I did some work on some of the surrounding communities of Alice Springs 30 years ago. In places like Yuendumu and Kintore, they hated ATSIC as they saw them as (they said) "Coastal Wankers" who used their towns to shame Australia internationally, whilst they kept the money for themselves. Very little has changed, it seems. Some of the best people were living out there, wanting more for their communities and seeing it go to areas that were well taken care off in respect to them. Plus the rip-offs being charged for basic structures was also a terrible waste.

Remember ATSIC? Remember the in-group prefrerencing and corruption? Most of the special treament needs to stop...it hasnt helped and the "Close the Gap" measures are 80% going backwards, drastically in some of the govts own measures.

1998 — Parliamentary return speeches Hansard reflects repeated criticism of “special treatment based on race” in government policy debates. Example Hansard-aligned extract themes: opposition to ATSIC structure opposition to race-based funding frameworks

Now this government want to sell Telstra, a company that made a $1.2 billion profit last year and will make a $2 billion profit this year. But, first, they want to sack 54,000 employees to show better profits and share prices. Anyone with business sense knows that you do not sell off your assets especially when they are making money. I may be only ‘a fish and chip shop lady’, but some of these economists need to get their heads out of the textbooks and get a job in the real world. I would not even let one of them handle my grocery shopping. Immigration and multiculturalism are issues that this government is trying to address, but for far too long ordinary Australians have been kept out of any debate by the major parties. I and most Australians want our immigration policy radically reviewed and that of multiculturalism abolished. I believe we are in danger of being swamped by Asians. Between 1984 and 1995, 40 per cent of all migrants coming into this country were of Asian origin. They have their own culture and religion, form ghettos and do not assimilate. Of course, I will be called racist but, if I can invite whom I want into my home, then I should have the right to have a say in who comes into my country. A truly multicultural country can never be strong or united. The world is full of failed and tragic examples, ranging from Ireland to Bosnia to Africa and, closer to home, Papua New Guinea. America and Great Britain are currently paying the price. Arthur Calwell was a great Australian and Labor leader, and it is a pity that there are not men of his stature sitting on the opposition benches today. Arthur Calwell said: “Japan, India, Burma, Ceylon and every new African nation are fiercely anti-white and anti one another. Do we want or need any of these people here? I am one red-blooded Australian who says no and who speaks for 90 per cent of Australians.” I have no hesitation in echoing the words of Arthur Calwell. There is light at the end of the tunnel and there are solutions. If this government wants to be fair dinkum, then it must stop kowtowing to financial markets, international organisations, world bankers, investment companies and big business people. The Howard government must become visionary and be prepared to act, even at the risk of making mistakes. In this financial year we will be spending at least $1.5 billion on foreign aid and we cannot be sure that this money will be properly spent, as corruption and mismanagement in many of the recipient countries are legend. Australia must review its membership and funding of the UN, as it is a little like ATSIC on a grander scale, with huge tax-free American dollar salaries, duty-free luxury cars and diplomatic status. The World Health Organisation has a lot of its medical experts sitting in Geneva while hospitals in Africa have no drugs and desperate patients are forced to seek medication on the black market. I am going to find out how many treaties we have signed with the UN, have them exposed and then call for their repudiation. The government should cease all foreign aid immediately and apply the savings to generate employment here at home. Abolishing the policy of multiculturalism will save billions of dollars and allow those from ethnic backgrounds to join mainstream Australia, paving the way to a strong, united country. Immigration must be halted in the short term so that our dole queues are not added to by, in many cases, unskilled migrants not fluent in the English language. This would be one positive step to rescue many young and older Australians from a predicament which has become a national disgrace and crisis. I must stress at this stage that I do not consider those people from ethnic backgrounds currently living in Australia anything but first-class citizens, provided of course that they give this country their full, undivided loyalty.

The majority of Aboriginals do not want handouts because they realise that welfare is killing them. This quote says it all: ‘If you give a man a fish you feed him for a day. If you teach him how to fish you feed him for a lifetime.’ Those who feed off the Aboriginal industry do not want to see things changed. Look at the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation. Members receive $290 a day sitting allowance and $320 a day travelling allowance, and most of these people also hold other very well paid positions. No wonder they did not want to resign recently! Reconciliation is everyone recognising and treating each other as equals, and everyone must be responsible for their own actions. This is why I am calling for ATSIC to be abolished. It is a failed, hypocritical and discriminatory organisation that has failed dismally the people it was meant to serve. It will take more than Senator Herron’s surgical skills to correct the terminal mess it is in. Anyone with a criminal record can, and does, hold a position with ATSIC. I cannot hold my position as a politician if I have a criminal record–once again, two sets of rules. If politicians continue to promote separatism in Australia, they should not continue to hold their seats in this parliament. They are not truly representing all Australians, and I call on the people to throw them out. To survive in peace and harmony, united and strong, we must have one people, one nation, one flag. The greatest cause of family breakdown is unemployment. This country of ours has the richest mineral deposits in the world and vast rich lands for agriculture and is surrounded by oceans that provide a wealth of seafood, yet we are $190 billion in debt with an interest bill that is strangling us. Youth unemployment between the ages of 15 to 24 runs at 25 per cent and is even higher in my electorate of Oxley. Statistics, by cooking the books, say that Australia’s unemployment is at 8.6 per cent, or just under one million people. If we disregard that one hour’s work a week classifies a person as employed, then the figure is really between 1.5 million and 1.9 million unemployed. This is a crisis that recent governments have ignored because of a lack of will. We are regarded as a Third World country with First World living conditions. We have one of the highest interest rates in the world, and we owe more money per capita than any other country. All we need is a nail hole in the bottom of the boat and we’re sunk. In real dollar terms, our standard of living has dropped over the past 10 years. In the 1960s, our wages increase ran at three per cent and unemployment at two per cent. Today, not only is there no wage increase, we have gone backwards and unemployment is officially 8.6 per cent. The real figure must be close to 12 to 13 per cent. I wish to comment briefly on some social and legal problems encountered by many of my constituents–problems not restricted to just my electorate of Oxley. I refer to the social and family upheaval created by the Family Law Act and the ramifications of that act embodied in the child support scheme. The Family Law Act, which was the child of the disgraceful Senator Lionel Murphy, should be repealed. It has brought death, misery and heartache to countless thousands of Australians. Children are treated like pawns in some crazy game of chess. The child support scheme has become unworkable, very unfair and one sided. Custodial parents can often profit handsomely at the expense of a parent paying child support, and in many cases the non-custodial parent simply gives up employment to escape the, in many cases, heavy and punitive financial demands. Governments must give to all those who have hit life’s hurdles the chance to rebuild and have a future. We have lost all our big Australian industries and icons, including Qantas when it sold 25 per cent of its shares and a controlling interest to British Airways.

