is showing promising results. And it is hoped that the coming report of the Committee for the National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy (of which I am a member) will go some way to addressing the problem of inadequate reading instruction across the country.
Pearson is optimistic about the future for Cape York. Already people have left to attend university, join rugby league teams (as his nephew has), become famous artists in Paris and New York and taken up apprenticeships in Groot Island and the Pilbara. They are not "identity-less … they have not lost their culture or their links with their homes". They are from Cape York and always will be, just as Pearson was on Tuesday night, standing at the stock exchange feeling "anxious".
But the biggest opposition he faces is from "bureaucrats and people in the white community … and the ideological positions of the mainstream". He cited the struggle Mick Mundine faced in Redfern trying to convince harm-minimisation advocates to remove a needle exchange bus that was a honey pot for Aboriginal children.
As if on cue, a white woman in the audience stood and heckled Pearson. She said she was from Mosman as, she claimed, were most of the audience, if not the eastern suburbs.
Later identified as Frennie Beytagh, she actually lives in Cremorne, adjoining Mosman, and is active in progressive causes such as North Shore Against War and petitions to release David Hicks.
"You're denigrating Aboriginal people," she told Pearson. "I'm so disappointed."
When some in the crowd told her to sit down, she said: "I have a right to speak for Aboriginal people. I'm very passionate."
Pearson's responded coolly: "I'd like to effuse with you about how delightful things are on the Cape York peninsula, but I go to Hopevale every weekend, and I despair sometimes."
The exchange captured perfectly the challenge Aboriginal leaders face from their friends in white Australia. They rest on the laurels of the stable society built by the self-denial and moral capital of their forbears, with seemingly no comprehension of how destructive the progressive values of the past decades have been on the weakest communities and their most vulnerable members.
Local
Liberals call for Aboriginal future in the Block
October 21, 2005 - City Of Sydney Liberal's Media Release
Three key local Liberal party branches have voted unanimously to support
an Aboriginal future for the Block in Redfern.
At a meeting held this week the Darlinghurst/Surry Hills, East Sydney and Elizabeth Bay branches unanimously supported a motion moved by City of Sydney Liberal Councillor Shayne Mallard calling on the State Government to allow the local Aboriginal community to determine the future of the Block. The motion was seconded by Redfern community leader Ian Thompson and followed a presentation and debate about the governments plans for the area.
The motion reads: "The local Liberal party branches support in principle the Aboriginal Housing Company proposal for redeveloping the Block and call upon the State government to allow the local Aboriginal community to determine the future of the Block."
The motion concludes by calling on the Minister responsible for the Redfern Waterloo Authority, Frank Sartor to resign "after the irreconcilable breakdown in communication and respect." Referring to Frank Sartor's racist slur on Aboriginal community leader Mick Mundine, Councillor Shayne Mallard said:
"The minister has demonstrated yet again that he is not prepared to listen or treat people with the respect they deserve. How can the Redfern Aboriginal community sit down and negotiate with the Minister when there is a break down in respect and trust?"
The local Liberal party members heard from guest speakers Mr Michael Mundine, CEO Aboriginal Housing Company and Mr Peter Valilis Project Director for the AHC Pemulwuy Project. Both men outlined their vision for the Block including plans for an Aboriginal cultural centre, training college and commercial areas. Importantly the redevelopment will include new housing for the inner city Aboriginal community.
In response to a question from Shayne Mallard regarding the social and crime problems over the past decade, Mick Mundine explained that a mixture of private home ownership and renewed community focus would work to prevent a repeat of the past problems.
Legislative Council Parliamentarian Mr Greg Pearce, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Finance also addressed the meeting. Mr Pearce was instrumental in the Parliamentary Inquiry following the Redfern riots. He explained that the NSW Liberal Leader Mr Peter Debnam was backing the right for Aboriginal people to determine the future of their land and pointed out that the government has had no real answers to the social disadvantage and problems in the Block.
Shayne Mallard pointed out the positive and community empowering role the Redfern Community Centre was playing in the Block and that it was a good example of what can be achieved if people work in partnership with mutual respect.
For more information on the AHC Pemulwuy Project visit www.ahc.org.au/redevelop/redevelop.html
RELEASE ENDS
21 October 2005
Media inquiries:
Shayne Mallard 0439 426 274
Claims
of plot to 'crucify' Mundine
October 9, 2005 - The Sun-Herald
By Alex Mitchell State Political Editor
Redfern Aboriginal elder Mick Mundine yesterday accused operatives from the Iemma Government of attempting to stage a coup against him.
"They are trying to get rid of me - they are trying to crucifying me," he said yesterday.
Mr Mundine said the aim was to remove him as chief executive of the Aboriginal Housing Company which owns The Block, the rundown housing estate which has become the focal point of a blazing planning row.
While Mr Mundine's board has a master plan to redevelop The Block with an Aboriginal cultural centre and 62 houses for local Aborigines, the State Government's scheme allows space for only 19 homes.
The whistleblower accusing the Government of seeking Mr Mundine's overthrow, Ray Jackson of the Indigenous Social Justice Association, said the threat was delivered at a meeting he attended on September 28 with two Government officials.
In a written record of the discussions, Mr Jackson stated: "They then moved to their agenda which involved their wishes to find an organisation that would remove Mick Mundine from the Aboriginal Housing Company and for that organisation to then work with the Government on solving The Block issues.
"Whilst not surprised - it is well known that the NSW Government has 'problems' with Mick - their offer was totally rejected as being neither viable nor useful."
The latest claims will further inflame relations between the Aboriginal community and Planning Minister Frank Sartor who recently told Koori Radio that Mr Mundine should "get his black arse" into his office for talks on the future of The Block.
"This is yet another disgraceful abuse of power by a NSW Government trying to undermine Aboriginal governance and self-determination in Redfern," Mr Mundine said.
Opposition Leader Peter Debnam deplored the Government's "unprincipled attack" on Mr Mundine.
"It appears that the Government's plan is to undermine
the Redfern community's leadership and bend the community to its will,"
he said.
Related Articles:
Ray
Jackson - Green Left Weekly
Redfern
tour
October 06, 2005 - Daily Telegraph
By Gemma Jones
THE Aboriginal Housing Company wants to put decades of violence and drug abuse behind it and turn The Block at Redfern into Sydney's next tourist destination.
