LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

not necessarily those of the editor or publishers of the newspaper.

Equality for Who?

Thank you to H Beneke for your insightful letter printed in the May edition of The Local.

If your figures are correct, and I am sure they are, that 70% of Australians intend to vote yes in the upcoming referendum, then I as part of the remaining 30% need to try and understand why we have got it all wrong.

I, like many Australians, am a little fed up with this one-sided, ill-informed YES campaign. Strangely, even a lot of the Indigenous people don’t want this in its current form. They are speaking out everywhere, but unfortunately not being heard.

Australian taxpayers now provide 39 BILLION DOLLARS a year on Indigenous programs, which is currently more than is spent on Medicare. As a result of past government actions and high court decisions, Indigenous Australians currently have some form of land rights over more than 40% of the land in Australia and if you have rights over that land, these Indigenous Australians also receive hundreds of millions in mining royalties each year. In the Northern Territory alone, these royalties amount to more than 230 million dollars.

In 2020 alone there were 3273 registered Aboriginal corporations delivering health and other services and making representations on their behalf to our government. More than 1000 bureaucrats currently work in the National Indigenous Australians Agency.

H Beneke, I could go on and on. These figures are only the tip of the iceberg and run deep.

As I said in one of my previous notes – we already have a parliament that represents all Australians and I beContinued page 6