Friday, December 6, 2024

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HomeIssue 9Alice councillor tells nation's media about Aboriginal brutality

Alice councillor tells nation's media about Aboriginal brutality

p2372-jacinta-priceBy ERWIN CHLANDA
 
Alice Springs Councillor Jacinta Price (pictured) gave an explosive speech to the National Press Club in Canberra yesterday about Aboriginal men committing physical and sexual violence often with impunity.
 
Stepping into the shoes of her mother, former NT Government Minister Bess Price, as a no-holds barred campaigner on these issues, the singer and TV producer claimed the crimes against women and children are perpetrated behind a cloak of silence, are excused on the grounds of traditional culture and have the tacit approval of politically correct whites.
 
In the same event Professor Marcia Langton, a former Alice Springs resident, told the nation’s media about a massive imbalance in suffering as well as offending by Aboriginal people, while massive government spending is almost entirely without scientific evaluation: Out of 1000 government-funded initiatives, a mere 34 have been examined as to their effectiveness, she said.
 
Ms Price recounted an event in her family home at Christmas, when she was nine years old, when a drunken guest picked up his boy by his hair, and dangling him at arm’s length, threatened to kill the toddler if his wife “continues to disobey him”. Ms Price says her father called the police.
 
That man later broke his wife’s jaw, put her into ICU twice “and on one if these occasions she was close to death,” said Ms Price.
 
“Despite this she went on to have a chid with him. In fact she stayed with him until the day he hanged himself. She discovered his body.
 
“She has since looked after her mother-in-law for fear that her in-laws would blame her for his death, as traditionally a wife is often blamed for her husband death.
 
“I have know of cases of women ordered to submit sexually to male relatives of the deceased husband for not fulfilling the correct duties of a wife, which is to take care of her husband even if he is a perpetrator.”
 
Ms Price said in many of the cases of brutality she has become aware of, she was related to “both the victim and the perpetrator and where the kinship network demands loyalty to your family members even if they are perpetrators.
 
“One is expected to pretend that there perpetrators are decent human beings and ignore the fact that they have committed acts of physical and sexual violence against those you love, because to speak out, to speak the truth, is to create conflict.
 
“So from early in life everyone learns to lie to keep the peace, which manifests in youth suicide and a destructive cycle.”
 
The number of deaths from violence that impacted her family are “in the hundreds,” said Ms Price.
 
That code of silence “blankets both remote and urban Australia” which “allows perpetrators to control their victims. Culture is used as a tool by perpetrators in defence of their violent crimes or as an excuse or reason to perpetrate.”
 
It is not acceptable that anyone is violated, and have their human rights “utterly disregarded … in the name of culture.
 
It is a “national shame that in our recent history Aboriginal male perpetrators have got away with their crimes based on the argument that they were acting within their culture’s confines.
 
“Other excuses include that Aboriginal men are victims of colonisation and dispossession and therefore we must empathise with them end excuse their violent behaviour.
 
“Men regarded as elders have been known to abuse their power by perpetrating physical and sexual violence, while their family and their close circles support them … to the point where they will even appear alongside the perpetrator in court to intimidate and threaten the victims and the victims’ female supporters [even] in cases where there has been proven to have been years of sexual abuse of a child.”
 
Ms Price said no such lenience is afforded to “men of the cloth” in the Catholic Church while the “politically correct” condone it in Aboriginal society, often on the grounds that non-Indigenous people have no right to criticise Aborigines.
 
Ms Price said she had been placed under “immense pressure” to withhold “some of what I said here today.
 
“What I have said may put my immediate family at risk of retaliation and violence and the possibility that employment opportunities may be impacted.”
 
On the bright side, she said more Aboriginal women are breaking their silence, and more and more Aboriginal men oppose the cycle of violence and abuse.
 
