A sorry mess …

When a group is or has been discriminated against it is entirely proper that this group be targeted for redress of the injustice. This is not racism it is remedying racism.

—Evan Hadkins: 27 Sep 2012 6:43:11pm

To the latter comment, I would counter that targeting a present-day “racial group” for the redress of historical injustice against other people of that “racial group” is actually racism at its most insidious and contemptible. According to this notion, I am regarded not as an individual with my own personal history, aspirations and choices, but as a member of a historically mistreated “racial group” that is now “targeted for redress”. I have become a representative of all other Aborigines, past and present. This means that if you feel bad about what happened to an Aboriginal person in the past, you can simply compensate me, because we are essentially the same creature. The ill-treatment or misfortune of a past Aboriginal person, unrelated or very distantly related to me, is apparently recorded in my Aboriginal genes as a hereditary grievance, which can be remedied by providing me with material compensation and perhaps an apology.

An alternative, but no less loopy explanation could be that all Aboriginal people are so cosmically entwined that awarding special concessions to me somehow mollifies the aggrieved ghost of an Aboriginal person who I never met and who has been dead for quite some time. Such is the mysticism surrounding Aboriginality, I would not be surprised if some otherwise rational people actually believed ideas as silly as these. Like all notions that are premised on the concept of “race” as something real, there is no rational basis for this sort of thinking.

– Kerryn Pholi

An excerpt from a very well written essay from a very sharp mind. The whole piece is well worth a read … just click on Kerryn’s name.

The sweet smell …

Michelle Grattan in today’s Age …

LABOR Senator John Faulkner can always get public attention when he talks about party reform. But as he’d be the first to admit, it’s quite another matter to get something meaningful done.

In his devastating critique this week, Faulkner homed in particularly on New South Wales, where appalling tales of misdeeds in the Labor years have been aired at the Independent Commission Against Corruption. His messages about loosening the factional system and the like, however, are also relevant to Labor nationally and follow the post-2010 election review of which he was co-author, with Bob Carr and Steve Bracks.

Faulkner’s argument that factions should not be allowed to bind MPs in caucus votes is a no-brainer.

The NSW problem should be separated from the wider reform debate. It’s urgent that Labor there must not just change but be seen to have changed.

This week the Left in NSW, at Faulkner’s instigation, took the extraordinary step of issuing a public apology for preselecting former Labor state resources minister Ian Macdonald, accused of colluding in the granting of coal exploration licences to benefit the family of Eddie Obeid, former upper house member, by up to a staggering $100 million.

Getting a lot of reform done quickly in NSW matters for federal Labor, facing an election next year. Big anti-Labor swings in 2010 have left a swag of seats on very thin margins. The corruption stench gives swinging voters one more reason not to vote Labor.

Reform nationally is a more complicated issue. Corruption is not the problem.

Corruption is not the problem? The ALP and the Union movement is riddled with corruption … one of Julia’s former boyfriends stands accused of ripping off the AWU via a slush fund that Julia helped through its birth process. One of the rising stars that helped Julia succeed Kevin Rudd, senator Mark Arbib, resigned unexpectedly back in February 2012. He is linked with the Obeid scandal currently before ICAC. By an odd coincidence when in Canberra Mr Arbib shared a residence with Alexandra Williamson, a staffer in the office of the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard,and the daughter of  Michael Williamson of HSU fame and recent National President of the ALP. Who in the ALP would like to see the rest of the iceberg exposed?

Which fearless reporter will turn over a few rocks? Clearly not Michelle Grattan.

Thanks Ricky …

A great batsman retires.

Australia’s most prolific run scorer in tests (160 of them) and one day internationals (370 of them).  He is one of only three players in history to have scored 13,000 Test runs. It is well known that he worked damn hard at his craft.

Thanks, Punter, for the entertainment.

A decent citizen …

A man who had been running a successful painting business, was killed by police on September 29 last year after a confrontation with two men in Castle Hill, NSW, during which he produced a loaded Glock pistol.

Deputy State Coroner Hugh Dillon said Mr El Kass, a skilled AFL player who competed at a first-grade level in Sydney after his family relocated from Melbourne, was “not a gangster” and his death raised “troubling questions”.

“This is undoubtably a tragedy … he was a decent citizen, who lived quietly without causing trouble,” he said.

I guess Mr El Kass and his loaded Glock pistol were just very misunderstood.