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equal
rights administration
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
2012
2013
India
India has been far more proactive than most nations in empowering women to alleviate violence, clearly not for want of reason. In 1993 the nation’s Constitution
was amended to reserve one third of village council leadership positions for women. More recently, “The Women’s Reservation Bill, (already) passed by the upper
house of Parliament, would set aside one-third of the elected seats for women in the lower house of the Parliament and in all legislative assemblies. If it
becomes law, it could potentially lead to one of the most significant changes in India since independence in 1947. It will send a strong message to the women of
India. And it will send a strong message to the world that India is leading the way for democracy, for women and for equality.”
29 December, 2012
ground breaking ethnography
After two centuries of arguably the most intensive anthropological research conducted on any peoples ever, European men, and their dependent women,
concluded universally, that traditional Aboriginal society, though diverse, was fundamentally and overwhelming patriarchal, controlled by men. Then as
recently as 1983, Dianne Bell published her ground breaking ethnography and anthropological observation of the ritual lives of Kaytej women of the
Warrabri (now Ali-Curang) area of Central Australia. Ms Bell gained the confidence of the women because she was not dependent on a man, concluding
that women’s business was conducted autonomously and equitably with men’s business, there was a entrenched balance of power between women and men
controlling the community, but that male anthropologists had never been invited to, or informed of women’s business because it was none of their business.
Ngarrindjeri women confirmed this in the Federal Court during Hindmarsh Island bridge controversy, as have nations across the continent. A little
preparation can go a long way with intercultural communication.
23 December 2012
Aboriginal sociology
Only two more years to go and I’ll be celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the day Deakin University declined to mark my Honours thesis on
‘Aboriginal Sociology,’ on grounds that “to proceed in terms of Aboriginal Sociology ... is to reject what counts as sociology”.
17 December, 2012
reducing violence
The time honoured way to reduce violence
in traditional communities is with a balance of power between women and men, achieved with the formal recognition of
women’s and men’s business in governance by agreement between dedicated women’s and men’s assemblies, the legislatures of modern times. The more entrenched the
balance of power the greater the reduction in violence. The 1988 National Committee on Violence which proposed strict gun reforms in Australia, later legislated
with a tsunami of public support following the Port Arthur massacre, was comprised of six men and three women, progressive for the time. With a state legislature
boasting 29.9% women members, ninth highest of all US state legislatures, Connecticut would appear relatively less prone to violence that most of the US - women
comprise 23.7% of members of all US state legislatures. However, the overarching influence of the US Congress, with just 16.8% women members, appears to have held
sway. The provision of dedicated women’s and men’s legislatures preserves parity in perpetuity.
16 December, 2012
primary cause
Nothing could be more obvious than that an imbalance of male power is the primary cause of atrocities meted out to Aboriginal peoples.
Unfortunately, the spectacularly obvious is not something with which uber Aboriginal academic Dr Marcia Langton appears acquainted. Indeed, Dr Langton would
seem thoroughly immersed in illusion entirely
of her own design.
I first became involved with the Black Power movement in Melbourne in the early 1970s, applying subsequently for political asylum in Sweden during 1981
following a prolonged incident in police custody. The 1987 Deaths in Custody Inquiry examined deaths from two months prior to the incident.
During 2011, I presented three submissions to the government's Expert Panel on Constitutional Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples,
detailing precisely what was required to reconcile Aboriginal Sovereignty with the nation’s primary instrument of governance, through provision of a women’s
legislature with equitable gender Cabinet, Executive and judicial support.
Dr Langton, who holds a senior position at Melbourne University, was a distinguished member of the Expert Panel.
In a speech a few months ago at the Melbourne Writers Festival she railed at those who identified as Aboriginal but who’s families had gone to ground. My father
attended Melbourne University when eugenics was de rigueur. Had he revealed his Tasmanian heritage he would have been denigrated as genetically inferior and removed. I found Dr Langton’s comments both ignorant and personally offensive.
In her most recent contribution, Dr Langton speaks thus of Aboriginal Sovereignty:
”What does this mean? A separate state? Enactment of indigenous rights? Such questions have never been answered, and the concept remains a slogan, one that
points to a vaporous dream of self-determination but one that does not require any actual activity in the waking world to materialise it.”
Such is the rigour of Dr Langton’s academe, she apparently didn’t bother to read public submissions to the Expert Panel on which she presided. My first
submission was the first submission presented and could only have been missed by a panel member with exceptional indifference to the views of others.
What Dr Langton does offer is more of the same, male privilege wrapped up in the strategies of her colleague Noel Pearson, who’s misogynist Cape York
Institute’s Interim Board of Directors boasts three men and not one women, a despicably sexist and discriminatory enterprise if ever there was one, unsurprisingly laced with the nepotism of brothers sharing two-thirds of interim board appointments.
