Happy Aussie Day to my fellow Antipodeans.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuKpJv0PlSE

Like someone said, in response to changing the date, May 27 is too cold for a barbie! What a joke anyway.

Who's happy with the Australian of the year then, apart from our venerable (yes, I'm being sarcastic) PM? Not I, said the fly.

Happy Australia Day to you too, Cheryl. I'm thinking of your Mum too, you both take care. We'll be reminded we're in Australia and not in the old country (yes, I'm being silly!) over the next few days. 40 + till the weekend? Big fat YUCK and I'll bet Kevvy won't be sweating it out

Happy Australia Day to all the Aussies out there in Isaakland

Personally I'd have liked Glenn McGrath to have been named as Aussie of the Year only because I know he would have dedicated it to all the hard work done by Jane.

Guess I'm just sentimental like that

I would not have had a problem with Glenn Mcgrath receiving the award in the context for which he was nominated, I agree, Katina.

I don't approve of it going to Mick Dodson at all.

If Mr. Rudd wanted the feelgood continuation of the ludicrous "sorry" saga by electing an Aborigine as Australian of the year, then the most obvious choice would have to be Noel Pearson. He's an intelligent, articulate Australian and it wouldn't matter what his racial background was, that would still be the case.

Here's one of his articles published in The Australian, almost a year ago now. It makes interesting reading.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story...1-28737,00.html

Contradictions cloud the apology to the Stolen Generations

Noel Pearson | February 12, 2008
Article from: The Australian


THERE is no one simple angle to take on tomorrow's apology by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to members of the Stolen Generations and their descendants and families on behalf of the Parliament of Australia.

There are different angles, some of which are at odds with each other. On the eve of its delivery, I remain convulsed by these contradictions. But the majority of Australians -- black and white, progressive and conservative, Labor and Coalition, young and old -- believe the apology is the right thing to do.

Before I yield to this overwhelming view, I will discuss the various fraught angles from which the apology might be assessed.

First, one can analyse the apology through the prism of cultural war. The imperative to apologise is a product of Australia's culture wars of the past decade. The political and cultural Right's motivations for making Aboriginal history and policy the killing floor for the culture wars predated the conservative ascendancy of the past 11 years.

The Right's culture wars were an accumulated reaction to the Left's own vociferous cultural crusades of the 1960s and '70s. The Right launched a relentless blitz on an intellectually hapless Left, vulnerably bloated by the excesses of political correctness. The Right returned the contumely to which it had been subjected, with interest.

John Howard's refusal to apologise to the Stolen Generations was used by opponents as a bludgeon to morally and politically beat him. The chief motivation was not policy or spirit or moral philosophy, it was cultural war. The progressives wished for Howard to either humiliate himself by saying sorry, or he had to show what a heartless bastard he was.

Howard refused to prostrate himself in the way his cultural opponents demanded, and in retrospect they can say Howard was out of step with the feeling of decent Australians. But this was not the case for four consecutive parliamentary terms.

Howard was equally engaged in cultural war. He understood the excesses of leftist political correctness yielded the Right huge cultural advantage, which meant his refusal to apologise was an electoral plus. As with so many cultural battles of that decade, progressive contempt for Howard in respect of Aboriginal history and policy only increased Howard's standing. The Teflon with which Howard for so long was coated was made from the spit of his opponents. The more spit, the more Teflon.

So let's not get too caught up with the "this is an act of decency whose time has come" line. The imperative for the apology was a product of cultural war. If that was not its original intention, then it immediately became a weapon in this war.

A second way the apology might be considered is from a philosophical angle, and my argument here has been pre-empted by Keith Windschuttle, writing in The Weekend Australian. Which is more sincere: to say "we will not apologise to the Stolen Generations and we won't pay compensation", or "we will apologise but we won't pay compensation"?

If this issue is of such importance to the majority of Australians, then surely an appropriate fraction of the $30billion tax cuts could be committed to compensation.

It is not possible to say there are no legal grounds for compensation, because the Trevorrow case established that the wrongs done against Stolen Generations member Bruce Trevorrow gave rise to a legal entitlement to compensation. It may be argued that the liability falls on the states rather than the commonwealth, but if the commonwealth is tomorrow assuming moral responsibility on behalf of the country, why not assume the responsibility for redress?