 

48 COMMENTS

  1. After publishing my book Wake Up Time (addressing political and social issues in remote Aboriginal communities) I was often told, by “politically correct” white Australians, that these problems are embedded in the traditional culture and that it is arrogant to investigate those issues and take a position on them.
    To me that is rubbish.
    I fully agree with the three women speaking out at the National Press Club, that violence against women and children is a human rights issue in the first place.
    Every Australian citizen deserves to be protected. As much as Bill Leak was right with his cartoon in the Australian, it is right to call a spade a spade when it comes to family violence as I do in Wake Up Time.
    It is probably for that reason that Tony Abbott endorsed the book.
    Real Australians stand up for their fellow Aussies, regardless their skin colour. That is not patronizing, that is compassion.

  2. I can hear you Jacinta and thank you for the courage to speak out.
    I ask everyone who reads this to watch or rewatch the FourCorners report into the Dondale Detention Centre, and ask who are the perpetrators of this government sanctioned military style torture, mind control and abuse.
    Here we see violent, sadistic and fanatical brutality perpetrated on childen, by groups of grown men trained in the use of force and interrogation techniques based on the mind control psychological experiments, known to terrorize and break the mind body and spirit – causing polyfragmentation of the psyche.
    These perpetrators are employed by Northern Territory department executives who are politically directed and supported by government ministers, politicians and big business.
    Have they been arrested yet? Will those in ultmate power be exposed and held to account?
    Jailed for fraud, assault – or will the truth about the genocidal practices in this country remain covered up?

  3. Congratulations to Jacinta and her two partners at the Press Club.
    Particularly in Jacinta’s case, she placed herself in jeopardy, as resprisal from fellow First Australians may follow.
    Domestic violence is not restricted to First Australians alone, but their statistics are so horrifying that I will offer some comment, as a white bloke who has had considerable experience in traditional Aboriginal society.
    There has always been domestic conflict, with usually a predominance of males as the most serious offenders – but not always.
    In the days before alcohol there were traditional responses. If a man hit a woman unjustly, you could bet that the woman’s male relatives would pay him back, often on a prescribed ritual basis.
    Nowadays, when a male Aboriginal commits domestic violence his rationale usually is: “I was drunk as a result of white people introducing alcohol to me. I am not responsible for my actions”. And there is no prospect of reprisal from the woman’s relatives.
    The man is sent to gaol where he joins his DV mates. They “build up” in the gym so that when they come out of gaol they are fitter, better equipped to again beat shit out of the missus.
    The cold hard, inescapable fact is that until right-minded men come out and publicly “Name and Shame” their cowardly fellow males, we will have to continue to put up with the repetition of the horrible statistics, as they continue to get worse and worse.
    “Name and Shame” must mean a public process where the name and photo of the offending man is VERY public, he is put on the Banned Drinkers Register and he is told unambiguously that he is not a hero, he is a weak prick.

  4. Jacinta, does this mean that basically Aborigonal culture, as expressed in pre white times, is now broken.
    That, by default, too much power has devolved to the men.
    And with alcohol in the mix, there is no way back to the balance; referring to the payback system coming from the abused woman’s family members.
    I ask this respectfully, as I can see no solution.
    Jacinta, is there a solution?

  5. I admire you, Jacinta, as I have long admired your mother and Marcia Langton.
    May you and all the others who think and sometimes speak as you do never be forced into silence.

  6. Why should it take courage for Jacinta to speak the truth? We all know the situation! But it’s a case of The Emperor has no Clothes syndrome.
    For too long too many (mostly white) gatekeepers have been pushing the truth into the “you’re racist” camp to close down discussion.
    Time for the BS games to end if progress is ever to be made.
    Oh, and while we’re at it, maybe a little like progress in white society in the back-wash?

  7. And Jacinta to add insult to injury you know absolutely nothing about what you are advocating for Aboriginal families suffer well and truly enough by white hands.
    Our people do not need tokenistic blacks jackaroos or jilleroos at the political elite you are now on notice.

