Thursday, October 14, 2004
Wik land “rights”
I don’t know the ins-and-outs of this, and its not my really business to be telling the Wik that they seem to have got shafted, but today’s news is hard to ignore – five days after the election and already Ruddock is crowing. Another Liberal Lie is born.
Darcy Burns, owner of Holroyd Station and a party to the consent determination, said indigenous people now had to ask him before entering his property to hunt or fish. "This has been positive because it has given us security and lets us know where we are," Mr Burns said.
Err, Mr Burns, my understanding is that there has long been a tacit agreement between rural landowners and visiting hunters – the latter were usually welcome, as long as they asked permission first and acted responsibly during their stay.
So what’s new? Oh, that’s right: the above tacit agreement was an essentially White-to-White deal. Now it seems that, courtesy of Darcy Burns and other enlightened White landowners, some Indigenous people on Cape York are to be accorded the perks of being honorary Whites. Pardon my French, but whoop-de-fuckin-do.
I don’t know the ins-and-outs of this, and its not my really business to be telling the Wik that they seem to have got shafted, but today’s news is hard to ignore – five days after the election and already Ruddock is crowing. Another Liberal Lie is born.
Darcy Burns, owner of Holroyd Station and a party to the consent determination, said indigenous people now had to ask him before entering his property to hunt or fish. "This has been positive because it has given us security and lets us know where we are," Mr Burns said.
Err, Mr Burns, my understanding is that there has long been a tacit agreement between rural landowners and visiting hunters – the latter were usually welcome, as long as they asked permission first and acted responsibly during their stay.
So what’s new? Oh, that’s right: the above tacit agreement was an essentially White-to-White deal. Now it seems that, courtesy of Darcy Burns and other enlightened White landowners, some Indigenous people on Cape York are to be accorded the perks of being honorary Whites. Pardon my French, but whoop-de-fuckin-do.
