We are all racist deep down - former GG

The Editor,

Herald Sun

hsletters@heraldsun.com.au

Dear Editor,

The former Government General Dr. Hollingworth is to be congratulated for calling a spade a spade – we are all racist deep down.

The “White Australia” Policy never left the scene as the current Labor Government made it “Whiter” by increasing the English Test from 4.5 to 5.0

Yours sincerely,

Eddie Hwang

President

Unity Party WA

unitywa@westnet.com.au

http://twitter.com/unitypartywa

www.unitywa.org

Phone/Fax: 61893681884

Date: 27-Jan-2012.

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Racism is deep-seated, says ex-Governor General Peter Hollingworth

Heraldsun 27-Jan-2012.

FORMER governor-general Peter Hollingworth has branded Australia Day an excuse for a booze-up, adding we are all racist deep down.

Dr Hollingworth said positives of the day, such as citizenship and a celebration of achievements, were marred.

"This is the day when more drunkenness and violence and that sort of stuff is going on," Dr Hollingworth said.

"It tells me that somehow we haven't got our act together.

"Is this the best day to celebrate? Plainly it's not, in the heat, during the holiday festivities.

"It's not a good time for our indigenous people. They are not happy with it. To them it has all sorts of other negative connotations. I wish we could find another day."

Speaking on MTR's Steve Vizard program yesterday, Dr Hollingworth backed comments last week by prominent surgeon Charlie Teo, who said racism was very much alive in Australia.

Aussie Day celebrations

 

"I think the truth is, we are all racist, really, when it comes down to it," he said.

"I think all of us have to check ourselves from time to time, and say, look, that sort of attitude isn't good enough.

"It takes discipline to keep our prejudices out."

Dr Hollingworth conceded there was no real chance of the national day shifting to another date.

"We've got to make sure that we focus upon the best in ourselves, and we don't waste it as an occasion for another booze-up or another kind of mindless celebration," he said.

"We've got enough of those going on now."

Radical youth party begins propaganda

·        by:Phil Hickey - PerthNow -January 26, 2012 11:49AM 

A POLITICAL party with policies including an end to multiculturalism will swamp university and school students with pamphlets in a push to expand its support base in WA.

The Australia First party is using Australia Day to meet and discuss its push for membership in this state.

Party secretary Dr Jim Saleam told PerthNow that the youth wing of the party, known as the Eureka Youth League (EYL), are in the midst of printing a large quantity of posters, stickers and leaflets ready to be handed out to young WA people in coming weeks.

Asked whether this was part of a WA recruitment push, Dr Saleam said: "Yeah it is, it's also an attempt to give EYL profile.''

On their website the EYL call themselves a "patriotic youth organisation'' keen to develop the voice of Australian youth in the struggle to preserve their heritage and identity as Australians.
Dr Saleam says he and his colleagues are not concerned whether they are called "right wing'' or "extreme right wing.''

"Australia First Party is an Australian nationalist party,'' Dr Saleam said.

"In our system of reasoning that places us with the tradition of the original Australia labor movement, nationalist-radical movement, our political model goes beyond the current strands of left and right.''

One document to be handed out says: "Overseas student programs at every level of Australian education should be substantively phased out. Australian education institutions are for Australians.''

The same document says "multiculturalist propaganda'' will be subjected to "counter attack'' through truth and counter education efforts.

SOME OF AUSTRALIA FIRST'S POLICIES:
- Reduce and limit immigration
- Abolish multiculturalism
- Rebuild Australian manufacturing industries

Australia totally without leaders - former PM

Dear Mr. Johnston,

 

Mr. Fraser is right when he said that we have no leadership.

We are a laughing-stock when we allowed those self-centred faceless men to choose their leader to run this lucky country – Australia.

Most politicians are just as worthless as the un-elected Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott.

Our courts urgently need some repair as well as the media is taking the easy way out.

What would happen to us if we don’t have a reliable “Banker”?

 

Yours sincerely,

Eddie Hwang

President

Unity Party WA

unitywa@westnet.com.au

http://twitter.com/unitypartywa

http://unitypartywa.blogspot.com/

www.unitywa.org

Phone/Fax: 61893681884

Date: 26-Jan-2012.

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Australia totally without leadership, Malcolm Fraser

Matthew Johnston - Herald Sun - January 26, 2012 6:42AM 

Malcolm Fraser wants politicians to show more conviction. Picture: Aaron Francis The Australian

AUSTRALIA is "totally without leadership" with many politicians reluctant to take a public stand on important issues, former PM Malcolm Fraser says.