  8. Brave Aboriginal political speaking out.
    That’s familiar and yet the public appetite for political self aggrandisement based on speaking out seems endless.
    Who are these “politically correct whites” who condone the violence?
    I travel extensively in Aboriginal communities and I don’t hear their voices.
    These days everyone is speaking out about domestic violence, there is noting at all novel about this.
    Men are speaking out too, the term woman basher is now used by some men to criticise those who perpetrate the violence.
    But we still need solutions and Jacinta has nothing to say on that.
    Actually describing workable solutions: now that might upset people and would be truly brave.

  9. @ Peter.
    Without studying the transcript of what Jacinta had to say at the Press Club in Canberra last week, I can’t comment on whether she had anything to say about a solution for domestic violence, but I support her right to speak out.
    Drawing attention to the issue is a step in the right direction. I don’t support intimidation.

  10. Jacinta: “A drunken guest picked up his boy by his hair, and dangling him at arm’s length, threatened to kill the toddler if his wife continues to disobey him.”
    Alcohol-fuelled’ violence not caused by alcohol but by macho culture.
    Countries such as Iceland consume more alcohol than Australia but report less violence.
    The reality is the men who commit these unspeakable acts are attempting to compensate for their emotional fragility by exerting their physical dominance.
    Efforts to address the attitudes and behaviours that lead to violence against women must commence at an early age.
    Be it in the home or the classroom, the macho culture for too long drummed into Australian boys from the earliest of ages must stop.
    The way to tackle the real underlying causes of anti-social behaviour is to address the cultural reinforcers of violence, misogyny, and aggressive masculinity in all its cultural expressions from schoolyards to sports fields, politics and pubs, movies and media.

  11. While I support anyone speaking out against violence I find it disturbing that Jacinta never seems to have anything good to say about indigenous culture.
    You get the feelung that whitefella culture is all good and blackfella culture is all bad. Marcia clearly didn’t support this analysis in her lecture.

  12. It is my opinion that the problems have been deliberately created by those in power – the powerful global elite who are driving this – then co-opting concerned individuals and families [Ruddocks 5 point plan] to further their cause using the elite media to cover certain aspects of the story that suite their agenda, to justify and then provide the “solution” that is in fact waiting ready to go.
    A new partnership coming from think tank CIS Centre of Independent Studies.
    The Solution. Holding the elite accountable – stopping the harm, stopping the propaganda, the lies the coverups, punishing the perpetrators.
    Truth and Reparation, with justice comes healing. Foster Community based solutions. Healing teaching and learning. There are several models that could show the way, but these answers / solutions do not suit the political agendas.

  13. Stop talking to Jacinta type of people … privileged, who drive their flash cars and live in big houses and have a point of view on everything (without really knowing a thing).
    Get some elders that live in Country to share their voice. I’m sick of make believe people saying obvious things and not giving us a real point of view.

  14. @ Steve Dean. Your point about ‘flash cars’ and ‘big houses’ is moronic, in the polite sense of the word.
    What constitutes a flash car? Or a big house? Would you prefer a bush car and a humpy, old mate or are you privileged?
    Jacinta is expressing a point of view on domestic violence, not “everything”. According to recent published statistics, Australia leads the world at it. An experience you obviously haven’t had in your privileged life. Not so funny, that.
    Why shouldn’t anyone, not necessarily an elder, speak to it? Got an answer for that one, Steve? Or would you rather make believe?
    There are five questions. Looking forward to a response.

  15. I applaud Jacinta Price, along with Professor Marcia Langton and Josephine Cashman, for their unambiguous stance against violence in Aboriginal communities.
    Brutality directed towards women and children is a pervasive issue across this nation and across class and cultures.
    This is not just an issue affecting Aboriginal people, but the prevalence and consequences affect Indigenous people disproportionately.
    During the 1950s and 1960s my mother, a single woman, divorcee and practicing Catholic, living in a big house in a posh suburb, struggled to raise three young children on her own with very little help from her well to do social milieu or from her church.
    But when her best friend was bashed by her huge bully of a husband, my mother was the only one with courage enough to take him to task, to call him out publicly for his violence.
    Not a murmur was heard from any of the men within their family or social circle.
    When silence and blame shifting is the reflex response to witnessing violence it can only feed the embedded normalisation of violence within any culture.
    And to those men who feel so offended by the subject of male brutality against women and children, stop the self righteous counterarguments and start being part of the solution.

