Get on board or get out of the way

By PETER ROWE
Editor

Good onya Cherbourg!

A community telling it as it is and telling the new Queensland government to, and I quote: “Get out of the way.”

Two weeks ago the LNP government in Brisbane stated it would repeal the State’s Truth-telling and Healing Inquiry.

And the Peak Bodies Indigenous conference in Perth last week attended by Staye and Territory ministers had one stark omission.

Yes, you’ve guessed it… Queensland. Too busy to attend.

Aboriginal Affairs Minister Malarndirri McCarthy did the polite thing and accept their apology for not being there, but privately many saw it as a snub.

So to read this week that the community of Cherbourg, a two hour drive inland from the Sunshine Coast had gone ahead with its meeting, was so refreshing.

One lady, removed from family as a young child, grew up never knowing the names of her brothers and sisters.

Others told of having to get a permit to travel out of town and of being ‘put in jail’ if they spoke in their own tongue while in school.

Such barbarity took place until the 1980s.

Second class citizens on their own country.

New Queensland Premier David Crisafulli has yet to meet any Indigenous elders – anyone who suffered – as he drives his new agenda, whatever that is.

Two weeks in and not one government department media release relating to Aboriginal affairs, while every day other States offer plenty.

Mr Crisafulli says there will be ‘decency and respect’ afforded to Indigenous affairs.

Cherbourg’s elders certainly haven’t seen any.

So our message to the politicians and their mealy promises is simple: Either get on board or get out of the way.