The one-time Liberal leader said political parties were intent on recruiting the same old people who go from university to party-friendly workplaces to parliament.

Mr Fraser spoke to the Herald Sun ahead of the launch of a nuclear disarmament push being launched today.

More than 700 prominent Australians are calling for a nuclear weapons treaty.

Mr Fraser said the campaign, which also involves former prime ministers Bob Hawke and Gough Whitlam, as well as personalities including Liz Ellis and Ita Buttrose, needed a political champion.

But Mr Fraser said he wasn't sure someone would stand up.

"I have people say to me, 'I agree with you, but I will be more effective if I work in the shadows and don't do anything public'," he said.

"You know that person won't do anything, or doesn't have the courage."

Mr Fraser said he was disheartened there weren't more conviction politicians.

"I think Australia is totally without leadership," Mr Fraser said.

"On some issues, I think the Australian public is miles ahead of our politicians."

Asylum seeker policy was one area he pointed to, which he said had degenerated into parties ``messing around at the bottom of the barrel of rotten apples''.

Mr Fraser, who quit the Liberal Party in protest at its policies in 2010, said Julia Gillard did not seem interested in looking at the nuclear disarmament issue or putting it on the agenda.

He also had a dig at Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's perceived negativity.

"If it were pushed hard by the Government I suppose Mr Abbott would oppose it ... then it would become an issue."

johnstonm@heraldsun.com.au

Judicial Corruption in Australia

You have to laugh at the boldness and hypocrisy with which Corrupt Public Servants are displaying on the High Courts website, a copy of a speech made by former Judge Michael Kirby entitled:
LIVING ETHICS TACKLING JUDICIAL CORRUPTION GLOBALLY
The speech makes a good reading in which Michael Kirby gave details of the Ethical conduct with which a Judge should act and which can be found in the UN Convention against Corruption to which Australia is a party to.   From the corrupt conduct of may Judges like William GUMMOW of the High Court of Australia, Peter GRAHAM and Margaret STONE of the Federal Court, is is clear that Corrupt Judges lack ethical conduct when making Judgements and Orders to protect Corrupt Public Servants, Lawyers and Judges.
The Evidence against Corrupt Judges, Public Servants and Lawyers is over well-ming and to prevent that the Evidence be made Public, Corrupt Judges like Margaret Stone of the Federal Court of Australia make allegations of Abuse of Process, that Documents are scandalous or vexatious to Protect and Cover Up the corrupt conduct of Judges, Public Servants and to conceal forgery and criminal activity Lawyers like John Patrick Meehan.
The Evidence that Corrupt Judges have no Ethics and are perverting and obstructing justice and are violating Human Rights and abusing the law in Australia for their own gains, is in the Public view and Corrupt Politicians that are protecting corrupt Judges, Public Servants and Lawyers would be Judged accordingly, that is a fact.
Editor: Pedro Alfaro

Is there really a Separation of Power?

http://www.ozexposed.com/

This is a brilliant display of many things and MANY questions need to be asked by Australians!....

Did the Judge really listen to the case or was the verdict already decided and written before the case even started being presented?

The Judiciary and Polititions socially engineer us to "think" there is a separation of powers. After you read this you have to ask; Is the High Court there to adudicate as per the 'RULE OF LAW' or 'UPHOLD THE SYSTEM' no matter what?

Could it be that we have some 'BAD APPLES' on the high court bench?

 

 

Rehabilitation of Multiculturalism

Mr. Chris Bowen,

Minister for Immigration

minister@immi.gov.au

 

Dear Minister, 

We refer to the report below and wish to congratulate your embracement for multiculturalism. Unity Party WA will not only actively support those bodies that you are going to establish but also to spread the good news globally as racism destroys the quality of life. 

Yours respectfully,

 

Eddie Hwang

President

Unity Party WA

unitypartywa@westnet.com.au

www.unitywa.org

http://unitypartywa.blogspot.com/ (uploaded)

http://twitter.com/unitypartywa

Ph/Fax: 61893681884

Date: 17-Feb-2011.

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Bowen begins the rehabilitation of multiculturalism

Kirsty Needham - February 17, 2011 

THE federal government has firmly re-embraced multiculturalism in a key speech by Immigration Minister Chris Bowen tackling voter fear of Islamic extremism and outlining a new anti-racism strategy. 