The depth of Dr Langton’s descent into duplicity over the primary cause of atrocities meted out to Aboriginal peoples would appear yet to have been plumbed.
Neither is the promise for Aboriginal peoples of Dr Langton’s persuasion.
15 December, 2012
beware of men who seek to control women
What an insult. Nothing could be more obvious than that an imbalance of male power is at cause of atrocities in custody, so a misogynist organisation with a
male president and no co-existing women’s equivalent comes to the rescue? Do these misogynists really believe that women, especially the loved ones of victims,
don’t notice, that more of the same is the best women can expect? That women should just cop it sweet and be thankful since deliberately and intentionally
depriving women of equal representation is the only way they’re ever going to get any support, that a rogue rump of gormless men maliciously shaming all men
with their arrogance and ignorance is all there is. And what’s misogyny got to do with social justice anyway? Beware of men who seek to control women for they
are the perpetrators and perpetuators of the most vile and insufferable discrimination meted out to life’s most unfortunate.
12 December, 20122
misogynist male misfits
Men hold power in Australia in their own right. A majority of men appointed the Prime Minister and the Governor-General. Australia’s Board of Directors,
the Cabinet, is comprised (inner and outer) of a blatantly sexist and discriminatory 6 women and 24 men. The parliament itself is comprised of two dedicated
men’s legislatures men allow women to attend. The Constitution doesn’t even recognise women, who were prohibited from speaking to or voting on it’s enactment
or from membership at it’s first sitting, women enfranchised soon after as the property of men consistent with original intent.
Yet some men seem to find it compulsory to incessantly whinge in public about the empowerment of women.
These men should cease and desist the cowardly approach of relieving men of responsibility for themselves. After all, it’s entirely the behaviour of a dwindling
rump of misogynist male misfits fuelling the fear of equality with women.
6 December, 2012
property
Australia’s Constitution assumes men own women.
Women were prohibited from speaking to or voting on it’s enactment, and from attending the first Parliament, so the Parliament enfranchised women as men’s property
in accordance with convention prescribed by the Constitution.
Let no woman in Australia be uncertain that under the terms of the nation's Constitution, she is and shall remain, until such time as a women’s legislature
is constituted, entirely in accordance with the law of the land the property of men.
No law made under the Constitution overrules this status.
Go figure?
6 December, 2012
a waking woman
For mine, a ‘Waking Woman’ is a woman who’s legislative ready, that is, a woman who’s comfortably empowered to participate, from voting to representation,
in the provision of women’s legislative assemblies, state and federal - the women’s caucuses convened by a majority of modern democracies, or UN Women, or
in Australia, the coterie of eminently capable women in the Gillard Cabinet and their backbencher support, ramped up to legislative status. In the Chinese
metaphor, a woman who moves from the outskirts of governance to take up the cudgels of power within a community, the mountain, at source.
I’m of the view constitutional, bicameral, parliamentary democracy provides a ‘specific tool or formula (which) can automatically give us freedom from sexism’,
that governance of this nature can provide very specifically for the genuine balance of power between women and men which subsumes the entire community.
If women and men share power equitably, all communities comprised of women and men, as well as all their constituents, share power equitably. Indeed,
I’m supremely confident governance by agreement between women’s and men’s legislatures electing a Cabinet of an equal number of women and men with joint
women’s and men’s leadership, presided over by a Council of Governors-General of an equal number of distinguished senior women and men, accompanied by courts
of women’s and men’s jurisdiction, can most certainly give us freedom from sexism, as, in my research at several universities and elsewhere over many years,
has been, until interrupted by European invasion, a pan-Aboriginal tradition consistent over millennia.
A ‘Waking Woman’ sees women’s governance in it’s own right, not as a supplementary to men’s governance, and affords men’s governance the same respect.
5 December 2012
legislating equality
To Race Discrimination Commissioner, Dr Helen Szoke
Dear Helen,
With regard to your recent speech at the National Press Club, yes you can legislate equality, with an amendment to the Constitution to include a women's
legislature, since if women and men are empowered equally, all groups comprised of women and men are empowered equally, and the power imbalance which drives
racism is removed entirely throughout a community. All that’s needed is a bit of vision and oversight.
Best wishes,
philip mckeon
1 December, 2012
common thread
The common thread between the sexual abuse of children in institutional settings and all other forms of misogyny is organisational behaviour, more precisely
an imbalance of power between women and men in decision-making. The greater the imbalance the more severe the abuse, as with the governance of religious
institutions entrenched in male privilege.
17 November, 2012
spread the word
If you can’t see that an imbalance of power between women and men is the source of all the problems introduced into Australia over the past two centuries,
you’re not looking. If you can’t hear that governance by agreement between women’s and men’s legislatures is the solution, you’re not listening. If you don’t
think it’s possible for Australians to lead the world in cleaning up the mess made by male privilege, you’re not thinking. C’mon peoples, look, listen, think,
spread the word and let’s get busy, reform the Australian Constitution to provide for a women’s legislature.