It is not possible to say those entitled to legal redress can chase their claims through the courts. What if this position were taken with James Hardie asbestosis victims? Those likely to be entitled to similar claims as Trevorrow are soon going to die. The greater number already have. There are thousands of Bernie Bantons involved here. How sincere is it to say sorry and then leave them to the pain, cost, inconvenience and uncertainty of interminable court proceedings?

A third way is to look at the psychological angle. There is no doubt a majority among the political leadership and ordinary white Australians hope the country will be able to, to use the Prime Minister's words, move on. There are two ways to take this hope. The first is ominous: that it represents a hope to dispose of the apology in as decent (and politically and financially cost-free) way as possible, and to put the subject into the "box ticked" compartment. The second is optimistic: it represents a necessary start for a genuinely hopeful era in indigenous affairs.

But who will be able to move on after tomorrow's apology? Most white Australians will be able to move on (with the warm inner glow that will come from having said sorry), but I doubt indigenous Australians will. Those people stolen from their families who feel entitled to compensation will never be able to move on.

Too many will be condemned to harbour a sense of injustice for the rest of their lives. Far from moving on, these people -- whose lives have been much consumed by this issue -- will die with a sense of unresolved justice.

One of my misgivings about the apology has been my belief that nothing good will come from viewing ourselves, and making our case on the basis of our status, as victims.

We have been -- and the people who lost their families certainly were -- victimised in history, but we must stop the politics of victimhood. We lose power when we adopt this psychology. Whatever moral power we might gain over white Australia from presenting ourselves as victims, we lose in ourselves.

My worry is this apology will sanction a view of history that cements a detrimental psychology of victimhood, rather than a stronger one of defiance, survival and agency.

Then there is the historical angle on the apology. The 1997 report by Ronald Wilson and Mick Dodson is not a rigorous history of the removal of Aboriginal children and the breaking up of families. It is a report advocating justice. But it does not represent a defensible history. And, given its shortcomings as a work of history, the report was open to the conservative critique that followed. Indigenous activists' decision to adopt historian Peter Read's nomenclature, the Stolen Generations, inspired Quadrant magazine's riposte: the rescued generations.

The truth is the removal of Aboriginal children and the breaking up of Aboriginal families is a history of complexity and great variety. People were stolen, people were rescued; people were brought in chains, people were brought by their parents; mixed-blood children were in danger from their tribal stepfathers, while others were loved and treated as their own; people were in danger from whites, and people were protected by whites. The motivations and actions of those whites involved in this history -- governments and missions -- ranged from cruel to caring, malign to loving, well-intentioned to evil.

The 19-year-old Bavarian missionary who came to the year-old Lutheran mission at Cape Bedford in Cape York Peninsula in 1887, and who would spend more than 50 years of his life underwriting the future of the Guugu Yimithirr people, cannot but be a hero to me and to my people. We owe an unrepayable debt to Georg Heinrich Schwartz and the white people who supported my grandparents and others to rebuild their lives after they arrived at the mission as young children in 1910. My grandfather Ngulunhthul came in from the local bush to the Aboriginal reserve that was created to facilitate the mission. My great-grandfather, Arrimi, would remain in the bush in the Cooktown district, constantly evading police attempts to incarcerate him at Palm Island but remaining in contact with his son and later his grandson, my father. My grandmother was torn away from her family near Chillagoe, to the west of Cairns, and she would lose her language and culture in favour of the local Guugu Yimithirr language and culture of her new home. Indeed it was the creation of reserves and the establishment of missions that enabled Aboriginal cultures and languages to survive throughout Cape York Peninsula.

Schwartz embodied all of the strengths, weaknesses and contradictions that one would expect in a man who placed himself in the crucible of history. Would that we were judged by history in the way we might be tempted to judge Schwartz: we are not a bootlace on the courage and achievement of such people.

My view is that Aboriginal people's lives were stolen by history.

It wasn't just that children were stolen in a literal sense, it was more the case that the prospects of Aboriginal people being able to pursue any form of sustainable and decent life were stolen.

