Mal Brough's concern

By: Ideflitch (Registered ) on 25-10-2007 00:02

While Senator Andrew Bartlett doesn't doubt Mal Brough's concern for Aboriginal children, I certainly have my doubts. 
I would like to quote an article written by Dr. Alison Bronwoski to show why I doubt his good intentions. 
"In late June and early July, just as the Howard Government was dispatching the 
 
army to Aboriginal communities to deal 
 
with sexual abuse, the U.S. military was involved 
 
for two weeks in northern Australia in 
 
the biggest ever joint exercise, Talisman Sabre. 
 
Most Australians saw no connection. 
 
Military training areas, uranium mines, sites 
 
for future nuclear waste dumps and now Aboriginal 
 
land seized by the Commonwealth are 
 
dots across the Australian map. 
 
Several of them are connected by the 
 
Adelaide-Darwin railway. Having been many 
 
times promised, the $1.3 billion link from Alice 
 
Springs to Darwin was surprisingly found viable 
 
in 1999. By January, 2004, the train was 
 
running. The only tenderer, according to research 
 
at University of Technology Sydney, was 
 
the FreightLink consortium led by Halliburton 
 
(then headed by US vice-president Dick 
 
Cheney), with state, territory and federal contributions. 
 
FreightLink owns the railway and 
 
can operate it for 50 years. It has contracted 
 
UK firm Serco, to staff and service the train. 
 
Serco, which manages British nuclear power 
 
plants, gained a reputation in 2000 for sacking 
 
workers without AWAs at Australian naval 
 
bases in Jervis Bay. 
 
In November, 2006, FreightLink was reported 
 
to be facing its third annual loss in a row. It 
 
tried to sell a majority stake in the railway for 
 
$360 million, without success. The owners 
 
promised to invest an additional $14 million 
 
over three years, presumably betting on the 
 
line's long-term profitability. 
 
It must expect - or have been promised - the 
 
railway will serve the potentially lucrative 
 
nuclear and defence industries. 
 
Between 2004 and 2006, the Australian and 
 
U.S. governments announced more collaboration 
 
between American forces and the ADF, 
 
including missile defence (Star Wars) training, 
 
and interoperability. Several defence facilities 
 
in northern Australia have been built or expanded: 
 
at Bradshaw and Delamere in the 
 
Northern Territory, Shoalwater Bay in Queensland, 
 
and Yampi Sound and Geraldton in 
 
Western Australia. The railway pas

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