Former Director of Education Programs for GenerationOne, Chris Lawrence says that he was sacked by GenerationOne [a project driven by Fortescue Metals CEO, Andrew Forrest] because he spoke out about the hypocrisy of some of its staff who privately denigrated Aboriginal people while, in public, claiming to champion their interests; and because he criticized GenerationOne’s policies which acted to break up communities by moving indigenous people to jobs outside of their communities.
He said that this practice used economic forces to assimilate Aborigines, to threaten Indigenous culture and cohesion and to provide “open slather” for mining interests keen to avoid dealing with Indigenous communities on Aborigines’ own terms.
DOWNLOAD Chris Lawrence's Media Release
Chris talked about his sacking with Diet Simon and Samantha Martin on Noosa Community Radio (click to listen).
Ray Jackson, President of the Indigenous Social Justice Association, has commented: "If this is true, then it only confirms my original thoughts that gen one was not the way to go. It was merely another assimilationist push to move our people off their traditional lands. gen one and the intervention both had this as a target."
Comments posted on the site of the Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation:
Chris Lawrence’s comments about the ideological character of GenerationOne and other such ‘employment’ schemes are substantiated in the PhD thesis, “Sovereign Voices”, which describes the work of a Roebourne-based cultural recording and advocacy organisation (Juluwarlu Aboriginal Corporation) and Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation and their encounters with Andrew Forrest and his proposals. It reports in part on the social/cultural effect of such employment schemes. In particular, see Chapter 7.3 – “Brain Drain”. The thesis is dowloadable at:
http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/3427/
bloodwood says:
Some other strong critiques of Forrest’s Australian Employment Covenant can be found at:
http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/10/29/generation-gap-over-twiggys-indigeno...
Comments
Familiar ring to it from Cape York ten years ago
This all has a familiar ring to it...from Cape York ten years ago. Anyone remember 'drunken parasites'?
Re: Andrew Forrest’s assimilationist program – GenerationOne
Generation One: Mine their land, give them shitty jobs, sing our own praises, avoid the militant blacks,
and keep our shareholders happy! Throw some mild criticism about governments in just to create the illusion of championing the real issues. Easy peesy!