The Deputy Chairman of Aboriginal Co-ordinating Council Cr Thomas Hudson has described Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party Statement that was released over the weekend as being insensitive to the needs of the most disadvantaged group of people in Australia, the Indigenous Australians.

Cr Thomas Hudson said that while One Nation Party claims to represent the interest of all Australians, its policy statement points to a different direction - namely that it is a party for a clique of people who appear to have some vested interest, lack long terms vision and essentially are undernourished intellectually, politically, socially and morally on issues that the modern world in general is attempting to address and Australia is beginning to play a significant role in it.

"Indeed her policy on indigenous issues appears to have been shaped and guided from a point of ignorance," Cr Thomas Hudson said.

It is absurd and morally repugnant for a party that says it has the interest of all Australians to preach the policy of cutting funding for indigenous youth suicide. I wonder whether Pauline knows that youth suicide is the single most important cause of death among Aboriginal people. Indeed some DOGIT Communities have been rated as having the highest suicide rate in the world! Her statement demonstrates a lack of caring attitude for our youth, and in addition clearly demonstrates the lack of prioritisation process in the policy statement.

The proposition to abolish Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Housing Program and reallocating the $78.8 million to the Department of Public Works & Housing budget, reveals that there has been little historical analysis on the policy statement. Perhaps the authors of this policy statement need to revisit the concept and philosophies behind organisation departmentalisation. Functional departmentalisation definitely has a place in any effective bureaucratic system.

Pauline Hanson must be reminded that by depriving the indigenous people of certain things like abolishing the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Sub-Program, she is doing a great disservice to the people who welcome her and her forefathers to this great country.

If this State is not careful, it could be set on fire - economically, politically, socially, morally and intellectually by the policies and actions of the so-called One Nation Party.

Political parties form the basis for our modern democracy, but democracy cannot survive amidst policies and ideologies that are in themselves incognizant with time.

Thomas Hudson
Deputy Chair
ABORIGINAL CO-ORDINATING COUNCIL

FAIRA Aboriginal Corporation
Phone +61 7 3391 4677 • Fax +61 7 3391 4551 • email letterbox@faira.org.au
Post Office Box 8402 Woolloongabba Q 4102 Australia
37 Balaclava Street Woolloongabba