13 November, 2012
care in custody
It sooooo bugs me that deaths in custody are directly the outcome of an imbalance of power between women and men most manifest in prisons, yet the response has
been simply to monitor and mitigate atrocities. I’m no stranger to gaol, I’m a heritage prisoner. In 1970 I did time with two divisions of tribal Blacks in
Fremantle Gaol. I caused an international diplomatic incident in 1981 over a near death experience in custody. I was in solitary in a Stockholm immigration
prison when Eddie Murray passed. The 1987 Deaths in Custody Inquiry considered incidents from three months before I was assaulted. When I was returned from Sweden,
rather than remain in solitary for a year before accessing a parliamentary committee, I resolved that the empowerment of women was the way forward, and have
pursued this approach ever since. I sought out Bobbi Sykes. In 1994 she was interviewing Black women prison staff across NSW with a view to improving women’s
influence in decision-making through career advancement. I’m totally over men who don’t empower women as they empower themselves, in committees, assemblies and
leadership, have been for a long time, and respectfully request it’s come time for these men to get on board or get out of the way.
4 November, 2012
the agony song
(I wrote this song in ‘75, four chord country blues. [CADG])
There ain’t no need to be in agony,
there ain’t no need to be in pain.
There ain’t no need to act like it’s a tragedy,
there ain’t no need to go insane.
There ain’t no need to start a revolution,
when all we’ve got to do is have a Koori Constitution.
There ain’t no need to think that it’s the end,
because we’re going on around again’Australia,
going on around again.
Just takin’ it easy
takin’ it easy
when you’re takin’ it easy
it’s easy to be.
1 November, 2012
social justice for misogynists?
Straight up, misogyny is not social justice.
Social justice is entitlement to the same rights services as all other citizens.
Misogyny excludes women from the same right and services as men.
Organisations with a male president or and no female equivalent are misogynist.
31 October, 2012
mired in misogyny
Policy in the Australian parliament is devised and implemented by a blatantly sexist and discriminatory Cabinet (inner and outer) comprising twenty-four
men and six women, not the Prime Minister. The Westminster system is flawed, broken, mired in misogyny. It’ll take women’s and men’s legislatures to fix this mess.
16 October, 2012
misogyny on the left
Firstly, big hugs, pause, jasmine tea.
Those of you who copped the view Tony Abbott is the king cocky on misogyny, pull up a chair.
I intend to name and shame, so I’ll begin with where I’m coming from.
I’ve never met Michael Anderson, we’ve exchanged emails, he wrote proudly of his matriarchal heritage. I suspect he’s one of the drop dead nicest guys you’d ever want to meet.
Never met Michael Mansell, same. I once spoke with Jim Everett at the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre about my family tree, Michael wasn’t there at the time. Jim recalled a link in the Launceston region. Next day I attended a ceremony at Risdon Cove following an announcement Kevin Gilbert had passed.
I cut my teeth in the Victorian Aboriginal community, minding Lionel Rose and Bruce McGuinness with Sonny Booth. Best evening when Sonny parlayed with the Hell’s Angels. Robbie Thorpe’s Koori Information Service was a ground breaker on Gertrude Street, his career amongst the most honourable and remarkable I’ve known. I was warned off returning to the community after an absence when I applied for political asylum in Sweden over a near-death experience in custody.
I’ve only ever looked at Gary Foley across a bar, he’s an inspiration.
So what do I mean by misogyny?
The fear and loathing of women, fear of empowerment and loathing of equality.
I’ll get straight to the point, the Sovereignty movement, an awesome revival of something’s been festering for some time, is the end game.
But Sovereignty, it’s also the end game for women!
Here’s my complaint.
Treaty Republic is about a bloke with no coexisting women’s leadership.
Sovereign Nations features men, men, men, home page; a male interim chair with nothing coexisting women.
Please gentlemen, it’s become important to both share and be seen to be share.
Like with legislatures.
14 October, 2012
enough
Parliaments men allow women to attend, enough.
A Cabinet with one fifth women, enough.
Leadership a majority of men appoint, enough.
13 October, 2012
clean up the mess
With regard to Ms Gillard’s alleged hypocrisy over legislation affecting single parents the majority of whom are women, as anyone familiar with the Parliament
would know, policy is devised and implemented by a blatantly sexist and discriminatory Cabinet (inner and outer) comprising twenty-four men and six women, not
the Prime Minister.
Once again those attempting to excuse or conceal misogyny rely on misinformation to prosecute their cause.
It’s come time to clean up the mess an imbalance of power has made of the Parliament with provision for women’s and men’s legislatures electing a Cabinet of an
equal number of women and men with conjoint women’s and men’s leadership.