Yes, there was grog, there was prostitution, there was untold misery in Aboriginal camps. And if an Aboriginal mother brought her child to the gates of the mission for their pro-

tection, were not these lives stolen from them?

Even where Aboriginal people carved out a life in an unforgiving and unrelenting white society, they were still vulnerable to the state's arbitrary removal powers.

This history cannot be understood simply through the specific policy intentions of the governments and the missions. It must be understood by reference to the severe life options available to Aboriginal people in the wake of European occupation and indigenous dispossession. The life options of the Guugu Yimithirr on the frontiers of Cooktown in the 1880s had near collapsed. Without the Cape Bedford Mission, the Guugu Yimithirr had no good survival options. Yes, like missions throughout colonial history, the Cape Bedford Mission provided a haven from the hell of life on the Australian frontier while at the same time facilitating colonisation.

It was Schwartz's possible role in bringing about the end of the traditional life at Barrow Point, north of Cape Bedford, through his influence on government policy, that troubled my old friend Urwunjin Roger Hart -- the last native speaker of the Barrow Point language -- to his dying day. On many counts this old man had reasons to respect and thank Schwartz, but history is never simple.

There is a political angle to this week's apology. For the Rudd Government, the apology will work politically provided there is no issue of compensation.

If compensation had been part of the deal, electoral support for the gesture would have unravelled. For this reason there is no conceivable way Rudd will revisit the issue of compensation, no matter what the hopes of indigenous leaders.

The tide of support in the Australian community no doubt influenced the Coalition to change its opposition. But this bipartisan support makes it even more certain the issue of compensation will never be revisited. Which brings me to the main political point about the strategy of Aboriginal leaders. Dodson said recently: "I think this is monumental. It is something people have waited for, for a very long time. It's hugely important to us as a nation and to members of the Stolen Generations." Dodson says the case for compensation would be pursued in the future. Lowitja O'Donoghue said last December that an apology without a compensation fund "won't settle anything", but it appears she is prepared to take the apology now and defer compensation until a later campaign.

National Aboriginal Alliance spokesman Les Malezer last weekend said the apology was "not enough". But even the alliance is prepared to defer compensation.

From a strategic angle, these indigenous leaders are fooling themselves or their constituents. If they were serious about compensation, the time to address it is at the same time as the apology. Blackfellas will get the words, the whitefellas will keep the money. And by Thursday the Stolen Generations and their apology will be over as a political issue.

Then there is the emotional angle. There is a more advanced discussion in Canada about what history teachers call historical empathy. However, this discussion has drawn an important distinction between historical empathy, which is said to be legitimate history, and emotional empathy, which can be shallow and simplistic. Hollywood films present history through emotional empathy. One of the most basic mistakes in this context is to assume we can understand past epochs and events by simply imagining ourselves situated in that past. Without first having a thorough understanding of the political economy of that past, any act of imagination based on contemporary feelings, values and moral convictions will be teleologically silly and misleading. This is the problem when history as a discipline meets history as popular culture.

The final angle is spiritual. There is a remote place of striking magnificence on the lands of the Guugu Yimithirr which I visit about a half dozen times a year. From the top of a massive parabolic dune that changes shape with the winds, you can see south across the distant bay the two mountains of Cape Bedford, where Schwartz dedicated his life's work. Down near the water is an ancient Aboriginal camp site with evidence of occupation going back hundreds, possibly thousands, of years. The fresh water, clean sand and shelter, and a clear view to approaching strangers, made it a good place to camp.

People could hunt and fish along the river and in the surrounding swamps and rainforests during the day and return to this camp in the afternoon. The last time camps such as this were occupied by Aboriginal people who still lived traditional lives outside the mission was in the years leading up to World War II.

This place in particular was a good place to hide from the police; not just children but adults and old people were also removed to Palm Island. My constant thought when I return to this place is the history of this camp when children laughed and played.

But then I think of the camps when there were increasingly only the last of the old people living in the bush. People like my great-grandfather Arrimi. Depleted of their children and young people, these camps must have become increasingly sad and lonely. The old people who escaped being removed to Palm Island ended their days in loneliness.