In the midst of the furore over the government paying for asylum-seekers to attend family members' funerals, Mr Bowen told the Sydney Institute last night it had become fashionable to blame multiculturalism for terrorism, but the Australian experience was different. 

''It is right for Australians to be concerned about extremism - whether Islamic or otherwise … To cast all Islamic migrants or all members of any religious group as somehow unworthy of their place in our national community, however, tars the many with the extremist views of the very few and does an injustice to all.

''It's counter-intuitive to assume that the majority of migrants want to change Australia. Allegations of migrants wanting to come to Australia to convert the populace and turn it into a replica of their homelands ignore the truth.'' 

Hazara refugees - who make up a large percentage of asylum-boat arrivals - had fled religious extremism, and ''just like previous groups of migrants'' were attracted by Australia's values, he said. 

Mr Bowen outlined a new policy he said promoted social cohesion and valued diversity. 

The federal government will: 

■ Appoint a 10-person Australian Multicultural Council with a wider scope than the current advisory body;

■ Establish a National Anti-Racism Strategy;

■ Reinstate the word ''multicultural'' to Senator Kate Lundy's title of parliamentary secretary for immigration;

■ Promote people from ethnically diverse backgrounds mixing together via a sports program. 

The multiculturalism push comes after Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said on Australia Day he was ''reluctant to use the term''. 

The Howard government dropped official use of the term multiculturalism, and the last federal government multiculturalism statement was in 2003. 

But during last year's election, Labor had also shied away from a multiculturalism policy, sensitive to western Sydney voter perceptions of special treatment. It also dropped the term from Senator Lundy's title under a Gillard reshuffle. 

Mr Bowen said last night: ''I'm not afraid to use the word multiculturalism.'' 

He said multiculturalism had worked, and was a marker of a liberal society. Australia differed from Europe in that it wasn't a guest worker society, and migrants were expected to become citizens. But Australia couldn't take the benefits of a diverse population and then shun the culture of its migrants. 

''If people do not feel part of society, this can lead to alienation and, ultimately, social disunity,'' he said. 

Almost half of Australians had a parent born overseas or were born overseas themselves. 

Mr Bowen said the government would counter extremism, and singled out Sharia law as inconsistent with multiculturalism. Where there is any clash between migrant cultures and the rule of law or freedom ''traditional Australian values win out'', he said. 

The Australian Multicultural Advisory Council, set up by the Rudd Government in 2008, had last year recommended to the government a permanent and independent body be set up to advise on a national multicultural strategy.

Racist post rant on jailed man's blog

The Editor.

West Australian

westinfo@wanews.com.au

 

Dear Editor, 

We refer to your report below and wish to congratulate the Perth jury found Brendan Lee O'Connell, guilty last week of six charges of racial vilification.

 

We should not tolerate such action in public, in the 21^st century. 

Yours sincerely,

Eddie Hwang

President

Unity Party WA

unitypartywa@westnet.com.au

www.unitywa.org

http://unitypartywa.blogspot.com/ (Uploaded)

http://twitter.com/unitypartywa

Ph/Fax: 61893681884

Date: 02-Feb-2011.

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Can you afford to give Telstra a try?

Racist post rant on jailed man's blog

BELLE TAYLOR, The West Australian February 1, 2011, 6:05 am 

A Perth man was jailed for three years yesterday over a racist tirade - but hours after he was sentenced, supporters posted a vicious anti-Semitic rant on his blog website. 

Brendan Lee O'Connell, 40, was found guilty by a Perth jury last week of six charges of racial vilification. 

They stemmed from an incident outside a South Perth supermarket in 2009, when he recorded himself chasing Jewish man Stanley Keyser down the street while yelling Judaism was a "religion of racism, hate, homicide and ethnic cleansing". 

The trial was centred around the video O'Connell made of himself arguing with Mr Keyser at a Friends of Palestine protest against the sale of Israeli oranges at the supermarket. 

He filmed himself at the Perth Bell Tower calling Judaism a "death cult" before posting the video online.

He was also charged over material published on his blog which defamed Judaism. 

District Court Judge John Wisbey said O'Connell was an "intelligent man with an irrational hatred of Jewish people". 

He said the only appropriate form of punishment would be an immediate term of imprisonment.