Neither can the Left be allowed to continue to fester with misogyny; the organisations presided over by men with no coexisting female equivalent; the
insistence by men on what is considered a women's issue when all issues affecting women are women’s issues, and on what women should do; the men who by their
actions claim misogyny is a legitimate means to achieve social justice; and the incessant hindrance, trivialisation, disparagement and obstruction of women’s
advancement and equality.
The end game in the achievement of equality between women and men has commenced, get real or get out of the way.
12 October, 2012
fix the nation’s parliaments
If you don’t know an imbalance of male power is at cause of atrocities committed within the justice system, as with those perpetrated against Aborigines,
and that organisations with an imbalance of male power, including those concerned with deaths in custody, perpetuate atrocities whilst resolving very little,
then you shouldn’t be inflicting you views on the victims.
12 October, 2012
discipline in disarray
With discipline in disarray following the collapse of male privilege, a free-for-all of political abuse has emerged to occupy a void only a women’s
legislature can remedy.
12 October, 2012
cleansing
The parliament need's a women’s legislature to clean up the discrimination men have enacted over the years.
4 October, 2012
men stumbling about in the dark
Simon’s review is another in the
genre of men stumbling about in the dark. What else could be expected from a two-third majority of men on a panel. Health and medical research needs
to be administered equitably by women and men. Hospital boards with an equal number of women and men. Departments of medical research the same.
Cabinet the same.
3 October, 2012
junk and justice
No nation can be qualified to sit on the UN’s Security Council under principles of just governance until such time as UN Women receives legislative status. Neither is an organisation with a male president or interim male chair and no coexisting women’s equivalent
competent to comment on inclusion. Moreover, criticism of policy established by a Cabinet (inner and outer) comprising 24 men and 6 women should, in all fairness,
be directed at the majority of men responsible for the policy, and for appointing the Prime Minister. Male privilege is social junk not social justice.
3 October, 2012
decent men
A decade ago a consensus emerged that since women had been graduating in feeder professions for boards of directors in equivalent numbers to men for
the previous two decades, yet boards comprised less than ten per cent women, a male culture in corporate governance was preventing equal opportunity for
women. By 2010 Australia’s Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Elizabeth Broderick, with support from the Australian Stock Exchange, set a target of 40%
inclusion of women on boards of directors by 2015 or quotas and sanctions would be enforced, including requiring offending corporations to cease trading.
The corporate world has long since demolished the 'Let the women come forward to carry their own torches' approach. It’s up to men to be proactive about
including women to be taken seriously these days.
Decent men don’t need permission from women to champion equal rights.
1 October, 2012
driving injustice
The problem with governance in Australia is a parliament men allow women to attend, a Cabinet of twenty four men and six women, leadership appointed a
majority of men - in summary, an imbalance of power between women and men the likes of which has driven injustice in the global community for centuries.
Same with the US government, the Crown and the Sovereignty movement, oops! - that’s the Sovereignty movement a few blokes control, not the one that draws
it’s governance from the balance of women’s and men’s business embedded in tradition.
29 September, 2012
brain chemistry
I read a comment recently that ‘sociopaths are born. It appears they have different brain chemical compositions and some structures are formed differently. Apparently, nurture plays a very small part - if at all’, following on from a US study doing the rounds earlier this year claiming sociopaths are born, with regard to a purported elite controlling global capitalism. The study was couched in terms of psychopathy not sociopathy.
I responded from the perspective of research on narratives in Aboriginal oral and visual traditions I’d conducted over four years during the early 1990s at three universities (Edith Cowan, Deakin and UNSW – the latter where I taught Aboriginal Studies for a semester under Paul Behrendt, Larissa’s dad, and Bobbi Sykes).
In all my research I found almost no narratives concerned with either sexual violence or psychopathic behaviour, whereas the European tradition is awash with both.
I contrasted this with the ubiquitous balance of women’s and men’s business amongst Aboriginal traditions and the male privilege Europeans introduced, currently in free fall collapse.
I concluded that as with sexual violence, psychopathy is the outcome of an imbalance of power between women and men, remedied in the modern world with the provision of women’s legislatures, with governance by agreement between women’s legislatures and the legislatures men have been allowing women to attend for much of the past century.
A respondent commented words for ‘crazy’ in Aboriginal languages might refute my theory.
Whilst my specialty is with artwork not linguistics, I’ve not come across madness in Aboriginal dialects but welcome a further avenue for inquiry.
More to the point, the first comment on a recent article about teaching Aboriginal languages in schools contains the comment: “No one has presented any argument about why we should learn preserve or teach aboriginal languages any more than we should teach Latin, Old Saxon both the roots of English or for that matter the Middle English of Chaucer”, so I’d like to offer at least one reason why keeping language alive is important.
