If you haven’t yet read Xavier Herbert’s masterpiece Poor Fellow my Country, you should.

It’s about life in the Northern Territory between the First and Second World Wars. It covers the time when Australia was recovering from the trauma of World War I and the storm clouds that were gathering in Europe.

COMPARE

You will be able to compare life for many of our Aboriginal people today, with the life of their ancestors a hundred years ago.

In Australia today we are being told stories of Aboriginal communities that are assaulting our sensibilities; “our fellow Australians” seem intent upon destroying themselves and their children.

We know drugs and the grog are the cause of this devastation; substances, which are recreation for some and poison for many. Too often, they cause irreparable damage to the unborn.

When we can talk to the world using a mobile phone, when we can see on the screen of that phone, no matter where we are in the world, the devastation as it happens.

It is a national shame that the slow and progressive destruction of our own people has until recently remained unreported by our media and uncommented upon by our leaders both political and communal.

Does the media just go “up there” for a story and then skelter back home to their real world? Or is the rest of Australia deliberately being shielded from the truth by an overtly bureaucratic and political self-protection racket?

The people in the outback, like much of rural Australia don’t elect governments, so their attention from a State and a federal Labor government is proportional to their significance in Labor’s national and constant re-election campaign.

Albanese has just spent over a week poncing around at the United Nations, giving meaningless speeches and receiving a meaningless award, doing his best to impersonate Nero and avoiding the AFL Grand Final and meeting Kylie Minogue.

How many times in the past twelve months has Albanese together with his Aboriginal Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Malarndirri McCarthy, visited remote communities and seen for themselves the squalor that social workers see every day of their lives?

How many times has the Premier of Western Australia together with his Department of Child Protection (DCP) Minister, Jessica Stojkovski, visited Port Hedland as a result of the multiple reports of child sexual abuse and neglect which were not addressed by the DCP?

Why were the ministers federal and State, not aware of the condition depicted by the pictures which appeared in The Australian newspaper of the condition under which unsupervised Aboriginal children were living in Frisby Court in South Hedland?

PUTRID

The Australian of September 11 described what they found: “A putrid bedroom littered with dog excreta, soiled clothing, makeshift bedding reeking of urine and of the unwashed bodies of the two sisters, 11 and 14, their little brother, aged just 7, and a boy cousin, 5.”

The dreadful tale that as many as fifteen children – the youngest aged five and seven – had been living in that squalor, alone and fending for themselves for up to a week at a time should not have surprised anyone.

When 67-year-old Aboriginal Elder, Pat Mason, tells the world that Aboriginal men believe it is their right to have access to Aboriginal girls of 12 and 13 and it has nothing to do with culture, it is all about sex and it is a crime.

When a neighbour in Frisby Court, fearful of another Alice Springs situation, tells of four older girls living in the same house doing drugs and having sex with local boys, torching cars and blowing up wheely bins with an accelerant, and when he reported it, nothing was done.

We live in a perverse, grossly irrational society. For years in our cities our patience has been ruthlessly tested by students, their activist teachers and members of rent-a-crowd (many living on welfare), demonstrating against poverty and depravation among the children of Gaza – and blaming Israel and the Jews for their predicament.

They scream their slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free”. They demand an Intifada, which is a demand for a bloody uprising against the Jews when they should have been demanding justice for the downtrodden, defenceless and underprivileged Aboriginal children in their own country.

He who pays the piper calls the tune and, in this case, “he” only has interest in anti-Semitism and a hatred of Israel.

That neighbour in Frisby Court, the one that was fearful of another Alice Springs. was clearly remembering, as we all should, of the savage death, not so long ago in Alice Springs of Kumanjayi Little Baby.

No doubt he was remembering the pictures of the filth and squalor which that little mite endured as being no different the pictures that were published of his neighbour’s house in Port Hedland.

Before she was murdered more than twelve child-protection reports were made concerning Kumanjayi Little Baby, six of the most recent were not investigated.

VIOLENCE

It was claimed that her mother was subjected to domestic violence and that the police were investigating alcohol and drug consumption in the house the night she went missing.

On May 21, 2022, in his first acceptance speech Anthony Albanese made this commitment to the Australian people: “During this campaign, I have put forward a positive, clear plan for a better future for our country. And I have shared the two principles that will be part of a government that I lead.

“No one left behind because we should always look after the disadvantaged and the vulnerable. But also, no one held back, because we should always support aspiration and opportunity. That is what my government will do.

“That is the what, but the how is also just as important? Because I want to bring Australians together.

“I want to seek our common purpose and promote unity and not fear and – optimism, not fear and division. It is what I have sought to do throughout my political life. And what I will bring to the leadership of our country, it is a show of strength to collaborate and work with people, not weakness.”

On August 30, 2023, Mr Albanese, launching the Yes campaign for the Voice referendum, a move which split Australia asunder like never before, said this: “With a Voice though, we’ll be able to hear directly from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities about the challenges they face in health and education, in jobs and housing, and we’ll be able to learn about the things that are working in local areas, so we can replicate them and make them work right around the country.

“Learning from communities in Arnhem Land where the parents and teachers co-operate to make sure children are going to school and aiming high.

“Or the health services employing Indigenous nurses to deliver health checks and immunisations in remote communities.”