Every time I visit this place I have cause to think about these old people. And the mission. And their children gone.

Noel Pearson is director of the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership.

And neither would I, that's for sure. Maybe next year perhaps? He's done Jane proud, and I'm sure he'll continue to do so. (And speaking of cricketers, the rest of the Aussie team don't deserve anything at ALL at the moment....except for a kick up the bum maybe.)

Anyway, (in my typically longwinded way!) I just popped in to say I'm thinking of you and hope you bear up o.k. this week, Stuff. I hope you don't have to leave the house for anything at all this week. It's going to be bloody awful, and I hope you'll be airconditioned up the nines!

(Hottest week since 1908?! They can send it straight back to Hades where it must have come from in the first place, I reckon.)

Heya all.

AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE
OI OI OI.
Although feral number two and I were driving back down from
the bush on Australia Day,we still celebrated with a few tinnies
and some barbied lamb chops from the night before in the camp
oven.
Bloody Ripper Mate.

Cheers,

Hope all are well in Australia...just reading about the fires around Victoria. Stay safe!

I posted this on another forum earlier today :~

O.k. so here's a little blog of sorts.....

I'm in Victoria, and let me tell you we're all shellshocked down here. I live in the outer north-eastern suburbs of Melbourne (at the foot of the Dandenong Ranges, which themselves have been ravaged by fire in the past, but not this time around thank God). I'm also on the edge of the Yarra Valley which is one of the major winery areas in Australia, and the 'gateway' to the worse-affected regions.

While we were never in any immediate danger where we are, you could smell the smoke all weekend and last night the sky was an unbelievable shade of all kinds of pink above us (with the clouds reflecting both the fires and the setting sun). We couldn't tell though, if the smoke was coming from the north (Kinglake) or from the south (Gippsland fires).

The nearest fire to us would have been the the Kinglake one. Kinglake is several kms away from us by road, but closer as the crow flies. If you stand outside in the street in front of our house you can see the Kinglake National Park (mountain range) to the north of us on the horizon. (The closest the fire actually would have got to us was still several kilometres away. It reached the outskirts of a town called Yarra Glen which is about a 20 minute drive from where I am.) So, like I said, no immediate danger for us, but that's about as close as I ever want to come, that's for sure.

I'm very familiar with the towns that have been wiped out, as I've visited them several times and spent a lot of time in them in the course of my life since I was very young. (Towns like Kinglake, Marysville, Narbethong and Buxton are all within around an hour - hour and a half's drive of where I live). These are (or were) situated in beautiful rugged country, heavily forested with magnificent scenery, but are all quite remote, so it's not hard to understand why these were so vulnerable to the fires. These are all places (particularly Marysville) that I love and have spent a lot of time in over the years, so if it's possible to mourn the loss of a place, then that's what I feel like I'm experiencing at the moment.....I just cannot believe that beautiful little town has gone.

To give you an idea, this is what it used to look like:~

http://www.travelvictoria.com.au/marysville/photos/

And now there is NOTHING left. Someone who flew over it described it as 'Armagedon' and it looks like an atomic bomb has gone off. And so many people have died up there....AND now they're saying it was deliberately lit....it's just mind-numbing........

These are all places that are some distance from larger towns (not to mention the city of Melbourne itself) and so were popular with hobby farmers, weekenders and day-trippers, and of course the hundreds of permanent residents who lived there as well. These were very vibrant communities. I last visited Marysville a few months ago, and sat outside the bakery with a coffee and cake. From out of nowhere, this beautiful (lorikeet) parrot flew in, landed right on my plate, and then started to chow-down on my food, lol. It then flew off again without so much as a 'thank you'. I read a lot of unbelievable things in the paper this morning, but one thing has stayed with me and that is how someone described the birds being blown out of the sky by the fire.....I can't even begin to comprehend that.