There’s a further conversation on the extent to which organisational behaviour can effect brain chemistry.
I would submit that with a focus on the aberration of gender imbalance, the US study is ethnocentric.
27 September, 2012
capitalism
It’s long been my contention that capitalism is not a problem per se, but that as with socialism, problems arise when either is controlled by men, the more
intense the control the greater the problem. Same with conflict resolution and environmental sustainability. The first proactive response the US Congress made
to the GFC, for instance, was the enactment of fair inclusion laws for women in what had become a male saturated finance industry. In a similar vein, during
2010 the Australian Human Rights Commission, in concert with the ASX, set a target of 40% inclusion of women on boards of directors (currently around 15%) by 2015.
27 September, 2012
deaths in custody
In 1994 Bobbi Sykes suggested I attend a meeting of a Deaths in Custody Committee at the Trades Hall in Sussex Street since I was responsible, in part, for
it’s existence.
I’d caused a diplomatic incident by applying for political asylum in Sweden after I was near bashed to death in custody while managing a black power entertainment
centre in Melbourne, and was in Sydney because I’d been warned off returning to the place of my birth. I was in solitary confinement in a Stockholm immigration
prison when Eddie Murray died in custody.
Watch committees were set up following the 1987 Deaths in Custody Inquiry, which investigated incidents dated from two months before I was bashed.
Ray Jackson, whom I’d never met before, convened the Trades Hall meeting.
Two items on the agenda I recall were the needs to write a constitution and to find a blackfulla with Crown Seal as signatory in order to obtain further funding.
I listened carefully to the discussion on a constitution, and during a subsequent meeting at a coffee shop in Newtown, as it was my area of expertise having been
mentored on constitutional reform from the early 1970s.
I surmised that though keen and well meaning, the group had little understanding of customary law and returned to the business of reforming the nation’s
Constitution to accommodate Aboriginal tradition, the win/win solution for all Australians.
Turns out the inquiry and all the money thrown around had little effect, the problem was always the imbalance of power between women and men Europeans introduced,
not inadequate oversight of activities conducted under male privilege per se.
The solution remains the provision of women’s legislatures in state and federal parliaments, the core of the exercise of power, consistent with women’s and men’s
business embedded in Aboriginal Sovereignty.
24 September, 2012
the problem
Islam isn’t the problem, America isn’t the problem - an imbalance of power between women and men is the problem.
18 September, 2012
fix the nation’s parliaments
If women and men achieve equality all communities comprised of women and men achieve equality, and the inequity which drives racism is removed. Fix the
nation’s parliaments with the inclusion of women’s legislatures and both sexism and racism are eliminated, not to mention abysmal conflict resolution and
environmental and cultural vandalism.
18 September, 2012
time to address the cause
After a conversation identifying the symptoms of discrimination against women spanning more than a century, surely it’s about time to address the cause;
a parliament with a majority of men housed in legislatures men allow women to attend with a blatantly sexist Cabinet comprising 6 women and 24 men which
appoints leadership, this at the very core of power in the nation. Where’s the Sex Discrimination Act when it’s needed? The only solution is the provision of
women’s legislatures. C’mon peoples, let’s get on with the end game!
17 September, 2012
man as the dominant sex is an aberration
“Man has been the dominant sex since, well, the dawn of mankind. But for the
first time in human history, that is changing—and with shocking speed.”
On the evidence of the world’s longest lasting culture man as the dominant sex is an aberration, if it isn’t equitable it wouldn’t have lasted.
Justice John von Doussain in the Federal Court, for instance, recognised customary foundation law with the view he was "not satisfied on the evidence before this
Court that the applicants have established on the balance of probabilities that restricted women's knowledge as revealed to Dr Fergie and Professor Saunders was
not part of genuine Aboriginal tradition". [Chapman v Luminis Pty Ltd (No 5) (21 August 2001):400]
Men who sanction secret women’s business don’t dominate.
13 September, 2012
good governance
The problem with good governance is inequity not Ms Gillard. Blame Cabinet if you must, 6 women and 24 men, well short of the one third representation required for
critical mass, and even further from the national target (2015) of 40% inclusion of women on corporate boards of directors. Mr Abbott is a tipping point, the tail
end of tyranny decried as the end game begins, the provision of women’s legislatures.
13 September, 2012
a whitewash of ethnocentricity
Australia’s Constitution is a legal document.
In order to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples a legal document must recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander law.
Justice John von Doussain in the Federal Court, for instance, recognised customary foundation law with the view he was "not satisfied on the evidence before this
Court that the applicants have established on the balance of probabilities that restricted women's knowledge as revealed to Dr Fergie and Professor Saunders was
not part of genuine Aboriginal tradition". [Chapman v Luminis Pty Ltd (No 5) (21 August 2001):400]
In their deliberations, Professor Langton and her colleagues on the government’s expert panel on the recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
in the Constitution made no attempt whatsoever to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander law, arguing, astonishingly, entirely from the perspective of
the lopsided, misogynist law which washed up on these shores two centuries ago.
