Life for Aborigines was 'better' in church-run system: Tim Costello

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23775638-5006787,00.html

Life for Aborigines was 'better' in church-run system: Tim Costello

Jamie Walker | May 29, 2008
LIFE for Aborigines under the old and much-maligned mission system was
better than it is today, says relief agency boss and Baptist Church
minister Tim Costello.

Delivering the Lowitja O'Donoghue Oration in Adelaide last night, Mr
Costello declared that the efforts of indigenous affairs "experts" had
too often compounded the problems.

Mr Costello backed recent comments by former South Australian Supreme
Court judge Ted Mullighan, also endorsed by Ms O'Donoghue, the
one-time ATSIC chairwoman, that Aborigines were healthier and happier
under the church-run mission system that gave way to
self-determination in the 1970s.

"This is a major shift from the 1990s when the mission was the blame
for all ills," Mr Costello said. "Life under the mission was not
necessarily good, just better."

Mr Costello cited the experience of those living in the old mission at
Doomadgee, in Queensland's remote northwest.

Although run on strict lines by the Christian Brethren, who required
women to wear ankle-length frocks, the mission provided a daily
routine and "structure around meaningful work".

Employment and the experience of dealing with "trusted outsiders" on
the mission provided important entry points for indigenous people to
"participate with dignity" in wider Australian society, Mr Costello
said.

"Contrast this to the current situation found on remote settlements,
with high levels of unemployment, the meaninglessness of many CDEP
(Community Development Employment Projects) activities, the high
turnover of outside staff and the fly-in, fly-out visits of government
workers."

Mr Costello said it was not uncommon for 20 different bureaucrats from
20 different government departments to visit a remote indigenous
community in a single week. The system itself had become the problem
in its pursuit of finding a solution that might not exist to the
problems besetting indigenous Australia.

"There have always been many experts in indigenous affairs, but the
solutions they offer inevitably lead to another program which in turn
exacerbates this complexity," he said. "Whatever the pros and cons of
different policy solutions, the reality is that in remote indigenous
settlements, meanings take shape through relationships that form
locally."

Having recently returned from directing World Vision Australia's
cyclone relief effort in Burma, Mr Costello pointedly contrasted the
life expectancy of men in that impoverished country to male
Aborigines. A Burmese man could expect to live to 60, against 58 for
his indigenous Australian counterpart.



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