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Bishop condemns Aboriginal funds cut By Peter Rosengren Bishop Christopher Saunders of Broome has described cuts in Federal funding of Aboriginal programs as a "brutal blow" to Aborigines and to reconciliation between them and nonAboriginal Australia at a time when the services were needed more than ever before. The bishop's criticisms came during a visit to the Kalumburu Catholic community in the State's far north to celebrate the Feast of the Assumption. "Unfortunately there are some people who think it is time to cut back on funding to Aboriginal communities," Bishop Saunders said, "but the reality is, more than ever, funding is needed now for running programs to do with culture and development to assist Aboriginals establish their place in Australian society." The Federal Government intends to maintain funding for health, housing and education for Aborigines but has asked the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission to cut $400 million over four years from sport, legal, administration and cultural programs for Aborigines. Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Herron said he wanted the funding cuts to force a greater focus on individual Aborigines and their families in their local communities. But Bishop Saunders warned that the cutting of funding to Nrsic would stem the flow of development in isolated communities such as Kalumburu. "Aboriginal people might get the impression that the rest of Australia just doesn't care about them," he said. "The Federal Government has a responsibility to restore funding to ATSIC and to establish all the necessary guidelines to make sure that the funding is invested in the communities where it is needed," he said. He also said the ATSIC cuts would retard the quest for national reconciliation between Aboriginal and other Australians at a time when the nation had great need of it.
Perth: August 22, 1996
Pilgrim Virgin Statue here to inspire Marian devotion
His comments were mirrored by National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Catholic Council chairman, Marist Brother Graham Mundine, who said the cuts begged the question of what the Government's attitude to indigenous people in Australia really was. "The way in which the cuts were released on the same day that the diesel fuel rebate [was retained], some $1.6 billion a year, really questions where the Federal Government's priority is in concern for the least advantaged of our society," he said.". ... what more disadvantage will those poor and already disadvantaged people have to suffer?" He said cuts to Aboriginal groups would cause widespread despair within communities which have just begun to move forward. In a later statement, Bishop Saunders said the Catholic Church of the Kimberley Members of Perth's Portuguese community carry the International Pilgrim Virgin Statue from Perth expressed its "extreme disappointment" Airport last Saturday for its two week stay in Western Australia. The statue has been travelling with the funding decision. the world, starting in Fatima, Portugal, 50 years ago, inspiring greater devotion to Mary, the MothHe said the cuts to non-essential areas of er of God and her Rosary. Full report - Page 2 Aboriginal funding would do nothing to promote the self-determination of Aboriginal people and did not support "in any way the quest for national reconciliation between Aboriginal and other Australians for which this country has a desperate The Church is vigorous and well-organ- in the building and rebuilding of churchneed." ised in East Timor, despite a strong, all-per- es. Nevertheless, he had also heard of Acknowledging that financial grants relating to health, housing and education had vasive Indonesian military presence in instances of Islamisations where Catholics remained unaffected by the cuts, he said what was an "occupied country," the Arch- were induced by offers of money or other other areas of significant importance to the bishop of Sydney, Cardinal Edward Clan- pressures to become Muslim. And Indonedevelopment and self-management of the cy said last 'ffiesday after a week-long visit sian migrants were taking jobs from native East Timorese. Aboriginal people had been "brutally" to the island. Cardinal Clancy said in a statement He said the world community could not dealt with nonetheless. Bishop Saunders also addressed the released in Sydney he had travelled around accept the situation in East Timor and that spending cuts in his Bishop's Perspective East Timor with its most senior Church the UN would be wrong to put the issue of the country's future in the "too hard bascolumn in this week's Record, (See Page 2) leader, Bishop Carlos Belo of Dili. There was a great deal of fear, mistrust ket." describing them as a "brutal blow" when Cardinal Clancy said a visit to East Timor "so many are working constantly towards and suspicion at all levels in East Timor, he a means of National Reconciliation, with said, and basic freedoms were restricted dramatised what had been done to the Aborigines in Australia. some measurable degree of success," he and sometimes grossly violated. On the positive side, Cardinal Clancy writes. "One hopes that Indonesia will not perThe Catholic community at Kalumburu wrote that East Timor's Catholics, the over- petuate a wrong as we have done in Ausof approximately 400 people celebrated its whelming majority of the population, were tralia, and that familiarity with the situation Nth anniversary on the Feast of the allowed "very significant freedom" in the in Timor will motivate Australians to help Assumption. The parish was founded by practice of their faith and that the Indone- our Aboriginal people here to rehabilitate Benedictine monks in 1908. sian Government even helped financially themselves," he said.
Fear grips Timor: Clancy
St Vincent de Paul world chief visits
Immigrants reflect on the lucky country
Fred Nile keeps up the good fight
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