With a whitewash of ethnocentricity, the panel interpreted a problem with immigrant governance as a problem of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander assimilation
into a crumbling tradition of subjugating women.
On her own account, when confronted with the evidence of an angry crowd urged on by intoxicated men in the hall at Maningrida, Professor Langton, in true
whitefella fashion, condemns the entire community without a scintilla of apparent comprehension of the traditional status of women, as unremarkable and unhelpful
as her solution of substituting “first peoples” for “(first) race”.
Whereas, “It was ideas about ‘racial purity,’ ‘racial hygiene,’ ‘the master race,’ ‘the inferior races,’ a perverted idea about ‘the survival of the fittest’ and
other such nonsense that led to the incarceration of Aboriginal people in reserves in the 19th century to prevent ‘mixing’ of the ‘races’ and later, the
segregation laws that specified where and how ‘half castes’ and other ‘castes’ could live”, Professor Langton offers no appreciation these policies were the
outcome of an entrenched imbalance of power between women and men, an absorption with male privilege the legacy of which is driving the current conversation
about identity.
My dad attended Melbourne University in the 1930s, the seat of learning from which Professor Langton pontificates, when eugenics was de rigeur.
Had his Tasmanian Aboriginal ancestory be revealed he would have been treated as a freak and removed, the kind of treatment Professor Langton appears to condone
for those dispossessed and facing a lifetime of incarceration.
Professor Langton’s panel, a rum bunch of conscriptees unfamiliar with either male privilege or women’s business, is just one more instance in the long history of
fraud being perpetrated against Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, who deserve much more than the superficial analysis Professor Langton presents.
The only genuine solution to the recognition of Aboriginal and Islander peoples in the Constitution is an amendment to provide for a women’s legislature, an
amendment in the interests of all Australians guaranteed to achieve overwhelming public support.
Not surprisingly, the proposals brought forward by Professor Langton’s panel are already being branded as dead in the water.
The Professor and her colleagues tinker with an imbalance of male power while Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, along with a sustainable, prosperous and
just future for all Australians, burn.
10 September, 2012
resolving the governance of male privilege
Constitutional reform proposed by the so called Expert Panel on the inclusion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Constitution proceeds from
the position the problem is one of First Australian assimilation rather than the governance of male privilege - reform is proposed to assuage assimilation.
Constitutional reform which proceeds from a First Australian perspective would reform the Constitution to provide for a women’s legislature to reconcile
governance and facilitate negotiation of a genuine Treaty. The former is already being widely branded as dead in the water while the latter would receive
overwhelming support as inclusive of all Australians, not just Aborigines, and will be taken up as the conversation continues. The certainty, surfing with
the tsunami of women’s empowerment sweeping the globe, is that First Australians will win the debate hands down.
31 August, 2012
finishing the job on misogyny
The simple, single ultimate and only solution to finishing the job on
misogyny is provision in the Constitution for a women's legislature, governance by agreement between women's and men's legislatures accompanied by a Cabinet
comprising an equal number of women and men.
30 August, 2012
the collective unconscious
Carl Jung coined ‘the collective unconscious’. Governance with balance between women and men optimises collective intelligence and intuition.
23 August, 2012
most multi-billionaires are men
The prevailing view is that "multi-billionaire" is a problem because an overwhelming majority of multi-billionaires are men. So how do you make more women
multi-billionaires? With fair inclusion laws in corporate management, smart eh!
21 August, 2012
it wouldn’t have lasted
If it’s not equal rights between women and men it wouldn’t have lasted so it’s not Aboriginal.
12 August, 2012
dripping with sexism
145 of the 170 members and honorary members of the IOC are men. The Olympics is dripping with sexism soon to be prohibited from doing business in Australia.
8 August, 2012
simple as
There'll be peace on Earth and sustainable prosperity in perpetuity because there'll be governance by agreement between women’s and men’s legislative assemblies, simple as.
16 June, 2012
a women's jurisdiction
A constitution which doesn't recognise a women's jurisdiction can't, at customary law, recognise Aboriginal tradition. A constitutional amendment which contains no provision for a women's legislature in recognition of Aboriginal peoples is a legal fraud perpetrated against Aboriginal peoples by incompetent administrators. It goes without saying the Expert Panel the government assembled on the recognition of Aboriginal peoples in the Constitution was expert on neither male privilege nor women's business, discrimination which has undermined for centuries, and continues to debilitate, equity in governance inclusive of the European tradition.