He said a severe punishment was necessary to send a message to people who might share O'Connell's views, including the group of supporters who followed the trial closely, often interrupting the court.

Despite the judge's warning, his supporters posted a reaction to the sentence on O'Connell's personal blog, insulting Judge Wisbey and the Jewish community and calling for retribution against O'Connell's detractors. 

O'Connell's victim said outside court he had received hate mail as a result of the case but mainly from overseas. 

Mr Keyser said that despite the continued harassment and the recent blog posts, he felt racial vilification laws were effective. 

Although he would have liked to see O'Connell get a longer sentence, he believed justice had been served. 

O'Connell's defence centred on his argument Judaism was not a race but a religion.

On the first day of the trial, instead of using his opening address to outline his defence, O'Connell made a speech declaring the court unlawful.

O'Connell's term was backdated to begin on January 24 and he will be eligible for parole. 

Follow the west.com.au on Twitter

 

It's time Aborigines get due recognition

Ms. Julia Gillard,

Prime Minister of Australia

info@pm.gov.au

 

Dear Prime Minister, 

We refer to the reports below for your information. 

Mr. Peter Gebhardt is to be congratulated for telling the truth as positive action is long overdue. 

Would you like to comment? 

Yours respectfully, 

 

Eddie Hwang

President

Unity Party WA

unitypartywa@westnet.com.au

www.unitywa.org

http://unitypartywa.blogspot.com/ (Uploaded)

http://twitter.com/unitypartywa

Ph/Fax: 61893681884

Date: 26-Jan-2011.

Environmental friendly-save the trees-use email.

Can you afford to give Telstra a try?

It's time Aborigines get due recognition

Peter Gebhardt - January 26, 2011 

A change to the constitution would show our maturity. 

LATE last year Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Attorney-General Robert McClelland and Minister for Indigenous Affairs Jenny Macklin banded together to announce a referendum proposal concerning Aborigines and the Australian constitution. It was the most bland and passionless occasion.

 

It ought to have been a significant one because it involved the future of relationships between the originals and the usurpers. Does political power rob the power-bearers of blood in their veins?

 

Newspaper commentary on this pointed to the long-term importance of the issues for this country, for the proper independence and maturity of the citizens and for the potential for a distinctive civilisation. 

Australia Day, that artificial and trumped-up celebration, the excuse for manufactured emotion, should force us to look closely at our history and the truths of that history vis-a-vis the Aboriginal population and the brutal facts of that history. 

Mostly, Australia Day is designed to suffocate truth and fact. We are not asked to think about those first steps by the governor and the imprint they left on the landscape and the inhabitants. That first step was the beginning of a history we have refused to acknowledge, to understand and to negotiate, all to our historical detriment. Succeeding hordes of imprinters do not know and do not want to know. The triumphalism of Australia Day is tainted by the tragedy of ignorance and imposed ignominy. 

It has been apparent with respect to asylum seekers that courage in our political leaders is smothered by populist attitudes that bear no relation to the alleged Christian values that are supposed to prevail in this nation; it is no better with our attitudes to the Aborigines. We take what we want from them - sport, film, drama and art - but we do not expose ourselves to their value systems for we are too smug in our own and too hypocritical about theirs. 

We will enliven our civilisation when we learn to appreciate the original owners and their diverse cultural achievements. It is not good enough to adopt the "Howard Defence" - I didn't have anything to do with the past and, therefore, there is no need for me to come to terms with it. He couldn't accept guilt but, worse still, he couldn't express shame.

 

Howard was too much of a coward to embrace what was good and right for the country. He extinguished hope.

The resilience of the Aboriginal people has been a palpable marvel. We ought to respond to that by putting aside all ignorance and prejudice and inviting them to our collective table as equals. 

I have been working alongside some Aboriginal tertiary students for the past few years. 

It has been a wonderful listening experience. I have come to realise that we have so much we can learn and take into our own lives. They value their culture but want to be part of the broader community. We should all embrace the history and the culture and incorporate it into the fabric of our institutions and our lives. We got part of the way there in 1967. We should go all the way this time and push the political ninnies by our own persuasion. 

If Australia Day is to have any legitimacy, it will only be so because Australians understand what that first footprint did to an ancient civilisation. Currently, Australia Day attempts to legitimise conquest. It is not a day of celebration for a revolution (France) or independence (US). 