Aborigines want to build a cultural precinct to attract tourists. An artists' market would take up the grassy area inside The Block and a cultural centre is planned for the old Eveleigh train yards.
But the locals don't want to hear from NSW Planning Minister Frank Sartor.
Aboriginal Housing Company CEO Mick Mundine yesterday welcomed a visit from Opposition Leader Peter Debnam but said Mr Sartor could "keep his hands off The Block".
A battle over the redevelopment of The Block came to a head when Mr Sartor told Koori Radio last month that Mr Mundine should get his "black arse" in to see him.
Mr Mundine initially accepted an apology from Mr Sartor but has since changed his mind and believes the Minister's comment implied Aborigines were lazy.
Project manager Peter Valilis yesterday revealed the plan to attract tourists to The Block.
He said the company had held preliminary talks with Tourism NSW.
"Sydney does not have an Aboriginal cultural area and Redfern is the most obvious place," Mr Valilis said.
"It would be a great way to showcase Aboriginal people, real Aboriginal people, to show we have cultural pride."
Aborigines have called for a extra 43 houses to be built on The Block to house the local community, bringing the total number to 62. The cultural precinct and a museum would be part of that development.
The State Government has refused to build any more houses and has committed only to refurbishing the 19 dwellings already there.
Mr Debnam accused the Government of greed, claiming it wanted Aborigines out so developers could build apartments.
We'll
allow more Block houses: Debnam
October 6, 2005 - SMH
By Andrew Clennell
In his first main policy announcement as NSW Opposition Leader, Peter Debnam has guaranteed a plan to build 62 homes for Aborigines at the Block as part of the redevelopment of Redfern and Waterloo under a Coalition government.
Mr Debnam's announcement comes a year and a half after the previous Opposition leader, John Brogden, said he would "bulldoze" the Block. The Coalition's reversal aims to take advantage of the dispute between local Aborigines and the Minister for Redfern-Waterloo, Frank Sartor.
Mr Sartor has said that, at best, the Aboriginal community could expect 19 homes on the Block.
The Aboriginal Housing Company has refused to talk to Mr Sartor since on Koori Radio last month he called for its chief executive, Mick Mundine, to bring his "black arse" in to see him.
Mr Debnam accused the Government of being intent on removing Aboriginal residents from the Block so that land in Redfern could "be sold for top dollar to property developers".
"We'd approve the project on the spot," Mr Debnam said after a visit to Redfern yesterday. "It's a really good proposal."
Mr Mundine welcomed Mr Debnam's support yesterday, saying "at least one party is interested" in his community.
"He [Mr Sartor] wanted to just refurbish the 19 houses we have got now," Mr Mundine said.
"We own the land. We should be able to build what we want to build … Peter's doing the right thing for us."
Mr Sartor said that the Opposition announcement was a stunt and that he was sceptical any entrepreneur would want to fund the Aboriginal Housing Company's proposal.
A factional battle has opened up among the Liberals over preselection for Mr Brogden's old seat of Pittwater, with the right-wing and left-wing factions of the party understood to be considering endorsing the executive chairman of the Millennium Forum, Paul Nicolaou.
A former adviser to Mr Brogden, the environmental lawyer Rob Stokes, 31, is also under consideration for left-wing endorsement, while one of Bronwyn Bishop's staff, Damien Jones, is a possibility to be endorsed by the right, Liberal sources said.
The prospect of a local unaligned candidate was enhanced when a Pittwater councillor, Julie Hegarty, announced her intention to stand yesterday.
Redfern rallies
October 5, 2005 - Koori Mail
By Kirsten Cheatham
About 2000 people turned out to give their support at a rally
in Redfern last week to defend The Block and 'hear real Blacks address real
Black issues'.
The rally came soon after the airing of controversial comments made by the
Minister for Redfern/Waterloo Frank Sartor about Mick Mundine and amid plans
by the NSW State Government to redevelop The Block and the outer areas of
Redfern.
The area known as The Block, which is bounded by Eveleigh, Caroline, Lewis
and Vine streets, was originally handed back to the people by the Whitlam
Labor Government in 1973 to provide affordable housing for an ever-increasing
Aboriginal population.
It has since become an area of great significance to Sydney's Indigenous
community, seeing the establishment of the Aboriginal Medical and Legal
Services, and according to Lyall Munro Jnr, was the 'birthplace of the Black
revolution in this country'.
The future, however, of this place of both social and historical importance
hangs in the balance as the owner of the land, the Aboriginal Housing Company,
arid the NSW State Government, headed by spokesman Mr Sartor, fight it out,
despite his determination to limit the number of Aboriginal houses in The
Block.
The occasion attracted support from all corners, with everybody from locals,
activists and entertainers alike making the trip to show their support for
the cause. The popular hip-hop band Local Knowledge came from Newcastle
especially for the event, while Brad Foster, a Palm Island man. made no
secret of the great lengths he made to get to the day.
Speaking on behalf of outspoken Indigenous activist Murrandoo Yanner, Mr
Foster expressed that they were fighting the same battles back home and
stressed the need for solidarity to fight for what is the heart and soul
of Aboriginal people, their land.
Long-time activist Michael Mansell, of Tasmania, also spoke at the rally.
But it was not all about land - the rally also called for a gathering of
support on October 8 at The Settlement in Chippendale for a reopening of
the inquest into the tragic death of TJ' Mickey in February 2003.
New body to lead fight for Redfern
October 5, 2005 - Koori Mail
The Redfern Aboriginal Authority (RAA) will replace the Organisation of
Aboriginal Unity, re-formed late last year following suggestions that the
NSW Government planned to forcibly acquire land owned by Aboriginal people
in Redfern's The Block.
Metropolitan Aboriginal Land Council chairman and RAA member Rob Welsh said
the RAA, under the chairmanship of Sol Bellear, would give the new organisation
the professionalism and experience needed to successfully negotiate with
government over the future of Redfern.
"We need to keep up the momentum of our campaign to ensure that Aboriginal
people benefit from the redevelopment of our suburb," Mr Welsh said.
"Sol's experience, contacts and political skills will be essential
if we're to once again turn Redfern into a place of Aboriginal hope and
achievement."
Mr Bellear said one of his first priorities would be to develop a united
and strategic Aboriginal vision for Redfern.