The scope of all the death and devastation from these fires is mind-numbing. I don't know (or know of) anyone myself who has died or lost their home and all they have, but the size of it is so massive I have a feeling it will become one of those events where everyone will 'know someone, who knows someone'.... I'm finding I'm crying at the drop of a hat and that's quite weird, because as I said, we were completely untouched and I don't know of anyone personally who has perished or has lost anything....but I feel that (as a lot of other people, I'm sure) there's such a sense of loss that's so all-encompassing it's just...well, it's just indescribable and your heart just goes out to those people who have lost husbands, wives, children, parents....like I keep saying, the scale of this thing is mind-blowing.....it's incomprehensible.

There is one positive thing. SO many people have been volunteering to help and the relief centres and places where you make donations in the way of goods (clothing, etc.) are being overwhelmed by gifts. I'm not in a position to donate a lot of material stuff (or money) so I thought I'd do the next best thing, and donate blood. (It was initially suggested that this would be needed to, for burns victims in the hospitals etc.) Well....now they're saying that the Blood Bank have been so overwhelmed by offers they don't need any of that either. And THAT'S an amazing thing in itself.....

You've never seen so many hardened politicians (and that includes our PM and Premier), news reporters and TV announcers openly weep on camera so much.....but I know how they feel because it's hard not to get weepy about it yourself. I know I keep saying it, but it's all so incomprehensible.....I think we're all still in a state of shock.

Cheryl,

My heart goes out to you and all Australians, particularly those in the Victoria state. The devastation has been on our news reports here in Canada. The worst fires since 1983, I heard? These ones far surpass those.

I'm very sorry that your beloved "Marysville" is gone. Our newspapers say up to 90% of the town is in ruins. It's a very grim situation. Good thing that Chris is coming over in a few weeks to cheer things up. On a serious note, again, I am very sorry.

Cheryl,
I, too, have my prayers and thoughts for all those in Australia. Yes....it is on our local news here in San Diego, Cali as well. That's how you know how bad it is....we are hearing about it across the globe.

I know what it's like.........I have bad memories of the record breaking most devastating wildfires here in 2007 [in which you gals were so wonderful to me] and now I extend my heartfelt prayers out to you Australians as well.

Please be safe...it's not worth it to stay behind....just pack up now and be ready to leave.

Sincerely,
Cheryl

Wouldn't it be nice if Chris does something during his tour in Australia to help out?? I remember when I saw the touring Broadway Musical "Jersey Boys" here in San Diego near the end of the fires...the cast donated all their proceeds to San Diego's Red Cross to help the fire victims...that was so touching.

sorry for the duplicate post...this can be deleted

Have just caught the news about these fires...........how awful...............please stay safe.........x

Thanks for all the goodwill Fifi, and girls. Like I said before, it's the sheer scale of these fires that is so unbelievable. It's been described as our worst ever natural disaster (and national disaster, come to think of it). They're saying that there could be as many as 300 people dead (and there are still hundreds of people unaccounted for), 1,000+ houses have been destroyed, and over 5000 people altogether have been left homeless. Entire towns and communities have been completely anihilated. They've estimated that over a million animals have died. There'll be a shortage of wildlife for years, so they're saying. I mean, since when have you ever heard the term 'shortage of wildlife'?? That's just incredibly hard to get your head around a statement like that....it's unbelievable. They're saying that the fire that wiped out Kinglake was as powerful as 500 Hiroshima atomic bombs released all at once. Some of the flames were described as being four stories high and travelled at hellishly fast speeds (which is why so many people died, they had little or no warning). Trees didn't just burn, they exploded. One lady said the fire was so fast it covered the distance a normal fire would take to cover in a 24-hour period, in less than an hour. And these fires are still burning. These fires are so big they're not even calling them fires anymore, they're called 'complexes' instead, and they're naming them after the regions they're in, NOT just the immediate areas. At the moment there's concern that two of the biggest fires will join up, (there's only 18 kms between them) and if that happens....that's just mind-boggling. That would mean it would have at least a 100 km wide front (possibly more). It'll take out a hell of a lot more people and about a dozen or so more towns.....I just don't want to think about the consequences. It's just so hard to get your head around it all.....

It's rips your guts out listening to people's stories of what they went through. Your heart goes out to them. It's just mind-numbing....I dunno.....I'm just lost for words, really.

Anyway, here's a nicer story to come out of it all:~

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story...5006785,00.html