  16. @ 2: The “elders” are those who are locked into the old ways!
    Dean, you are full of BS excuses looking to find ways of not making change for the better. Were you an ostrich in an earlier life?
    And to keep the record straight, I have no Aboriginal blood in me whatsoever, being an Australian citizen but not born here.

  17. @ Walter Shaw: Tell me, are you threatening me by telling me I have been put on notice?
    I have had death threats so you are going to have to do better than that to scare me. What is your problem? That I know how to speak the truth?
    What are your solutions for the epidemic killing our women and abusing our kids? For someone who runs a multi million dollar organisation that is expected to find solutions to this problem you haven’t told us what your solutions are. Why don’t we hear from you when my family die in your town camps? How are you going to stop the killings in town camps?
    I am proud to be Warlpiri because my grandparents taught me how to be self-reliant. My grandfather never lifted a finger to my grandmother and he would be turning in his grave to learn of the current circumstances.
    My grandfather lived through the Coniston Masacre and never hated white people like you appear to.
    I am trying to create the understanding that we as Aboriginal people can take ownership for our problems and fix them ourselves without having to go to the government with our hand out, expecting them to fix OUR problems. Come up with something intelligent like a solution instead of a threat.
    @ Steve Dean: Why don’t you ask Walter Shaw how much he earns and why he takes up housing in a town camp on his salary when so many in need of public housing are missing out?

  18. @ Jacinta: Spot on in all cases. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree my sweet! However in some cases Jacinta sadly the tree is bad, and therefore it produces only rotten apples!
    @ Ted: What you said is always very valid, my friend.

  19. Dean has a point about Jacinta type people.
    Her mother said exactly the same things and when it came to the test she failed to improve the lives of Aboriginal people she claimed to represent.
    The vote against her in places like Willowra was overwhelming.
    I saw Bess’s election stand, lots of countrymen recruited to speak for her.
    Down the street was the opposition, a white fella.
    Where was the crowd?
    The people were ignoring Bess and listening to the opposition, they said we are not fooled just because she is black.
    Jacinta will need to prove herself and that is a lot harder than speaking out against violence.
    And until she does no-one should pay her much attention.
    As her mother found out talk is cheap, you have to walk the walk.

  20. @ Russell.
    That comment is beneath you. A white person who expects Aboriginal politicians to improve the lot of Aboriginal people is also one of those who defends domestic abuse that Jacinta referred to?
    Bess made the same speech as Jacinta and then became Giles’s yes man.
    She did much in the name of loyalty that dismayed Aboriginal people.
    She would not turn the water back on to the Aboriginal fringe camp.
    My point is that all politicians have to prove themselves to Aboriginal people, and that takes more than speaking out.
    Jacinta is no exception, but she does have the opportunity to learn from her mother’s mistakes.
    But only if she is given some honest advice, not if she is blindly defended as you are doing.

  21. Some people in the bush communities must be wondering why the police are still at the bottle shops. And haven’t opened up all the bottle shops as promised during the election.

  22. @ Peter:
    Political intrique is a science, as followers of the Scarlet Pimpernell were entreated, but whether it’s beneath us or even the main game is not the issue.
    Are we not to take Jacinta’s voice seriously on the issue of domestic violence?

