indigenous leadership

See also Aboriginal Facebook stand-off

in the indigenous tradition of equal rights between women and men is comprised of agreement between male and female leaders presided over by elders. Leadership in the tradition of paternalism introduced by Europeans is based on sex discrimination and exclusivity, initially from the subjugation of women and more recently with the transition of modern communities in preparation for equal rights governance, from discrimination against whichever gender attracts the least support from a mixed vote. A sole male chair discriminates against women's leadership and a sole female chair discriminates against men's leadership. The proposition a man can competently lead women's business or vote for female representation, or a woman can competently lead men's business or vote for male representation, is anathema to tradition and just plain preposterous. Its the same proposition at cause of the devastation of indigenous communities. Just because Australia's constitution doesn't recognise a women's jurisdiction and sex discrimination laws treat women as men, doesn't mean tradition should be set aside.

Men's co-chair elect to the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples, Les Malezer, campaigned on a platform of sex discrimination with the view gender equality in leadership is a handicap, "like running in a three-legged race". Mr Malezer supports either a male or a female leader but not both, and has determined to reform the organisation to conform with his policy of discrimination. How did a candidate who advocates for sex discrimination survive the ethics committee? Mr Malezer has a case to answer, as does the committee. An ethics committee which supports a leader with an agenda of sex discrimination has a serious problem with ethics.

If reaching agreement with a female co-leader is so fraught, Mr Malezer should step down and make way for a man who can. Women and men reach agreement in families and communities across the continent every day. The paternalist model of exclusivity in leadership, whether it be male or female, family, community or nation, is finished. The sheer audacity of a man attempting to impose his opinion on women as to how women should be lead, in this day and age, is breathtaking. As is a policy of whiteanting an organisation to cater to a peculiarity of paternalism. Why was UN Women formed if exclusivity is so hunky dory? Surely Mr Malezer should have paid some attention to the organisation which has been his focus for several years. If an advocate for the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples declines to protect his community from paternalism what's the point of his advocacy? And why does a majority of modern democracies convene a women's caucus if legislatures soaked in leadership derived from male privilege is the bees knees? However well meaning, Mr Malezer's leadership is firmly entrenched in a past from which, as Lowitja O'Donoghue indicates from what "came through the consultation", just about everyone else has moved on. If women and men achieve equality in leadership, every community comprised of women and men achieves equality.

philip

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