"Although it will be primarily geared towards the Aboriginal community,
the RAA will also form strategic alliances with other organisations which
have the best interests of Redfern at heart," Mr Bellear said.
"Redfern has always been a vibrant, multicultural community and we
want to keep it that way."
Mr Bellear said he would adopt a co-operative approach to working with government,
but would also not take a backward step in achieving the best outcomes for
Aboriginal people in inner-city Sydney.
"The RAA's preferred approach is to be a professional, trusted and
constructive partner with government. But we are also better organised and
determined than ever before if there are any attempts to short change our
people," Mr Bellear said.
Mr Welsh said that Mr Bellear would also assist Aboriginal organisations
in Redfern to source funding in a co-ordinated way.
Mr Bellear was the founding chairman of the Metropolitan Aboriginal Land
Council and a foundation member of the Aboriginal Medical Service, Aboriginal
Legal Service and Aboriginal Housing Company. He was a former deputy chair
of ATSIC, a member of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation and a senior
manager in the NSW Department of Aboriginal Affairs.
He is currently chairman of the Aboriginal Medical Service and a board member
of the South Sydney Rugby League Football Club.
Minister snubbed
October 5, 2005 - Koori Mail
Aboriginal Housing Company (AHC) chief Mick Mundine refused
to attend a meeting last week with NSW Redfern-Waterloo
Minister Frank Sartor, who made an offensive comment about him the previous
week.
Mr Mundine is planning legal action under the Racial Discrimination Act
against Mr Sartor for saying in a radio interview that he should get his
'black arse' to a meeting with him.
Although Mr Mundine initially accepted Mr Sartor's apology, he later changed
his mind and the AHC board is now refusing to deal with the Minister.
Mr Mundine said the board had advised him not to attend a meeting on suburban
redevelopment with Mr Sartor.
"I mean, what's the point of us meeting if he's got the same agenda
and his attitude's still the same?" he said.
The AHC is to send a letter to Premier Morris lemma, saying they want to
deal with him directly.
"It's best to go to the guy who's really in charge," Mr Mundine
said.
The AHC wants the redevelopment of the historic Aboriginal Housing precinct
known as The Block to include 62 affordable dwellings in memory of 62 Aborigines
who died from smallpox in the 1800s. Mr Sartor has agreed to 19.
Mr Mundine said the AHC's plan would turn The Block into a Sydney icon which
would include housing, a business college and community facilities including
a gym and medical services.
In a radio interview about the redevelopment of the Redfern-Waterloo district,
Mr Sartor told Mr Mundine to get his 'black arse' down to his office and
talk to him about the issue.
Mr Sartor apologised for the comment and Mr Mundine accepted it. But Mr
Mundine later changed his mind, saying the Minister should relinquish the
portfolio.
Mr Sartor said he did not feel the 'black arse' remark would prevent him
making progress in the portfolio.
"The personalities is, to be honest, a distraction. It's about outcomes,
it's about doing things for people," he said.
The board of the Aboriginal Housing Company said: "This is not about
the word 'black' or the word 'arse' but about a Minister perpetuating the
stereotype that Aborigines are lazy and have a bad work ethic - 'get off
his backside for a change' - in this case blaming Michael Mundine for stalling
the talks with the Minister about the future of The Block.
"The truth is, it is the Minister's precondition that the AHC abandon
their plans for new Aboriginal housing on The Block which has crippled the
negotiations. There is a pattern of racism here. The apology was a political
one and not a truly heartfelt one."
Mr lemma fended off comparisons with the events that led to the downfall
of former Opposition Leader John Brogden.
Mr lemma said there was no comparison between Mr Sartor's comments and those
of Mr Brogden, who resigned after he admitted describing former Premier
Bob Carr's wife as a 'mail-order bride'.
"(Mr Sartor) didn't seek to cover up, he didn't seek to blame someone
else, he didn't seek to say it never happened," Mr lemma said.
"He didn't attempt to do that. He acknowledged what he said was wrong,
he acknowledged what he said was stupid and he issued an apology, which
I know was graciously accepted by Mick Mundine."
State Opposition legal affairs spokesman Andrew Tink demanded Mr Sartor
be charged under the NSW Anti-Discrimination Act.
Opposition
plans to support Block redevelopment
October 05, 2005 - Daily Telegraph
NSW Opposition Leader Peter Debnam has promised to support plans to redevelop the historic Sydney Aboriginal housing precinct known as The Block if he wins the 2007 state election.
Mr Debnam today viewed plans by the Aboriginal Housing Company (AHC) to redevelop the troubled inner-city Redfern district.
The relationship between AHC and Redfern-Waterloo Minister Frank Sartor broke down after Mr Sartor made an offensive comment about the company's chief executive, Mick Mundine, on radio last month.
AHC wants 62 affordable homes to be included in the redevelopment, but Mr Sartor has only agreed to 19.
Mr Debnam backed the company's plans, which it says it can finance without NSW government assistance.
He said the government should approve the plan before the 2007 state election.
"We will support this development as you see it today," he told reporters.
"But I hope the community doesn't have to wait 18 months."
Mr Debnam said the Iemma government had failed to agree to the AHC's $27 million redevelopment proposal because its priority was selling land over the nearby railway tracks for the highest possible price.
"It's clear the government's real focus is to remove Aboriginal residents from the Block so the Redfern railway station airspace and the airspace over the rail lines can be sold for top dollar to property developers," he said.
Related Articles:
Opposition
backs Block rebuild - SBS World News
Sartor's
hurtful comments
October 4, 2005 - NIT
By Tom Collins
The letter 'Everyday Banter' by Brian Sherwin, (Daily Telegraph, September 23, 2005) once again reveals the acceptance of racism within our society.
I am not a bleeding heart or one of the 'sorry brigade', but I do belong to a diverse family, and we have taken offence at Frank Sartor's hurtful comments and the attempted but futile use of the usual 'get of jail free' card.
I refer to the application of pseudo humour to assuage the legitimate societal retribution when caught out behaving in an unacceptable manner, a performance every bully stages when forced to accept responsibility for their actions.
I too have worked extensively throughout Australia, many decades ago, and did experience such racist language and attitudes, but that was then, and now is now and most of us have evolved.