  23. @ Peter: Firstly cowards hide behind pseudonyms.
    A white man just won the presidential elections in the US. Let’s see what he and Scott McConnell do for marginalised women and children.
    In my mother’s case however she had a smear campaign run against her in the bush in the lead-up to the election. How do I know?
    I know because I was told by people on the ground in five different communities. My speech addressing family violence that I had given at the Centre for Independent Studies was played to Aboriginal men in these communities.
    They were told that my mother wanted to lock all Aboriginal men up and bring an end to Aboriginal Law.
    They also said she would close all bottle shops to appeal to their need for grog rather than their concern for their people let alone the fact that their women and children are being killed or abused.
    As Mark Lockyer below can confirm they also promised Labor would take the police away from bottle shops.
    Women were told that if they wanted to vote for her they shouldn’t vote at all.
    Around half of those eligible in the electorate didn’t vote. Last week a Labor Minister I had spoken to acknowledged the disgraceful way in which her colleague gained the votes he needed to win the seat of Stuart.
    But that’s politics in the NT, that’s how it works. Alison Anderson was out there campaigning hard for Labor.
    Tell me what she achieved for women and kids in her three terms in Parliament or Karl Hampton in his two terms.
    I have worked for the advancement of young women and kids all of my working life.
    I am happy to be judged on that record. I intend to keep that work going at the grass roots level. I am a citizen of this country with the same rights as anybody else to express my opinion regardless of who wins or loses an election.
    And it will take more than an anonymous Labor troll to silence an Aboriginal woman like me. Plenty have tried before.

  24. @ Jacinta. So Bess lost her seat because the voters were tricked, eh?
    In 2013 Bess supported mandatory sentencing that sent Aboriginal prison rates through the roof.
    At the time she said that jail is good for Aboriginal people.
    Some Aboriginal people disagreed with her and voted against her.
    A year later she cut the water supply off from Irrkelantye, an impoverished town camp but a safe space, in the midst of traditional country and surrounded by sacred sites.
    The United Nations said this was outrageous – “an affront to human rights”.
    Bess was unmoved.
    Out on communities people complained bitterly they never saw Bess once she was elected.
    They held the view that she came to power on the backs on Aboriginal people but then ignored them and sold out to Giles.
    I have never heard of any smear campaign and one wasn’t needed to unseat her.
    Bess ruined her own re election prospects.
    Now you are singing from the same song sheet and complaining that a Labor troll is trying to silence an Aboriginal woman.
    Much as you might wish that someone was trying to silence you, no one is.
    But keep in mind that winning and keeping the Aboriginal vote is a lot harder than winning support from white fellas by speaking out about violence.

  25. @ Peter: Now you’re starting to sound like Karl Hampton. He too holds an enormous chip on his shoulder for my mother but then you could be anyone hiding behind your anonymity.
    I could sit here and waste my time reading your twisted points delivered by a man intended to shoot down my mother and me, both Aboriginal women who continue to work hard for our people but it would be energy waisted on a coward.
    You say you don’t know of a smear campaign which is either a lie or just blind arrogance but there are the women and good men in many communities who know plenty about it.
    You yourself have nothing to offer in terms of this incredibly pressing issue regarding the lives of Aboriginal women and children.
    My mother and I continue to work to address this issue and that’s something you failed to mention about my mother, the work she has done for her people before, during and even now after her term in Government.
    I mean really if you’re not trying to silence us then all you are interested in is attacking us and for what purpose? This isn’t a game mate, it’s not all about winning, it’s about saving the lives of Aboriginal women and children.
    Clearly you aren’t interested in that! Good luck with your chip, I’m done.

  26. @ “Peter”: For a man who “travels extensively” in Aboriginal communities, but appears not to have ever lived in one, you miss the point of this story which is to draw attention to domestic violence.
    If you had ever lived in a community, you could not have missed it.
    As one who has physically intervened and given statements to police, supporting women to have assailants gaoled and all the rest of it, I reckon that you are insensitive at the least.
    If you re-read your earlier posts, you might see yourself portrayed as one who is trying to be politically correct, even to the point of taking offence when it is pointed out.