In 1990, she becomes the inaugural Chairperson of ATSIC — the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission — the most powerful Aboriginal representative body in Australian history. She serves for six years. In 1992, she stands before the United Nations General Assembly — the first Aboriginal Australian ever to do so — during the launch of the International Year for Indigenous Peoples. She receives the Order of Australia. Then a Companion of the Order of Australia. Honorary doctorates from universities across the country. A national health research institute carries her name. On February 13, 2008, she stands beside Prime Minister Kevin Rudd as he delivers Australia's National Apology to the Stolen Generations — a formal acknowledgement by the government of the systematic removal of Aboriginal children. Lowitja was one of those children. She is seventy-five years old, standing in the Great Hall of Parliament House, watching her country finally say the words. February 4, 2024. Dr Lowitja O'Donoghue passes away in Adelaide, aged 91. The little girl who was taken at two years old — whose name was replaced, whose birthday was invented, whose language was forbidden — died with her name fully and permanently restored to the world. She had changed it back herself, on her own terms, in her own time. They tried to erase her before she was old enough to know her own name. She spent ninety-one years making sure they didn't succeed.

Social unrest -utter BS. CDEP enabled ATSI people to pool welfare entitlements & receive wages for community development project work in their communities. Howard shafted ATSiC & the program, despite its success & it ended in early 2000. Nothing to do with mutual obligations

If Geoff Clark had handed out a $200,000 no-tender contract to a fellow indigenous individual during his reign over ATSIC there, rightly, would have howls of "corruption!!". When it's done be Segal, crickets. We are being taken for suckers, and the biggest sucker is @AlboMP

Aboriginal Inc is a multibillion dollar rort. We had a federal body overseeing the plight of the wretched Aborigine. Called ATSIC: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commision. It was disbanded because of woeful corruption.

>ASIC ATSIC . (*FINALLY* collapsed under the weight of its own frauds, many years later.)

ATSIC had giant amounts of cash No one seems to know where it went Just one of those things I guess

The tribal nepotism and financial corruption that saw Howard shut down ATSIC continues today but simply under other names. The MSM will never publicise those engaged in the malfeasance within public office because "racism" but it is rife across all bureaucratic departments.

Nope not wondering at all - the abo activists have a long track record of embezzlement and corruption, they had to shut down ATSIC it was so rooted in these problems, but they have not fixed them just moved them under a new entity……self management is not an option any more

This has been going on since ATSIC Money never gets to those who need it Inner city elites feel warm though

ATSIC v2. Tear it all down. Again.

@JNampijinpa is only interested in her own career. Her voting record has shown that she only gives lip service to the welfare of her people and constituents. Sad really. Aboriginal people in positions of power have for decades betrayed their own. Remember #ATSIC? #Auspol

How many more inquiries are needed??surely we can extract a reasonable set of improvements to start the top down heavy lifting tomorrow? We can stop the payments to the ill performing NIIA (ATSIC mark 2)….for a fire starter.

I am sorry to say this is not anything new in the hunter gatherer mentality and hence the forgotten aborigines that are still living that lifestyle in the twilight zone. The billions of dollars is wasted on material excess by the “leaders” and activists in the cities, they don't give a toss about the fringe dwellers, this too is a consistent theme as they are not a single “race” as such, they were and still are a bunch of individual tribes (mobs) that have little in common with one another and this includes any mutual goals aspirations or drives. The ATSIC model was shut down as it was rife with corruption, yet the same system is now embodied in its replacement. It is BROKEN. The VOICE was never gonna fix this it was more of the same, there is a way to address this but it will not be palatable to the “elders” bleeding the current billions dry at the expense of their ilk IMO.

Over at least 20 years probably more a minimum of $20 billion up to $40 billion of OUR money has been directed by federal government into ‘indigenous sensitive’ entities for their individual betterment. Last census there were 850,000 who ticked the indigenous box. That means over 20 years approx $450,000 to $900,000 PER PERSON has been spent by taxpayers on indigenous causes. Why are we still talking about closing gaps and reparations??? Who audits these so called “indigenous” entities. What happened to ATSIC? Anyone remember?