As for these racist comments being "banter", that is an interaction between those who have a close affinity and or interactions, Frank Sartor and Mick Mundine had neither, this chasm of attitudinal differences being exacerbated, by Frank Sartor's claim of a long standing friendship, which clearly was not the truth, and if we choose not to use the politically correct term for untruth, we may interpret those who tells untruths as liars, and untrustworthy. It therefore follows, that a liar is not negotiating in "good faith" and cannot be trusted!
There appears to be some intellectual or emotional bond between the author of the letter 'Everyday Banter', and Frank Sartor, this being manifested by a common thread as to what constitutes humour, as broadcast on the program called "Blackchat".
This was a serious interview affecting the lives of all Australians, and not a forum to denigrate, vilify, demean or mock a specific ethnic group or individuals among them; a repeat of this conduct can be stopped through a fair and equitable application of the law, in relation to the Anti-Discrimination Act through a transparent and public examination of the alleged perpetrator.
A
minister of the crown?
October 4, 2005 - NIT
Now we all know the re-development of The Block, an area close to Redfern in Sydney which, for a long time housed Aboriginals in the main in sub-standard conditions. That is changing and save for a few buildings is now being prepared for a re-development that is reaching its crescendo
Mick Mundine and his committee have over these initial years involved themselves in the planning of a new complex as part of the re-development. They have been working hard to help promote decent Aboriginal housing along with some high quality services to ensure the population is catered for including parks, new gym and a library.
Then we see movement at the station with Frank Sartor, a Minister of the Crown for the NSW Government, who seems to want to isolate Mick Mundine and his committee to achieve control and decide on what's what and who is who at the zoo with regard to this re-development.
In a recent radio interview Mr Sartor called for Mick Mundine to "get off his black arse and come and see him".
To treat Mick Mundine, a most decent and energetic human being, like this is unacceptable given the huge amount of work he and his committee have put in to try and improve the lot of Indigenous Australians.
Mr Sartor lowered his credibility with such a statement. Friends don't speak to friends like that.
The question now being asked is whether Mr Sartor's comments reflect some hidden plan to try and rid The Block of Mick Mundine and his committee of any useful participation in the re-development of The Block.
Henry Lawson wrote a poem which comes to mind with this situation. It's called The Men Who Come Behind. It talks about people waiting in the wings and when they see success looming they move in to take over. There are similarities here. Mick Mundine and his team have done a great deal of the hard work and it appears they are no longer required.
To verbally downgrade a man of character and principal especially from a Minister of the Crown and a servant of the people was an absolute disgrace.
What is now required, Mr Sartor is for you to get off your big plush seat in Parliament and join with Mick Mundine and his committee to ensure the re-development does what it was supposed to do - develop a plan that benefits the people of Redfern. The plan was not to make way for some big development business to jump in and swallow up the streets of Redfern with very little thought for the people of Redfern.
Michael Mundine's open letter
to boycott Frank Sartor and RWA
October 4, 2005 - South Sydney Herald (Page 1)
An open letter from Mr Michael Mundine to all of Redfern Waterloo calling for a boycott of Minister Frank Sartor and the RWA - 4th October 2005.
By now most people in Redfem and Waterloo have heard about Minister Frank Sartor's racial slur towards me, last week on Koori radio. However, many of you may not have read the full quote. The Minister was speaking about an open reply letter I wrote to him, published in a local newspaper, when he said: "I am glad he wrote this long letter, got him off his backside for a change. He won't like that much but I should say that to him more. Get off your backside Mick and bring your black arse in here to talk to me about it."
The mainstream media and general public have focused on the words `black arse' and missed the point completely. When the statement is read in its entirety the Minister is clearly trying to reignite the old racist stereotype that being Aboriginal equates to being lazy, as his way of explaining why our negotiations have stalled. That is what I find racist about his comment.
The Minister realised what he said was offensive and quickly tried to cover up his racism with a lie. He defended his use of this offensive language by suggesting he and I have a close friendship, and we joke like that all the time. This is a complete fabrication and exclusively a product of Mr. Sartor's s active imagination. In fact, Mr. Sartor and I are in a bitter dispute over his attempts to grab control of privately owned Aboriginal land, so he can carry out his plan to profiteer on the sale of our local public assets and gentrify Redfern.
Mr. Sartor has given a political apology in front of the media; and as an Aboriginal leader, as a Christian and in accordance with my culture I accepted his apology. But in no way did my acceptance of his apology validate or excuse what is one of the most scandalous and disgraceful abuses of power by a government Minister, targeting Aboriginal people, in recent memory.
In response to the overwhelming community outcry, from both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people, I have come to realise that Mr Sartor has no credibility left in Redfern and his position here is no longer tenable.
Therefore, I have asked the Minister to remove himself from the Redfern Waterloo portfolio. He has admitted publicly that he didn't want the job and the community now no longer wants him, so logically Mr. Sartor should relinquish this portfolio.
But his refusal to step aside and his continued arrogance is proof that he does not have the best interests of the Redfern-Waterloo community in. mind. I fear that if this Minister treats our community with such contempt and gives so little consideration to our wishes on such an important public issue, what are the chances he will listen to the people of Redfern Waterloo on any other issue we find ourselves in disagreement over.
Minster Frank Sartor thinks he is above the law, above the common standards of decency and most of all above the community.
In Mr. Sartor's plan for Redfern, The Block is only his first victim. If we turn a blind eye for long enough the Minister will sell our school, our courthouse, our hospital, our railway station and all our public housing to developers. Before we realise it Minister Saner will have dismantled every last brick in the social fabric of our community. No one in Redfern-Waterloo is beyond the reach of Minister Sartor and it won't be long before we lose everything we love about Redfern-Waterloo.
If we stand united, together we can defeat this threat to our home. And so I call on all the residents (Aboriginal and multicultural) and NGOs of Redfern and Waterloo to boycott Frank Sartor and his Redfern Waterloo Authority; until the Minister does the right thing and steps aside from this portfolio.
Yours in solidarity,
Michael Mundine Snr JP
CEO of the Aboriginal Housing Company
Redfern
organisations unite under Sol Bellear
October 3, 2005 - NIT
NSW: Redfern’s Aboriginal community controlled organisations have united to form a new authority to be headed by Aboriginal leader and community activist, Sol Bellear.
