Aboriginal spokesman Michael Mansell fears the nearly $1m for Aboriginal rangers on the west coast of Tasmania will be used to prop up pro-mining and pro-ALP groups in Braddon.
Mr Mansell said, “the $980,000 comitment by Federal Minisetr Mark Butler is welcome news. It honors a promise by former Minister Tony Burke that any declaration of part of Tasmania as a national heritage for Aboriginal values must involve the Aboriginal community in managing it.
However, the new Minister, Mark Butler, has disappointed us with his bypassing of the Aboriginal community as beneficiaries of funds. Channels the new Minisiter plans to use – the Tasmanian DPIPWE – bypasses the normal channel of funding the Aboriginal community directly. We strongly suspect there is a gentlemen’s agreement between Minister Butler and the Tasmanian government to employ only people from Braddon on the pretext they are ‘local Aboriginals’. The beneficiaries are more likely to be friends of Sid Sidebottom and pro-mining.
In talks with former Minister Tony Burke, we extracted a promise to ‘directly involve the Aboriginal community in funding’. The intervening election seems to have resulted in the money being used for pork barrelling, to bolster employment of a local ALP member likely to lose his seat. In principle, the money should have gone to the Aboriginal Land Council on behalf of Aborigines and not secured solely or primarily to bring money to a struggling politician’s district.
Caring for Country funds normally go directly to the Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania. Minister Butler has deliberately bypassed that precedent for some inexplicable reason. We guess his reasons are caused by the need to help a colleague struggling in the polls.
The Aboriginal community had planned to use the funds to rebuild Aboriginal villages, install appropriate interpretation signs, develop an electronic data base of information for the public and produce thousands of brochures for tourists. We expected to double visitor numbers from 48,000 to nearly 100,000 over 3 years.
We had planned to employ a number of culturally appropriate Aboriginals to carry out sensitive rebuilding of villages and also to act as guides for visitors. The authentic oral story is critical to making vistors understand the depth and extent of Aboriginal activity in the zoned area, and the history of a lifestyle shattered by the killings in the 1820’s is part of that story. All of that is now unlikley to proceed with the poor handling of the grant by the Federal Minister.
Had Tony Burke retained the portfolio we are confident the promise to directly involve Aboriginal people would have been kept. Our hopes are dashed by a new Minister and desperate measures during an election campaign.”