3 June, 2012
guesswork
The orgy of sexism directed towards Australia’s Prime Minister from News Ltd’s blatantly discriminatory and soon to be outlawed board of fifteen men and a sole woman, encouraged by a culpable and profoundly incompetent to govern opposition, is unquestionable.
If women prime ministers weren’t different from men prime ministers women would never have been discriminated against in achieving the office of prime minister in the first place, as women were for centuries.
It follows that ultimately, a male vote for a female candidate to the office of prime minister, and a female vote for a male candidate to the office of prime minister (or a judgement delivered by a male judge to a female defendant or by a female judge to a male defendant for that matter) is delivered from the basis of guesswork as to integrity, intention and ability.
It’s precisely this guesswork into which governance has collapsed in the transition from male privilege to parity.
The only truly equitable approach to parliamentary leadership is the appointment of conjoint male and female prime ministers, as with the vanguard National Congress of Australia's First Peoples, which takes premium advantage of the differences women and men bring to leadership.
As to whether Ms Gillard should respond in like-manner, I would advise her to avoid the privilege driven rhetoric emanating from the mouths of members of my gender, as she should, as is obvious she has in achieving the extraordinary reforms and brilliant economic management she and her colleagues have, if exhibited by members of her own.
30 May, 2012
street art
Excuse me, but street art is a valuable and well established artistic occupation, albeit perhaps not an undertaking to the liking of upper class snobs, but who gives a toss about their artwork anyway. Insights I gained from the streets of London, a purposeful and deliberate approach to my artwork at the time, remain with me, crystal clear, four decades later. Why anyone would disparage an artist for making an honest living is beyond the pale. My great great grandfather, a Colonial artist declined a request to join the ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition of 1860-61, is exhibited at Federation Square. My great grandfather, a Federation artist, is archived extensively at the Ballarat Art Gallery. My grandmother, an artist, befriended members of the Heidelberg School when they sojourned to Sandringham where she was Lady Mayoress. My mother, a musician, befriended members of the Heidi School, Sid Nolan and Albert Tucker, in their early years in St Kilda, and prior to travelling to London I’d been schooled in contemporary art at the Yellow House in Macleay Street under Brett Whiteley, Martin Sharpe, Bruce Beresford and a host of others.
During the English summer of 1975 I was living homeless in London selling crayon drawings on card on the streets of Soho to earn a feed. Best free show in town was Parliament so I went along to the House of Commons and gained entry to the public gallery. I took a seat and commenced sketching, whereupon an attendant tapped me on the shoulder and informed me of a prohibition on the public recording of proceedings, including my artwork, so I took further pause to analyse the chamber. It was a full session. In front of me to my left sat three hundred or so, mostly men in brown lounge suits, the Labour Party, at the time in government, with Harold Wilson seated front and centre. To my right sat three hundred or so, mostly men in dark business suits, a solid block of shady hue. Front and centre was Margaret Thatcher, a few short years from becoming Prime Minister. In no democratic sense whatsoever did Mrs Thatcher represent a women's voice.
Nowadays it’s hilarious reading article after article by men disparaging women in power when the power they exercise is simply an extension of male privilege. Men can be so drop dead stupid sometimes!
14 May, 2012
misogynist junk
Australia's constitution was enacted on the assumption women were incompetent to participate in politics. No woman spoke to or voted on it's enactment, neither has the document ever been reformed to acknowledge women. The nation's primary instrument of governance is misogynist junk.
13 May, 2012
the demolition of male privilege
The well documented tirade of sexist abuse directed towards women leaders in the world today is little more than a pimple on the arse of the demolition of male privilege in the achievement of equality at the source of the reproduction of culture currently sweeping the globe.
Australian women have already cast aside such infantile nonsense having gained experience in all the principle roles of governance, Governor-General, Prime Minister, High Court justice, Attorney-General, Speaker in the parliament, Premier and so forth.
Sexism is ultimately eliminated with balance.
The task at hand is to establish balance between women and men in the constitutional, bicameral, parliamentary method to which the populations of most modern democracies, Australia, the UK and the USA for instance, have become accustomed.
To consider otherwise is to ignore the tide of history.
Balance in leadership is achieved with conjoint women’s and men’s leaders, the male and female co-chairs of Australia’s First Peoples Assembly, for instance.
Balance in Cabinet, the boardroom of parliament, is achieved with the appointment of an equal number of women and men.
Balance in representation, the Houses of Parliament which appoint Cabinet members, is achieved with dedicated women’s and men’s legislatures, the women’s elected by women and the men’s by men.
Constitutional reform is all that’s required, a referendum one Saturday on the question “do you support equal rights between women and men in the Constitution”.
The way forward is perfectly clear and self evident to any clear minded citizen, although obviously not to those who continue to engage in lateral violence against women.