The Redfern Aboriginal Authority (RAA) will replace the Organisation of Aboriginal Unity, reformed late last year following suggestions that the NSW Government planned to forcibly acquire land owned by Aboriginal people in Redfern’s ‘The Block’.
Metropolitan Aboriginal Land Council Chairperson and RAA Member, Rob Welsh, said Mr Bellear would give the new organisation the professionalism and experience needed to successfully negotiate with government over the future of Redfern.
“We need to keep up the momentum of our campaign to ensure that Aboriginal people benefit from the redevelopment of our suburb,” Mr Welsh said.
“Sol’s experience, contacts and political skills will be essential if we’re to once again turn Redfern into a place of Aboriginal hope and achievement.”
Mr Bellear said one of his first priorities would be to develop a united and strategic Aboriginal vision for Redfern.
“Although it will be primarily geared towards the Aboriginal community, the RAA will also form strategic alliances with other organisations who have the best interests of Redfern at heart,” Mr Bellear said.
“Redfern has always been a vibrant, multicultural community and we want to keep it that way.”
Mr Bellear said he would adopt a cooperative approach to working with government, but would also not take a backward step in achieving the best outcomes for Aboriginal people in inner city Sydney.
“The RAA’s preferred approach is to be a professional, trusted and constructive partner with government. But we are also better organised and determined than ever before if there are any attempts to short change our people,” Mr Bellear said.
Mr Welsh said that Mr Bellear would also assist Aboriginal organisations in Redfern to source funding in a coordinated way.
“Politicians are now focusing on whole-of-government approaches to Aboriginal Affairs, so it makes sense for us to adopt a whole-of-community model in dealing with governments,” Mr Welsh said.
Sartor
boycott bid
October 03, 2005 - Daily Telegraph
ABORIGINAL community leader Mick Mundine will today urge as many as 40,000 Redfern households to "boycott" Frank Sartor.
The plea will be made in an open letter to be distributed throughout Redfern and Waterloo.
Since being asked by Mr Sartor on Koori Radio to get his "black arse" in to see him about an Aboriginal housing dispute, Mr Mundine has been calling on the Minister to quit the Redfern Waterloo portfolio.
"He has admitted publicly that he didn't want the job and the community no longer wants him, so logically Mr Sartor should relinquish the portfolio," Mr Mundine says in the letter.
"His refusal to step aside and his continued arrogance is proof he does not have the best interests of the Redfern Waterloo community in mind."
Mr Mundine warns that Mr Sartor not only threatens the future of The Block, but every piece of infrastructure in the area.
"If we turn a blind eye for long enough, the Minister will sell our school, our courthouse, our hospital, our railway station and all our public housing to developers," he says.
"No one in Redfern Waterloo is beyond the reach of Minister Sartor, and it won't be long before we lose everything we love about Redfern Waterloo.
"If we stand united, we can defeat this threat to our home.
"So I call on all residents ... to boycott Frank Sartor
and his Redfern Waterloo Authority until the Minister does the right thing
and steps aside from this portfolio."
The contempt for disrespect
October 1, 2005 - Daily Telegraph
ROGER COOMBS in Saturday Interview in the The Daily Telegraph 1st October 2005 reports on Mick Mundine CEO of the Aboriginal Housing Company.
Mick Mundine, famously derided by Planning Minister Frank Sartor - who invited him to "get his black arse" down to his office to discuss the Redfern-Waterloo redevelopment issues-isn't one to hold a grudge.
With a resigned shoulder shrug, he says he doesn't hate the minister for his racist slur.
"I don't hate him. Hate is a bad thing, it eats away at the heart, it makes you weak," Mundine says.
But nor is he in the mood to forgive. And right now, he can't see exactly how it's going to be possible for the Aboriginal Housing Company (AHC) - the multi-dimensional indigenous organisation of which he is CEO - and the minister to come to terms.
"I don't think it's possible, at the present moment, for us to work with him," he says.
"Right now, I think he's behaved arrogantly and disrespectfully. For him to disrespect, I think, this company, my board of directors, Aboriginal people in general, and me personally ... how can you work with a man like that?
"The main point that's been missed is what was said earlier - 'I'm glad he got off his backside' that's what really gave Aboriginal people the hump because it conveyed the old idea that the blacks are lazy, they need to get off their bums, you know."
Mundine explains that the resentment Aboriginal people felt at Sartor's ill-considered choice of words flowed from the old paternalistic image of the "Mission Manager", the whitefella with authority over the blacks, the bloke with the power to get them off their backsides.
"The comment about 'your black arse', that was just the tip of the iceberg, the icing on the cake. He had no reason to use that language," Mundine says.
As to the staged "reconciliation" between the two (Sartor arranged for Mundine to attend a photo opportunity shortly after his foolish gaffe at which they would be shown shaking hands and apparently on friendly terms) Mundine feels he had no choice at the time.
"I'm taught by my culture to be very respectful," he says.
"That's why I did that. But you have to understand our dispute with Mr Sartor had been going on for more than eight months. It wasn't just his 'black arse' insult, it's a bigger problem".
Working with the AHC for more than 30 years (he started as a house painter in August 1975) Mundine has been insulted and abused by the best of them over the years, so in reality, Sartor's slip-up was "water off a duck's back". Being seen to have accepted Sartor's apology was one thing. Excusing his behaviour is another thing altogether. At the time, Mundine says he was mindful of the tension in the Aboriginal community over the minister's apparent lack of respect; tension he feared could boil over into violence if he had not shown a gesture of goodwill. He was also hoping Sartor might have done "the right thing" and quit as minister.
The schism between the AHC and Sartor's departments (he's Minister for Redfern-Waterloo as well as Planning Minister) relates to their differing ambitions in regard to the redevelopment of the Block, the notorious Aboriginal enclave in Redfern, a focus of so much conflict and disharmony in recent years.
Significantly, the actual land is owned by the AHC. Using a grant of $530,000 from the Whitlam government, the AHC bought the land in 1973, and then worked to restore 29 terrace houses on the Block as low-cost accommodation. Initially, the development was seen as a showcase of how, with proper funding assistance, Aboriginal people could initiate and manage such ambitious urban projects.
But gradually-and mainly due, Mundine believes, to the importation of a "vicious cycle" of drug addiction and the inevitable criminality which accompanies it - the Block descended into a tragedy.
Violence was commonplace, drug abuse on the streets endemic. Even the police were afraid to enter the area. Not any longer, Mundine says.