Of course, there have been great achievements in this country, great contributions to the world stage and significant developments politically. It has become a desirable place to live - obviously, the asylum seekers think so. 

There are gaps; some, sadly widening, such as that between rich and poor. There is extensive poverty and homelessness. Many lead desperate lives because they are not secure. Rights and freedom are enjoyed. 

Who remain the most deprived in the community? The Aborigines. That is something of which we ought to be ashamed. While a referendum won't address the deprivation, it should allow the Aborigines to feel attached to what was once their territory. They remain aliens in their own land. We have made them thus and it is time to dress the deep wounds, and to repair the dysfunction we have erected. It would do us so much good and make us so much wiser and so much more mature. 

We are not talking about the "black armband" views of history. We are, or should be, talking about the ''whitewash'' views of history. It is time to attend to our national colour-blindness. It is truly time for supremacy to give way to the equanimity of equality, to the sustenance of sharing. 

There are two issues that will manifest our maturity: first, proper constitutional recognition of the first people; second, independence from the regal pantomime in England. 

Peter Gebhardt is a Melbourne poet and former County Court judge.

twitter Follow the National Times on Twitter: @NationalTimesAU

Australia to face UN examination

January 26, 2011 

FOREIGN governments will interrogate Australia on its human rights record at a United Nations meeting tomorrow.

Australian officials will appear before the UN's Human Rights Council in Geneva for what is known as a universal periodic review. 

All of the UN's 192 member countries are required to undergo a review - which aims to examine every aspect of a country's human rights record - every four years. 

The delegation, led by parliamentary secretary Kate Lundy, will be forced to respond to tough questions on Australia's record. The council will pose questions about Australia's treatment of Aborigines, asylum seekers and same-sex couples, UN documents show. 

The federal government submitted its own assessment to the council last year, highlighting efforts to close the life-expectancy gap between indigenous and other Australians. 

But a coalition of more than 70 human rights organisations delivered a critical assessment of Australia's record when they briefed foreign diplomats in Geneva earlier this week.

 
--

PM applauds Chinese Community

Ms. Julia Gillard,
Prime Minister of Australia
info@pm.gov.au

Dear Prime Minister,

We refer to the reports below for your information.

We welcome your remark - ''We warmly celebrate the Chinese community's
growth.'' but regret that your government saw fit to increase the
English Language Test from 4.5 to 5.0 last year. The creation of the
White Australia Policy/English Language Test in 1901 was to keep the
Chinese out and the final abolishment of the White Australia Policy in
1975 was in name only because the English Language Test remains.

Perhaps the Fraser government accepted 70,000 Vietnamese refugees
because it was wrong for Australia to invade another sovereign country?

Your comment, please.

Yours respectfully,

Eddie Hwang
President
Unity Party WA
unitypartywa@westnet.com.au
www.unitywa.org
http://unitypartywa.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/unitypartywa (Uploaded)
Ph/Fax: 61893681884
Date: 23-Jan-2011.
Environmental friendly-save the trees-use email.
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PM applauds Chinese community
January 23, 2011

PRIME MINISTER Julia Gillard last night paid tribute to the Chinese
community while reflecting on her own migrant past and ''search for a
better life'' in Australia.

''I acknowledge that across our history the larrikin embrace of this
nation was not always extended to the Chinese community.

"But you never lost faith in the nation,'' Ms Gillard said at a dinner
celebrating Chinese New Year and Australia Day.

''We warmly celebrate the Chinese community's growth.''

Journey to end of White Australia policy

Drew Warne-Smith - The Australian - January 22, 2011 12:00AM

PHONG Nguyen knew nothing of Australia's White Australia policy when he
flew into Adelaide a few days before Christmas in 1979.

Nor did he perceive any traces of it in the warm welcome offered to him
by a largely monocultural society. "So big, tall and hairy," he recalls.
"And very white."

But as the years passed and he learned Australian history, Mr Nguyen
came to understand that he was one of the people who helped to bury it.
While migration laws were first overhauled by the Whitlam Labor
government in 1973, it was Malcolm Fraser's Liberal government that
finally removed all reference to the selection of migrants based on
country of origin from government policy in 1978.

Then, in July 1979, the prime minister agreed to take 14,000 Vietnamese
refugees, a move that ushered in a new era in multiculturalism and
marked the end-point for the White Australia policy.

