Subject: Congratulations!
Appreciate your guts in representing real issues for Australia.
I am concerned at the lack of support by the media. Many groups from NESB
support One Nation. I have Indonesian friends who think that we should be
doing something to protect our jobs and industries from Asia. Malaysia and
Indonesia have been under much pressure from the Chinese for many years and
have legislated to control the number who may hold business licenses and
attend university in those countries in order to give their own citizens a
fair go.
Regards,
Greg Bond
Subject: EskiAbo
The day I see the United Nations Wallah's saying the 'sovereign' nations
for either Eskimo's or Abo's can select whatever financial system they
like, and it will be acceptable by the clearing houses of the West, then I
will believe they are truly sovereign, and the UN is fair dinkum,
otherwise, I see the whole thing as a typical scam, to get the 'sovereign'
nations into an unpayable debt, that will guarantee the 'sovereign' lands
end up as assets on some bankster's ledger.
Ormond
Subject: Comments on Australian News of the Day
Pauline Hanson's latest press release makes a puzzling reference to the
evelopment of the Nunavut Settlement area of the North West Territories
of Canada, and implies some connection between the Nunavut Claims
Agreement and something extant in Australia. "There is an undeniable
link between the events in Canada and Australia".
This press release and her comments in Parliament on Wednesday must
puzzle many. She states:
"It is crucial to realise that the underlying blueprint and inspiration
behind the creation of a separate indigenous nation within Canada and
the impending creation of an Aboriginal nation within our own country is
the United Nations Draft Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples."
The Nunavut Land Claim by the Inuit Taparisat had its beginnings before
1971. Hardly any one who was not an Inuk, let alone the United Nations,
was involved with the Tungavik Federation in the many stages towards the
Land Claims Agreement of 1992 and the setting up of the Nunavut
Planning Commission. The 1983 report, coming after the 1982
Constitution Act, encouraged autonomy for Indian first nation people,
but not so much for the Inuit who comprised a majority of the 20,000
people in the eastern North West Territories. Articles 17 and 18 of
the Land Claims Agreement set out the purposes of the agreement. These
include preservation of wildlife sanctuaries, parks and space for
migrating birds and other fauna, archaeological areas, Inuktitut
language, customs and crafts, and resource management. The document
covers complex issues vital to the preservation of a unique wilderness
area which does not have an Australian counterpart. The Inuit
communities plan to preserve their Inukitut language and resource
skills, while contributing to the management of Nunavut.
She says in her speech: "This (agreement) will be formalised in 1999,
and will in effect leave Canada with another country bigger than the
state of Victoria within its borders."
The press release confuses the meaning of the word "nation", used in the
tribal context of "first nation peoples" and suggests that Nunavut will
be a separate nation as in the national state context. Perhaps Pauline
Hanson, when studying the Land Claims agreement, was confused by some of
the terminology, although most words are clearly explained in the list
of terms and are usually understood by senior school students.
She quoted in Parliament: "A hunter-gatherer people, with a stubborn
sustainable development philosophy and no visible modern industrial
economy, are taking over one-fifth of the world's second largest nation
state ..."
This statement is puzzling. What does she think the Inuit could do with
their land, if not use it for sustainable development? Would not
another onlooker say: "Thank goodness a subsistence people with
sustainable development skills is responsible for caring for one of the
world's biggest near wilderness areas".
Nunavut is an area of 2 million square kilometres of often frozen sea
and landfast ice, rugged land and islands with permafrost and muskeg,
separated by the Land Claims Agreement from the rest of the North West
Territories. By 1999 the Inuit will have completed exchanges including
surrender of claims, rights, titles and interest in other areas outside
Nunavut. The northern territories of Canada will then become three
instead of two - Yukon, N.W. Territories and Nunavut. While the
Aboriginal people in Australia may be interested in the Nunavut process,
there is no resemblance between Nunavut, much of which is non-ecumene,
and physical or social conditions existing anywhere in Australia.
School students studying Indigenous cultures or Environment have for the
last ten years or so chosen the Nunavut project as an example of
environment contrasting with Australian paterns.
Yvonne Cook