The AHC has surveyed every resident of the Block and the drug culture has been broken. Virtually none of the locals are drug users, he says. The presence of the hated "syringe bus" in Redfern, however, still acts like "a honey pot", and addicts from elsewhere infest the area. He'd love to see the bus go for good.
Mundine's redevelopment plan for the Block configures 62 dwellings, a community centre, a short stay hostel facility, a medical centre, an indigenous learning centre and abundant open space. Developed by the Merrima Group, the Aboriginal design unit within the Government Architects Office, in conjunction with a group of planning and design consultants appointed by the AHC, the so-called "Pemulwuy Project" is an ambitious plan to completely revitalise the Block as an open residential precinct, while retaining and celebrating traditional aspects of Aboriginal culture.
But Mundine's fear is that Sartor and the State Government will compulsorily acquire ownership of the land under the wide-ranging powers vested in the minister.
"This is not just an issue for Aboriginal people -non-Aboriginal people are up in arms as well," he says. "If he can resume our land, he can do it to any land-holder."
And the cleft stick for the AHC and the Pemulwuy Project is that Sartor must give planning permission for it to get the go-ahead. Plans are virtually ready to be presented for development approval, but Mundine knows the fight is not yet won. He believes the government has a hidden agenda; to acquire the AHC's parcel of land and make it available for commercial redevelopment. Sartor, for his part, says that is just plain wrong, adding that any suggestion the AHC's land would be compulsorily acquired had been "categorically ruled out".
The sticking point between Mundine and the minister is the proposed 62 dwellings. The AHC says there is a need for more housing and the 62 is culturally significant as well. By Aboriginal lore, it is the number of Gadigal families who lived in the area when Europeans arrived. Having 62 Aboriginal families living on their traditional land would be an apt commemoration, Mundine says.
But Sartor says 62 is too many, and that to build that many houses in close confinement would lead once again to the creation in the vicinity of a dysfunctional ghetto; back to the bad old days.
The solution, Mundine says, is for the State Government to have nothing to do with the project at all.
"We don't "actually need any money from them, all we need is consent," he says.
So the convictions run deep on both sides. But for Mundine, the brother of former boxer Tony Mundine, and uncle of current world champion Anthony, it's a matter of passion not just mere conviction.
His story of moving from the bush to the city, trying to make his way in "the big smoke", is a snapshot of the experience of countless of his people.
Born at Grafton, Mundine grew up at Baryulgil, about 70km northwest of town. Baryulgil was the site of one of James Hardie's most productive asbestos mines. His father and four of his uncles all worked in the mines-all have died from asbestos-related illnesses.
Like thousands of others of his generation, black and white, Mundine had itchy feet and, about 16, headed off to seek adventure and experience, eventually ending up in Sydney. He played football, drove forklifts and trucks and delivered frozen food, before taking work as a painter for the AHC.
He went from foreman to office manager ("I had no skills to do that, I can tell you") before finally taking over as CEO "about 10 years ago".
It's been a steep learning curve for Mundine, but he's supremely optimistic for the future.
"It's time for change, time for our people to change" he says.
"Our people used to live on hate, now they need to live on hope. What we have to have here [with the Pemulwuy Project] is a vision for the next generation, to give them a sense of respect and self-esteem."
He looks back on the hard times: times when it looked certain the AHC would not be able to continue; when the community was bitterly divided; when he thought nothing good would ever come out of the Redfern-Waterloo area; when he was hated by his own people.
But that's all changing. The junkies and criminals are moving out, and a strong sense of identity is beginning to emerge. "It's been a hard road, but I believe we're on the right track now," Mundine says.
"We have to lay a strong foundation for the next generation. They're always talking about the Stolen Generation - what we have to be careful about is that we don't make the next generation the Lost Generation ... lost on drugs and the vicious cycle of crime.
"I think we just have to get people of the right spirit together. You have to take people how you find them; it's time to break down barriers. For us to survive we've got to work together as people."
Maybe there's a lesson in that for the Planning Minister. Perhaps, minister, another olive branch might be in order.
Plans
drawn in black and white
October 1, 2005 - SMH
By Elizabeth Farrelly
There are uncomfortable echoes of the past in the battle over Redfern's future.
It was just before dinner the other evening when the phone rang. Nuisance charity, I thought, peeling the usual excuses along with the metaphorical spuds. But the voice said, "Hi, I'm doing a survey on Redfern." That got me. Redfern's interesting and here are three reasons why. One, I live there. Two, it's hot and getting hotter, even without global warming. Three, there had been rumours about this mysterious push-poll and I was delighted to be among the chosen. I didn't tell him that, though, and the caller didn't ask. I did ask who had commissioned the survey, but my interlocutor was not prepared to divulge the origin of his 30 silver pieces.
There were 11 questions, ending with "How much do you earn" and starting with "Have you ever heard of the Block?" In between were not questions at all but propositions, with which one was expected to agree or disagree, mildly or strongly. For example: the Block should be rebuilt for non-residential purposes but still managed by Aboriginal people; the Government should prevent the Aboriginal Housing Company from building 62 houses on the Block because they will just repeat the problems of the past; the Government should not allow anything to be built on the Block because whatever it is will just be a mess; the Aboriginal Housing Company should not be allowed to manage anything on the Block; Aboriginal people should be allowed to control the Block because they will manage it well and there will be no repeat of the problems of the past. As if the only condition upon which We should let Them stay on their own land is if they clean up their act.
The Block is black Australia's urban heartland; the point at which the footprints converge. A two-hectare area bounded by Eveleigh, Caroline, Louis and Vine streets, the Block houses our oldest continuous urban Aboriginal community, dating from the Great Depression when people came to work as fettlers at Eveleigh Railyards. Now it is owned by the Aboriginal Housing Company, headed by the fearless Mick Mundine, and must stand as one of the only communities in the country to have rooted out its own drug problem by demolishing the houses of the dealers. Chewing off your own foot to survive - now that's brave.
And how does the State Government respond? By doing everything possible to rid the Block of the blacks. Of course, the Government might be entirely innocent of the survey, though its denials run so thick and fast it makes you wonder. Who else, anyway, has the motives and resources to play such games? Plus, there's the on-the-ground evidence - namely, everything else the Government is doing to Redfern.