  27. @ Jacinta. I’m a coward, a Labor troll and have an enormous chip on my shoulder.
    You are speaking out about domestic violence which is fine and furthering your political interests at the same time.
    It’s the latter I question.
    That’s the same route to power your mother took before she was exposed and voted out of office.
    You are claiming to represent your people and defending the record of your mother and yourself so let’s get away from generalisations.
    Two questions need a response:-
    Why did your mother state that jail is good for Aboriginal men?
    Why did she she cut the water supply off from Irrkelantye?
    I strongly disagreed with Bess regarding the benefits of imprisonment.
    I joined the protest outside your mother’s office after she cut the water supply off and I believe that her action was shameful for anyone let alone an Aboriginal politician.
    I stand by my opposition to the above and urge you to do the same.
    I know this would take courage on your part but I believe it is essential.
    Just a word on the claim that voters were tricked into voting against your mother and people on communities have told you as much.
    That’s called reconciliation Jacinta, they voted against your mother but they want to keep the peace with you.
    That’s the way it works in Aboriginal society, it’s a great strength.
    They are giving you a chance to prove yourself.

  28. Clearly some find “do not imprison” campaigns more pleasant to hear than sounds of themselves acknowledging their own behavior choices took them there, many failing to modify their behavior enough to avoid repeated visits.
    Racial tagging is mostly an abusive distraction to suggest basic standards to complicated addressing the actual problems can be avoided, like inadequate or below standards, in areas of housing, education, health, often present due widespread failures to accept responsibility and accountability.
    Did Lhere Artepe Aboriginal Corporation (LAAC) lodge an application for a lease over Lot 8106?

  29. @ Peter: This really is getting ridiculous and must be boring for the readers.
    I speak out on the killing of women and children and Peter turns it into an ongoing attack on my mother’s reputation.
    I invite you to a face to face discussion, Peter, over coffee if you like. I am sick of this patronising nonsense.
    I will reply to two of your questions and that will be the end of it.
    My mother made the point that life is so bad for some of our young people that some families are relieved when they are incarcerated because their lives are no longer in danger.
    We have had requests from families close to us who have asked us to let the police know where some of their young people are when there is a warrant out for their arrest because their lives are in direct danger.
    In one case it was a young woman they were worried about. That is a matter of fact and not opinion. For some young Aboriginal people they are much safer in jail than in town on the grog.
    They always come back home healthier and fitter after a short sentence getting regular meals and exercise.
    Political opponents turn that into “Bess Price wants to lock up all our young people”. That is exactly the sort of smearing that I am talking about.
    Hers was a call for help. We have to do something about the lives our young people are leading to keep them alive and OUT OF JAIL.
    As for the White Gate situation: Minister Price was carrying through with a process begun by Minister Anderson.
    We witnessed Alison Anderson’s crocodile tears at the protest outside her office with you.
    She teared up when talking about what was happening to the residents of White Gate. When she was Minister she ordered the closing down of the makeshift camp but of course, as is her style, spat the dummy and resigned rather than face the consequences of what she had done.
    The three residents had access to an outstation to the east of White Gate or alternatively to new public housing in town.
    The water supply was ad hoc, illegal and definitely unsafe.
    Despite what was said by the protestors we could hear how unsafe it could be from my parents place in Kurrajong Dr when the wind was blowing the right way.
    My mother was obliged by law to shut it down.
    There are strong connections between our family and the Hayes family and my mother offered on several occasions to talk directly to the residents who instead of following Aboriginal protocol opted for megaphone diplomacy under the advice of people like yourself, the protestors.
    We were getting advice from several Aboriginal people, including some in senior positions in organisations telling us off the record that my mother was doing the right thing.
    Too often those who know what needs to be done are too afraid to make their views public because they will be vilified, maligned and even physically attacked.
    Or told by white protestors what we really should be thinking and saying because they know us better than we know ourselves.
    I have been threatened with death by an “activist”, maligned in obscene sexist and racist language by an indigenous gay activist and told that “I’m on notice” by Walter Shaw, whatever that means.
    While my mother was a minister her sister was murdered on a town camp and two of my closest cousins died from a combination of alcohol abuse and violence.
    Where were the protestors shouting through their megaphones? Not a peep.
    Where were the activists? Not a peep.
    Where were the politicians crying into their microphones? Same thing.
    Unless logic can be twisted to make a problem the fault of government or of white Australians you won’t hear from any of them.
    But my offer still stands. Man up, chat over coffee and you can tell me what my mother was really up to, how my culture really works, what I should think and say and what Aboriginal people really think and I can tell you a few things about patronising, arrogant lefty protestors who try to use us for their own agendas.
    You might find it surprising but I have advocated against domestic violence long before I had access to a national audience and you implying I am using the deaths of my family, the countless funerals I have attended, the occasions I have had to ID my families deceased bodies, the times I have had to settle and comfort distraught children and babies traumatised by domestic violence as a means to further a political career is an utter and inexcusable insult and that goes for Walter Shaw attempting to insinuate the same.

