Saturday 5 January 2008

Racist outburst, no surprise

This morning's Courier Mail confirmed what we all knew.

Cairns Mayor Byrne wants to close the "dysfunctional Aboriginal cultural ghetto".

It's his famous solution to all things black. He can't think of a better way to work with different cultures. We saw it recently when he had an outburst about the Aboriginal camps in Portsmith. "Close em down" he says!

Byrne's track record on working with indigenous people is to say the very least, appalling.

He says that the Aboriginal communities have no prospect of being economically viable. That's how he judges everything in his view of a white man's utopia. Money, money, money. Look at what he's achieved in Cairns over the last 8 years: He's favoured developers and hungry greedy high-density living right across the city. Next, Port Douglas, if you silly sausages leave him in charge after March.

Byrne says the Aboriginal communities are a waste of taxpayers' money. He wants to move the thousands of residents moved closer to the hospitals, schools and jobs of established towns. I recall he was famous for supporting the moving of indigenous folk away from Cairns some years ago!

Aboriginal leaders say Byrne's narrow-minded comments are no solution to the social problems they face in these communities. It merely displays ignorance and an attitude of not understanding the problem at all.

You would have thought after many years in the top job in the city, the Mayor would have spearheaded and co-ordinated solutions for this important problem. And what has he done? Nothing. Zilch. Zip. He has no effing idea of what to do. Other than close them all down and move them somewhere. He's been trying that plan for years and how have things moved forward under Byrne idea of leadership on this issue?

"Why maintain these communities that are so dysfunctional?" Byrne says. Maybe he should take a good look at the modern ghettos he's creating at Woree, Manunda and now Clifton Beach. These will all deliver all the social problems you can think of with such housing being constructed in years to come.

Mayor Byrne is no clever social architect when he announces things like this. So we should really not pay much attention to such racist rantings. They're all too familiar to the residents that glady embrace difference and celebrate diversity.

Byrne thinks Aboriginals are of a lesser being it appears when he questions why we should keep doctors and teachers "out there living in cages to protect themselves at night from the locals who are destroying themselves, their family and culture?"

Yarrabah mayor Vince Mundraby says "To shut down these is pre-emptive. We are taking bullets for nothing. The question is not with Aboriginal councils but with the failure of service providers like police and child safety."

How many reasons do we need to get rid of this awful divisive Mayor from our town this local body election?

Again, history speaks louder than words Mr Mayor. And we know all too well about your words over the last few years.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

If you phoned someone and asked where they were born and they told you "I was born in Lae, Papua New Guinea in 1949 ",you could be forgiven for jumping to the conclusion that the persons skin was not white. KB is obviously Caucasian so why should he have a problem with Australoids ?