It was Thomas Paine who said "that government is best which governs least". And there's nothing like tricked-up institutional racism in this overgoverned country to persuade you that he was right; three levels of government is at least 21/2 levels too many. Especially in Redfern, where federal and state governments are now showing unnatural solidarity towards what to some might look like apartheid.
It's an ugly word for an uglier ideal, and a battle you might have thought was won. Well, think on this. Just as the State Government is pushing to get the blacks off the Block, the Federal Government has "defunded" the 21-year-old Elouera-Tony Mundine Gym, the Block's centrepiece, because it's not black enough. The housing company project officer, Peter Valilis, says Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Services representatives inspected the gym last year, commenting that too many whites train there. They're only interested, he says, in funding blackfella boxing. "Not fully satisfied at the level of service" was the official wording.
It could be coincidence, of course. But that does nothing to reduce the ugliness of the motivation and the mechanics behind the push to distinguish on grounds of colour.
Meanwhile, the State Government enacted its Redfern-Waterloo Authority Act 2004, giving one minister discretion over Redfern, suspending the Heritage Act and bestowing broad powers of resumption, as if no one lives there. Terra nullius, all over again.
But people do live there. The land is freehold and the people are citizens. Now, after the drug demolitions, they want to rebuild from the remaining 19 houses up to a critical mass of 62 dwellings, one for each of the Gadigal clan's last 62 families killed by smallpox in the 19th century. That was the original scheme, called Pemulwuy, by Col James and others. Now it has been strengthened with a proposal for two-thirds owner-occupation and a large commercial component - including an indigenous business college (several universities have already shown interest), a market, a Block museum and a rebuilt Elouera gym. These additional buildings, by Innovarchi architects, are edgy and handsome and designed to invite people into the new Red Square spanning the rail tracks.
Just as all this was happening, though - and ironically (as The Guardian in Britain noted) at the start of Reconciliation Week - the Minister for Redfern-Waterloo, Frank Sartor, declared the Block "state significant", making him its sole planning and consent authority. There was no consultation, Valilis claims, despite the minister's obligation under the Redfern-Waterloo Authority Act to consult the housing company on "issues and strategies affecting ... the Block".
Next, the propaganda war. It started with Sartor's "open letter" in August, accusing Mundine of "boycotting all discussions with Government" and of wanting to increase housing numbers on the block. (In fact, the housing company proposes to replace the previous 102 houses with only 62.) Curiously, Sartor also used the same "repeat the problems of the past" phraseology as the anonymous survey.
Into the same document, the minister tossed a tactical red herring, attacking Sydney's Lord Mayor, Clover Moore, for not handing Redfern Oval exclusively to the Indigenous Land Council. It's the old divide and rule, a time-honoured colonial tradition.
The real issue, though, is one of equality before the law. What if it was whitefella land the state proposed to resume? Bondi Junction or Chinatown, Lakemba or Cabramatta? Think how many holes there'd be in Vaucluse if demolition was the official response to drug dealing. Even Waterloo's towers have managed to stay the Government's axe. Indigenous people alone are seen as sufficiently weak for government bully-boy tactics.
Where are our ethical guardians? The Law Society, for instance, defends the right to equality of refugees and would-be terrorists, but is quiet on the Redfern front. Why aren't we outraged by what's happening? Is it because these are what Sartor calls "high-dependency" people, "that type of socio-economic group"? Because they're black?
Sartor has denied claims he wants "no black faces on the Block". He told the Herald in August: "I don't care if it's white or black, it's not a racial issue. When you've got people of that [socio-economic] profile, no matter what their ethnic background, you can't afford to create another mire."
For the Aboriginal community it's about equal treatment as land owners; about self-determination, integration. Just like anyone else. And it could happen, with or (better still) without government help. Imagine, for instance, if the Aboriginal quarter was seen as a jewel in the city fabric, like Chinatown or the Spanish quarter, rather than a wound. Imagine if, instead of a new government-funded indigenous art museum, the Block achieved its rightful role as a vibrant, self-funding urban-Koori hub selling its own art to the world. Imagine if it could generate not just money but status, genuine cultural status. Now that'd be speaking the language.
Labor
are the real hypocrites in Brogden's fall
September 30, 2005 - The Contrarian - SMH
By Andrew West
John Brogden's departure from public life is a tragic waste of an able young man. But if it serves to illustrate the hypocrisy of an increasingly arrogant NSW government, it will not be entirely in vain.
Brogden has gone, not just from the leadership of the NSW Liberal Party, but from parliament altogether.
You don't have to agree with his policies - and I took issue with many, especially his industrial relations policies - to think, 'What a waste, what a terrible waste of a talent'... Driven out of public life by a predatory newspaper feeding off the rumours spread by some malcontents in his own party.
Brogden's successor, Peter Debnam, will be no pushover, as his party's 13 per cent swing in the recent Macquarie by-election proved. But Brogden himself was shaping up as a formidable opponent against NSW Premier Morris Iemma, a man who got his political training wheels while working for the infamous Labor knee-capper Graham Richardson, before the party's right-wing machine imposed Iemma on the state as Bob Carr's successor.
The Premier and his legion of taxpayer-funded apologists have turned out to be the hypocrites in Brogden's downfall. They revelled in his resignation after he admitted having described - in a private conversation, mind you - Carr's Malaysian-born wife, Helena, as a "mail order bride". Iemma declared Brogden's resignation the "only decent thing he has ever done" in public life.
And yet, three weeks later one of his most senior ministers, Frank Sartor, goes on radio - on radio, where he knows his comments will be heard by thousands of people - and orders an Aboriginal leader to get his "black arse" down to his office.
I thought about where I had previously heard such language from a public official. I had to go back 20 years, to the National Party government of P.W. Botha in apartheid South Africa, when ministers and supporters would routinely snort about "kaffirs" (a derogatory reference to black South Africans) and their "black arses". The term "black ass" was certainly a standard racial epithet employed by white segregationists like Governor Orval Faubus of Arkansas or Governor George Wallace of Alabama and their supporters in the 1950s and 1960s.
But our premier, seemingly ignorant of recent history, has refused to sack his racially incendiary minister, declaring Sartor's public comment "not analogous" to Brogden's private remarks. (Incidentally, the premier who tutted over Brogden's playful, if gauche, bottom-pinching was unable to assure the public of the "moral probity" and "marital fidelity" of his own ministers and MPs, when I asked him about it at his self-righteous press conference the day Brogden quit.)