  30. @ Jacinta. With respect to Bess claiming that jail is good for Aborigional men you say that “Hers was a call for help. We have to do something about the lives our young people are leading to keep them alive and OUT OF JAIL”.
    Unfortunately, Bess made those comments in support of mandatory sentencing while voting it into law. So speaking out to keep people out of jail doesn’t really fit with supporting mandatory sentencing that sent a lot more people to jail. Much more likely Giles was hell bent on a law and order policy and Bess followed along, did what she was told.
    That was a test she failed and it cost her dearly.
    You really shouldn’t defend cutting off the water to Whitegate and I doubt your claims to ties with the Hayes family will be appreciated by them.
    Felicity and her extended family have lived at Whitegate for generations and there are stories there going back forever, trees, rocks and hills with mythological meaning.
    Rod Moss has a long association with Whitegate and said at the time that “contrary to an assurance by government front bencher Bess Price, the government is determined to force the ‘Whitegate mob’ out and resettle them in Hidden Valley.
    It is a town camp notorious for its violence and inhabited by people with whom the Hayes have a traditional animosity”.
    You say that your mother was obliged by law to shut Whitegate down. So Giles put your mother in a cruel situation where she had to choose which side of the fence she stood on, with him and his destructive policies or with an impoverished group of Aboriginal people. What a heroine she would have been if she had said “no” and left her ministry.
    Bess would still be in office today if she had refused to support mandatory sentencing and spat the dummy on cutting off water to Whitegate.
    But she did what Giles told her to do and supported some of the most brutal policies that we have ever seen in the NT. Then she was voted into obscurity.
    By defending these actions Jacinta you are starting down the same path and that’s why I’m somewhat rudely interrupting your fine words about Aboriginal domestic violence.

  31. Jacinta, you seem to be constantly denigrating Indigenous culture.
    Is there nothing good about it? If not you should be happy that the Hayes family opted for megaphone diplomacy instead of following Aboriginal protocol. That’s like choosing the whitefella cultural way.

  32. Hay Jacinta, I’m sure yamba the honey ant is lonely and probably needs its honey pot rubbed.
    As for your singing that sounds much better than your political voice.
    It has been graet to see your mother in the last three months as we have all seen more of her than we did in the last four years as a sitting Minister. Hahaha!!!!!

  33. @ “Peter”: Your anonymity is baffling. Perhaps, you would have us believe that owning up to your correct name would be a conflict of national interest.
    If that is the case, then why do you persist in attacking others from a cloak of immunity, while also taking offense?
    Police responded to more than 75,000 cases of domestic violence in the Territory in the past three years, with Families Minister Wakefield commenting that alcohol remained a major contributing factor.
    Police Commissioner Kershaw said in “63% of all of our domestic violence incidents alcohol is involved.”
    That’s offensive.
    With women’s shelters in need of funding assurance, you continue attacking someone whose family has been on the receiving end of domestic violence and for all you know, done her best to minimise it by, as Neville Wran once said, staying “at the crease in order to bat”.0
    In the circumstances, your voice on limiting the failed 50 year experiment with liberal alcohol supply, specifically seven days a week takeaway, would be more pertinent.