12 May, 2012
constitutional bicameral parliamentary democracy
A big thanks to all those brave and courageous men and women who over the years established constitutional bicameral parliamentary democracy so equilibrium in the reproduction of culture can be achieved easily, inarguably and globally at the source of power in the modern world with governance by agreement between women’s and men’s legislative assemblies.
3 May, 2012
sexism unconscionable
Fifteen of the sixteen members of the board of directors of News Corporation are men. Until News Corporation introduces equity in governance it may be assumed any adverse coverage the corporation issues of Australia’s Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, is blatantly sexist, unconscionable and in contravention of corporate sex discrimination laws.
1 May, 2012
gender matters
Nothing else but gender matters in politics right now and won't until there's women's legislatures.
24 April, 2012
Aboriginal Deaths in Custody
What to do about the tragedy of Aboriginal Deaths in Custody? Why not do the numbers like Elizabeth Broderick and the Australian Stock Exchange are doing with warnings to delist corporations from trading that fail to address the absurd underrepresentation of women on boards of directors, which will eventually spill over into the governance of the tertiary sector and every other organisation in the nation; or like the US Congress did in it's first proactive response to the Global Financial Crisis with the enactment of fair inclusion laws for women in the finance sector; or like the First Peoples Congress has done with equal representation of women and men throughout it's organisation, inclusive of leadership?
What, numerically, is the representation of women in the governance of prisons, public and private (the blatantly sexist and discriminatory board of directors of Serco [global], for instance, is comprised of six men and one women and don't get me started on the mining companies!), and in the delivery of government services to Aboriginal peoples? Start from the top down if you like, the seventeen men and a paltry five women who comprise the Federal Cabinet; or the bottom up, survey the inmates and recipients of government services about their perception of equity between women and men (and therefore, common decency) from providers. An appreciation of some of the nuances of the equity push would be helpful, like that it's an entrenched male culture not qualification or ability that's been preventing women's advancement, or that equity in senior management is now widely accepted to improve corporate performance and sustainable productivity (as Kate Ellis, for instance, will confirm), but the mere presentation of the basic numerical facts of gender inequity in the administration of prisons and the delivery of services to Aboriginal peoples would provoke much more concern that yet another account of what the many victims of misogyny have to deal with.
(I've long since tried the pursuit of justice through male privilege approach; got bashed in custody in Melbourne in 1980, travelled to Sweden and applied for political asylum, held in solitary for a month, returned to Sydney in custody (business class BA - they figured everything was ok for Aborigines after the 1967 referendum) then warned off returning permanently to Melbourne, sparked the 1987 deaths in custody inquiry; and the outcome saw heaps of money thrown around to support an industry of activists to little, if any, effect.)
After all, if the administration of the justice system and the provision of services to Aboriginal peoples is inequitable with regard to the reproduction of culture, you can bet your bottom dollar the services themselves will be delivered inequitably, and there's much more to be done than simply documenting the consequences of inequity and maintaining the rage, in particular, documenting, and focusing on the source of inequity, as many others are doing, and as a consequence achieving favourable outcomes.
22 March, 2012
leaders
Listen up! Ms Gillard and Messrs Rudd, Abbott, Shorten, Turnbull et al:
Aborigines sorted conflict between male and female leaders a long time
ago with a tradition of joint leadership. Clearly the empowerment of women
has left the Parliament of Australia adrift in unchartered waters. When will you deign
to listen to those with experience?
Canberra needs to get ready for a new way of doing things. The experiment with
women in power worked. Joint leaders, women's and men's legislatures.
23 February, 2012
treaty with women
My blood is Palawa and I was brought up with the late Bruce McGuinness, Lionel Rose, and the
Melbourne mob, the fighting Gunditjamara.
Six years before the 1987 Deaths in Custody Inquiry I
applied for political asylum in Sweden after I was near bashed to death in custody following a
police raid on a community financed entertainment centre in St Kilda I managed, so I know more
than most about cause and affect (cause an international stir and you wind up with an inquiry
with heaps of money thrown around to little effect).
And I would like to know why the
sovereignty mob wants to treaty with a government that's got no jurisdiction to treaty with
women, not part of any black tradition I've ever come across, best wishes.
10 February, 2012
blindsided
The Federal Court recognised Aboriginal women's business during the Hindmarsh Island Bridge
controversy yet the final report of the Expert Panel on the recognition of Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander Peoples in the Constitution makes no mention of women's business, or
equality between women and men at foundation of the Aboriginal tradition, or male privilege
which informs the Constitution.
Experts on Aborigines indifferent to women's business, and on the Constitution incognisant of
male privilege, are laughable.
There's an industry of men blindsided by their own ambition who can't seem to summon the courage
to participate in a conversation about privilege.
The upside is they've had their say so the rest of us can get on with the work at hand, provision of a women's legislature.
20 January, 2012
*Anne Moir & David
Jessel: 'Brainsex - The Real Difference Between Men and Women'
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