Yes, Brogden's departure from public life is, indeed, a tragic waste of an able young man. But if it serves to illustrate the hypocrisy of an increasingly arrogant NSW government, it will not be entirely in vain.
Mundine snubs Sartor
September 29, 2005 - SMH
By Tim Dick.
The stand-off between the Planning Minister, Frank Sartor,
and the head of the Aboriginal Housing Company deteriorated yesterday, with
the man he told to bring his "black arse" to his office for a
meeting failing to turn up yesterday. Instead, Mick Mundine said he spent
the time inquiring into what discrimination actions he might take against
the minister. Mr. Sartor's spokeswoman, Zoe Allebone, said her boss was
"confident that these internal AHC politics will be sorted out and
all these matters will be resolved in time".
Timetable of Events in relation
to the Frank Sartor Racial Slur: Sep 19-23, 2005 LISTEN
TO MP3 HERE 
September 23:
Relations between the Aboriginal community in Redfern and
the NSW Government break down completely, with Michael Mundine refusing
to ever again deal with the Minister Frank Sartor.
News Articles:
One is Liberal, the other is Labor: The
Australian
Aborigines refuse to talk to Sartor: SMH
September 22:
Sartor changes his mind on his earlier admission, saying now he didn't resist taking the portfolio. Premier Morris Iemma stands by Sartor.
News Articles:
I didn't want the job anyway - Sartor: SMH
Aboriginal elders demand Sartor quits: Mercury
Sartor says he wants the job: The
Courier - Daily
Telegraph - News
Iemma defends Minister over Indigenous slur: ABC
Minister defends comments over portfolio allocation: ABC
Sartor faces a black ban: Daily
Telegraph
September 21:
10:30am the Board of the Aboriginal Housing Company call an emergency meeting to discuss the Minister's racial slur. The Board passes a motion condemning the Minister Frank Sartor for vilifying Aboriginal people and igniting the old stereo type that being Aboriginal equates to being lazy. The Board joins the now mass of people and organisations calling for the Minister Frank Sartor to resign. The Board calls for the NSW Premier Morris Iemma to assume the Redfern Waterloo portfolio. A motion is passed instructing the Company's solicitors to provide legal advice on this matter. The Board advises Michael Mundine to terminate all future contact with Mr. Sartor and to boycott the RWA.
"Here we have a very powerful Government Minister in dispute with a poor and disadvantaged Aboriginal community over a greedy land grab by the NSW Government. In typical Frank Sartor style, he is trying to bully and discredit us into submission. This is a scandalous abuse of power", said AHC Director Bruce Gale.
2:00pm Frank Sartor refuses to resign and dismisses the motions against him by the Aboriginal Housing Company Board as irrelevant.
5:00pm Frank Sartor publicly reveals to an Upper House Estimates Committee that he originally didn't want the Redfern-Waterloo portfolio, and initially resisted taking on the portfolio.
News Articles:
Give Sartor a kick: Mundine: SMH
Mundine repeats Sartor quit plea: News
- The
Australian - Daily
Telegraph
Calls grow for Sartor's head: The
Advertiser - Townsville
Bulletin - The
Sunday Mail - News
- The
Courier - Daily
Telegraph
Indigenous leader offers to help ease Sartor damage: Message
Stick - ABC
NSW: Sol Bellear says "Sartor must change or stand aside": Message
Stick
Iemma backs Sartor over race gaffe: Daily
Telegraph - Herald
Sun - The
Australian - The
Courier - The
Advertiser - News
Mundine may sue Sartor: The
Advertiser - The
Courier - News
- The
Sunday Mail - The
Mercury
Transcript, Hearing 21/09/2005 Planning, Redfern Waterloo: NSW
Parliament
September 20:
Overwhelming community anger directed at Frank Sartor convinces Michael Mundine that the Minister's position in Redfern is no longer tenable. Mr. Mundine joins the chorus of voices calling for Frank Sartor to quit the Redfern Waterloo portfolio.
"Redfern can not move forward if Frank Sartor is in charge. The area has a lot of human and social issues that need to be resolved. Sartor is not a people person, he is arrogant and insensitive. He also has no respect for Aboriginal people. Sartor is not the right man for this job", said Mr. Mundine.
When queried about the perception that his current position is a back-flip after he has already accepted Mr. Sartor's apology Mr. Mundine said:
"As an Aboriginal leader and as a Christian I accepted Sartor's apology in accordance with my culture. But that doesn't justify or excuse what he said or the fact he lied to gloss it over. He has no credibility with Aboriginal people and we can not work with him anymore".
"If Sartor does not stand down Australia will know that racism is institutionalised in the NSW Government. Since he became Minister for Redfern Waterloo he has called the Aboriginal community on the Block a failed experiment; he has suggested that all Aboriginal people, including those who could potentially own their own home, are high-dependency; he has vilified some of my non-Aboriginal advisors by questioning their professional capacity based solely on their race; and he has stated that he believes no decent Aboriginal person would want to live on the Block, implying that all the Aboriginal people who currently live on the Block or those who have indicated a desire to live on the Block in the future are in some way indecent".
News Articles:
Ministers racial slur scandal: SBS
Foot-in-mouth: Daily
Telegraph
Sartor quip 'not like Brogden gaffe': News
- The
Australian - Daily
Telegraph - The
Courier
Sartor: My white derriere needs whipping: SMH
What is wrong with Frank Sartor: Daily
Telegraph
Sartor urged to quit over 'racist' comments: Message
Stick - ABC
Sartor should quit: Mundine: News
- Townsville
Bulletin -
The Sunday Mail - The
Advertiser - Sunday
Times - The
Courier
Iemma refuses to sack MP over racial slur: Message
Stick - ABC
September 19:
10.45am the NSW Government Minister for Planning and Minister for Redfern Waterloo Frank Sartor makes racial slurs at Aboriginal Housing Company CEO Michael Mundine on Koori radio.
In response to Mr. Mundine's open letter in a local newspaper Minister Sartor said:
"I am glad he wrote this long letter, got him off his backside for a change. He won't like that much but I should say that to him more. Get off your backside Mick and bring your black arse in here to talk to me about it."
When the