  34. Quote. Steve Dean: Why don’t you ask Walter Shaw how much he earns and why he takes up housing in a town camp on his salary when so many in need of public housing are missing out? end of quote.
    May be if he was, he would be told that he cannot know the conditions and problems in town camps as he does not live in one. It is a Catch 22

  35. @ Sean: If I rant, which is speak or shout in a loud or angry way according to the Cambridge dictionary, I do it openly, not like a coward hiding his/her identity.
    But I follow the advice given by my grand-father long time ago, I do not worry, as the spit of a toad cannot reach a white dove.
    Postscript: I have a diploma in diplomacy, which means that I can say the nastiest things in the nicest manner.

  36. @ “Sean”: Here we go again. Another nameless social media troll. At least ranting figureheads have the courage of their opinions. Your collected soapbox-set of miniature CLP bashings is becoming a dunker’s omnibus.

  37. Sounds like Jicenta is telling it from the heart and it’s about time the rest of Australia listens instead of trying to cover up or pour money into a problem that is there.
    Nor hide behind politically correct garden that helps no-one.

  38. Some years ago I had just arrived by plane in Alice Springs and was driving into town in my Landcruiser along Telegraph Terrace.
    There were several other vehicles some ways behind me. Back then, on the left side of the road, there was all that thick salt bush all along the road’s edge.
    As I neared the Fire Station, just further up past there, and probably less that a hundred meters ahead of me, I saw a thin young Aboriginal woman walk out of the salt bush and onto the road.
    She stood on the white line in the middle of the road looking back towards the salt bush.
    She had a baby in her arm, probably six months old, and held a toddler by the hand by her side.
    I thought, why was she doing a crazy thing like that?
    By then I was almost on them and slowed down to pass. That move by that young mother at that time, saved her life and that of her babe in arms and probably that of her toddler too.
    Almost immediately I came alongside her and her babies, her partner came running out of the salt bush with a huge rock he could hardly carry, held high above his head.
    He was about to smash it down on her, probably killing her and the baby and maybe the toddler too.
    He just managed to stop and stumble backwards out the path of my vehicle, almost over balancing with the hug rock he held above him.
    As I passed them, I glanced in the rear view mirror to see him run up and stand rigidly over her, his fists bunched, glaring down at her, eyes bulging. His look was pure murderous evil. He must have realised other vehicles were coming.
    I drove straight to the police station and reported what I had just witnessed and stressed police needed to attend immediately. I think police said someone would be despatched ASAP.
    To this day, I don’t know if police ever attended.
    It was a desperate move by the young mother to do what she did that day that saved them.
    I often wondered if that poor woman and her children are in fact still alive today.
    That sort of violent behaviour is no way cultural.
    So Jacinta, and other brave people, keep speaking up.

  39. I have seen the suffering of our people in the town camps. My 10-year-old nephew’s head was split open with a star picket when he jumped on top of his mother to protect her from being bashed by her partner.
    My sister-in-law’s brother died from drinking a carton of beer and two bottles of wild Turkey whisky.
    A 29-year-old man raped a child. A woman ran over her partner in the car she was driving and killed him.
    People being eating by dogs. I got up to go to work and saw a man hanging from a tree. I can go on and on.

  40. Jacinta you are a legend. You are fighting for what is just and right.
    Your focus on truth will only upset the people that are either ignorant or evil.
    Keep fighting for human rights for your people. You are a brave and amazing woman.

  41. Jacinta, congratulations on speaking out.
    Many are too scared to criticise Indigenous men who physically and/or sexually abuse women and children.
    They fear to be called racist when all they want is to protect all women and children.
    In years to come we will be saying sorry for not protecting because of fear.

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