At the time of the decree, Mr Nguyen, his three siblings and their
mother were in an Indonesian refugee camp awaiting resettlement.
His father, a brigadier in the South Vietnamese army, had been jailed by
the communist regime in 1975, and the family had fled the country by
boat under false Chinese identities. (The ethnic Chinese were being
encouraged to leave Vietnam during the brief border war with China in 1979.)
The Nguyens would ultimately be among 70,000 Vietnamese refugees to find
a new home in Australia during Mr Fraser's tenure. "I never felt
uncomfortable," Mr Nguyen, 49, told The Weekend Australian this week.
"It was a white Anglo-Saxon society, unrecognisable from today, but
apart from the physical differences and the strange ways of society --
They way you drive and eat! -- we just felt a sense of relief that we
finally made it.

"We were grateful we were safe."

Now a senior project officer at a Melbourne healthcare centre, with a
wife and two teenage children of his own, Mr Nguyen's is just one of the
many stories that have been unearthed in the SBS documentary Immigration
Nation, which concludes on Sunday night.

The episode traces the origins of the White Australia policy, the public
disquiet over it and its gradual dismantling, as well as the very first
boatpeople to wash up on the shores of Darwin Harbour in 1976.
"If Malcolm Fraser had decided that he wouldn't take Indo-Chinese
refugees until he'd consulted opinion polls or focus groups, Australia
would never have taken Indo-Chinese refugees," John Menadue, then the
secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister, recalls in the program.
"But Malcolm Fraser didn't take polls. He decided leadership was
essential, it was something that Australia had to do, morally justified,
and it will be to the benefit of this country if we did so."

Rio scolds Canberra over Indigenous jobs

Ms. Julia Gillard
Prime Minister of Australia
info@pm.gov.au

Dear Prime Minister,

We refer to the report below for your information.

Rio Tinto is to be congratulated for raising its concern about the way the original owners of this land have been treated by the racist Howard and your governments. It is easy to just say "Sorry" but no action taken.

How low can a rich nation be?

When are you going to do something about it?

We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Yours respectfully,

Eddie Hwang
President
Unity Party WA
unitypartywa@westnet.com.au
www.unitywa.org
http://twitter.com/unitypartywa
http://unitypartywa.blogspot.com/ (Uploaded)
Ph/Fax: 61893681884
16-Jan-2011.

Rio scolds Canberra over indigenous jobs

Patricia Karvelas - The Australian - January 14, 2011 6:33AM

MINING giant Rio Tinto has urged the Gillard government to overhaul its Aboriginal policies.
It wants to create more economic opportunities for indigenous Australians.
In a submission responding to the government's proposed economic development strategy, Rio Tinto warned governments were dropping the ball, while mining companies were picking up the key role of education and training, and that reliance on mining was "not sustainable".
"Governments at all levels need to play a more significant role, in partnership with industry and the local community, in supporting indigenous communities," it said.
The submission warned that while mining companies had been increasing employment opportunities for indigenous people, these initiatives could not translate into social and economic prosperity for indigenous Australians "until a more co-ordinated, systemic approach is developed that will address the basic needs of indigenous people living in remote indigenous communities".
"Whilst Rio Tinto is committed to working in partnership with other organisations and agencies, the reality is that the company has been bearing the load on behalf of many government departments that are underfunded and do not have the resources to provide the required levels of service," it said.
The mining giant made several substantial recommendations, all requiring a big boost in government investment. Rio wanted more investment in areas such as work readiness training, driver training and licensing.
On education policies, Rio called for the biggest overhaul in government policy, arguing too often education was not aligned to industry requirements and students were not well prepared for work once they left school.
They wanted school terms that were better aligned with the seasons and the life cycle of the indigenous communities; hostels and safe houses for children; and culturally appropriate teaching materials and curriculum.
Rio called for more incentives for teachers to remain in remote teaching positions for longer periods. They also suggested regional centre hostel accommodation for indigenous students be established.
Rio Tinto complained that the TAFE system and the training it offered was not aligned to local employment and industry needs.
Because few arrangements were made to bring trainers to mining regions, trainees had to travel long distances away from their families to meet off-the-job learning commitments.
"Standard funding formulae mean that the provision of many training courses in the areas in which Rio Tinto mines are located is deemed to be uneconomic," the submission said.
"User-choice funding is state-territory based and is not transferable across state boundaries, which means that indigenous employees in the Kimberley cannot undertake their training in the Northern Territory, even though this is the closest training facility for them."