tickle
12-10-2007, 11:36
All I can do is shake my head. He's had 11 years to sort this out. Well he admits his mistakes, why hasn't he listened to the people all this time?
Oh and still no apology on behalf of the government. :no:
Sorry, but this just makes my blood boil....:thumbsdown:
PRIME Minister John Howard has announced plans to hold a referendum on whether indigenous Australians should be recognised within the preamble to the Constitution.
"If I am re-elected, I will put to the Australian people within 18 months a referendum to formally recognise indigenous Australians within our Constitution," he said last night.
Mr Howard said there was a "deep yearning in our national psyche" to find a positive and permanent solution to the issue of reconciliation.
However, he said this solution should not be based on a collective apology from non-indigenous Australians.
"I have never felt comfortable with the dominant paradigm for indigenous policy, one based on the shame and guilt of non-indigenous Australians (and) a repudiation of the Australia I grew up in," he said.
"In the end I could not accept that reconciliation required a condemnation of the Australian heritage I had loved and owned."
Mr Howard said reconciliation based on a symbolic apology "would only reinforce a culture of victimhood and take us backwards".
He said a new definition of reconciliation that recognised indigenous heritage but also emphasised integration, rather than separation, was needed.
"This nation has spent and wasted a lot of time in the last 30 years toying with the idea (that) in some way we are dealing with two separate nations," he said.
Mr Howard said the goal of reconciliation, as well as the Government's intervention in the Northern Territory, was to enable indigenous Australians to "enjoy the full bounty that this country has to offer."
"The central goal is to address the cancer of passive welfare and to creative opportunities through education employment and home ownership," he said.
"(Indigenous Australians') economic, social and cultural wellbeing should be comparable to that of other Australians."
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22569519-421,00.html
Oh and still no apology on behalf of the government. :no:
Sorry, but this just makes my blood boil....:thumbsdown:
PRIME Minister John Howard has announced plans to hold a referendum on whether indigenous Australians should be recognised within the preamble to the Constitution.
"If I am re-elected, I will put to the Australian people within 18 months a referendum to formally recognise indigenous Australians within our Constitution," he said last night.
Mr Howard said there was a "deep yearning in our national psyche" to find a positive and permanent solution to the issue of reconciliation.
However, he said this solution should not be based on a collective apology from non-indigenous Australians.
"I have never felt comfortable with the dominant paradigm for indigenous policy, one based on the shame and guilt of non-indigenous Australians (and) a repudiation of the Australia I grew up in," he said.
"In the end I could not accept that reconciliation required a condemnation of the Australian heritage I had loved and owned."
Mr Howard said reconciliation based on a symbolic apology "would only reinforce a culture of victimhood and take us backwards".
He said a new definition of reconciliation that recognised indigenous heritage but also emphasised integration, rather than separation, was needed.
"This nation has spent and wasted a lot of time in the last 30 years toying with the idea (that) in some way we are dealing with two separate nations," he said.
Mr Howard said the goal of reconciliation, as well as the Government's intervention in the Northern Territory, was to enable indigenous Australians to "enjoy the full bounty that this country has to offer."
"The central goal is to address the cancer of passive welfare and to creative opportunities through education employment and home ownership," he said.
"(Indigenous Australians') economic, social and cultural wellbeing should be comparable to that of other Australians."
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22569519-421,00.html