The election thread - Two middle-late aged white men trying to be blokey and convincing..., same old shit, FFS.

Who will you vote for?

  • Liberals

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Labor

    Votes: 21 31.8%
  • Nationals

    Votes: 1 1.5%
  • Greens

    Votes: 21 31.8%
  • Independant

    Votes: 15 22.7%
  • The Clive Palmer shit show

    Votes: 4 6.1%
  • Shooters and Fishers Party

    Votes: 1 1.5%
  • One Nation

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Donkey/Invalid vote

    Votes: 3 4.5%

  • Total voters
    66

Halo1

Likes Bikes and Dirt
The next thing I have observed is that Mountains and mountain ranges are now becoming sacred and not for walking/riding on. So soon it will be time to say goodbye to you DH and Enduro and Welcome back to Cross Country.
 

ForkinGreat

Knows his Brassica oleracea
The next thing I have observed is that Mountains and mountain ranges are now becoming sacred and not for walking/riding on. So soon it will be time to say goodbye to you DH and Enduro and Welcome back to Cross Country.
This has already happened with rock climbing.

 
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silentbutdeadly

has some good things to say
What is the point in acknowledging country when we are failing to raise, teach, employ and generally look after the traditional custodians. Let's get the basics right first before the performative stuff.
Not indigenous so take this with a grain of salt but...
... acknowledging country is not about past injustices or present circumstances. It's about recognising where you are in the country and those who have a cultural responsibility for the place where you stand. It's also recognising that (as someone without such cultural responsibility) you are a visitor to that country and that you will treat that country and its custodians with respect. Think of it as akin to being welcomed into an unfamiliar home.

The fact that the current situation for many of the First Nations mobs is pretty dire has little to do with Acknowledgement of country but the basis of culture as I understand it is the land and their relationship with it. Respect of the land and acknowledgement of their role (however now distant we've made it) is perhaps one way we can try to right at least a couple of wrongs of history...it's certainly not an onerous way.
 

Asininedrivel

caviar connoisseur
This has already happened with rock climbing.

That's a particularly acute example though - an area of concentrated Indigenous culture and art that a recreational activity can obliterate by its specific actions. On the ground (i.e. where mtb trails are and things like middens etc.) it's a little easier to manage areas of environmental and cultural significance imo.
 

Oddjob

Merry fucking Xmas to you assholes
Not indigenous so take this with a grain of salt but...
... acknowledging country is not about past injustices or present circumstances. It's about recognising where you are in the country and those who have a cultural responsibility for the place where you stand. It's also recognising that (as someone without such cultural responsibility) you are a visitor to that country and that you will treat that country and its custodians with respect. Think of it as akin to being welcomed into an unfamiliar home.

The fact that the current situation for many of the First Nations mobs is pretty dire has little to do with Acknowledgement of country but the basis of culture as I understand it is the land and their relationship with it. Respect of the land and acknowledgement of their role (however now distant we've made it) is perhaps one way we can try to right at least a couple of wrongs of history...it's certainly not an onerous way.
I understand the purpose, and it's obviously not a binary choice but... I'm worried about the symbolic cleansing, ie the cognitive dissonance where people believe acknowledging country excuses them from having to do the hard things to address the gap.

For example, I have some people I went to school with who happily acknowledge country as part of their work, but can't see why I give money to an indigenous bursary.

Sent from my M2012K11AG using Tapatalk
 

Squidfayce

Eats Squid
used to work at a place where every meeting was opened with welcome to country. Get three people in a room to talk about development of some DB element, welcome to country for a 10 min meeting. 3 white people in a room. Is this respectful or tokenistic? What is thethreshold?
 

crash3

Likes Dirt
used to work at a place where every meeting was opened with welcome to country. Get three people in a room to talk about development of some DB element, welcome to country for a 10 min meeting. 3 white people in a room. Is this respectful or tokenistic? What is thethreshold?
Reckon that's a pretty blurry line. All 3 of them could have had different motivations. One could be doing it for good reasons, one impartial, and one doing it because they have to. And many more possible reasons.
I think a pretty easy distinction to make is that if you're not indigenous, doing a welcome to country is not respectful, you should do an aknowledgement of.
 

Scotty T

Walks the walk
used to work at a place where every meeting was opened with welcome to acknowledgement of country. Get three people in a room to talk about development of some DB element, welcome to country for a 10 min meeting. 3 white people in a room. Is this respectful or tokenistic? What is thethreshold?
You got the wrong ceremony there, I'd wager you've never had a work meeting with a welcome to country.

An indigenous voice to parliament might give us some guidelines? I've had bigger meetings where it's appropriate to acknowledge, and each speaker will acknowledge country, do they need to? Is that how it was done traditionally or was there one acknowledgement for the occasion? I think there's an element of not knowing so everyone does it so they don't seem like the one that forgot.

Let me use your DB example to talk generally about acknowledgement and how it should always happen. Let's say Jimmy did a bunch of work on a new feature, you called a meeting with other devs as Jimmy's manager to discuss the feature and how the other people in the team could leverage it. Then you start the meeting and don't acknowledge the work Jimmy has done.

Instead let's say you spend a couple of minutes signing the priases of Jimmy, would Jane and John (who will really benefit from Jimmy's work, like we did from stealing the lands of the aboriginal people) be annoyed? Likewise someone is presenting in Italy, they give some background and a funny anecdote about the time they lived in this area and spend 20 seconds acknowledging the wonderful people and culture.

It's a cultural norm now, that takes 20 seconds of time. I don't see a valid reason to complain.
 

Squidfayce

Eats Squid
You got the wrong ceremony there, I'd wager you've never had a work meeting with a welcome to country.

An indigenous voice to parliament might give us some guidelines? I've had bigger meetings where it's appropriate to acknowledge, and each speaker will acknowledge country, do they need to? Is that how it was done traditionally or was there one acknowledgement for the occasion? I think there's an element of not knowing so everyone does it so they don't seem like the one that forgot.

Let me use your DB example to talk generally about acknowledgement and how it should always happen. Let's say Jimmy did a bunch of work on a new feature, you called a meeting with other devs as Jimmy's manager to discuss the feature and how the other people in the team could leverage it. Then you start the meeting and don't acknowledge the work Jimmy has done.

Instead let's say you spend a couple of minutes signing the priases of Jimmy, would Jane and John (who will really benefit from Jimmy's work, like we did from stealing the lands of the aboriginal people) be annoyed? Likewise someone is presenting in Italy, they give some background and a funny anecdote about the time they lived in this area and spend 20 seconds acknowledging the wonderful people and culture.

It's a cultural norm now, that takes 20 seconds of time. I don't see a valid reason to complain.
I didnt complain.

I posed a scenario in a corporate environment and asked if it was tokenistic or respectful. I don't think your example translates very well because the nature of what's being (or not) acknowledged in your example is relevant to the meeting, and questionably not in mine without any party present having "skin in the game". I know that it might seem like a black and white (no pun intended) argument, but the question remains is it tokenistic in that scenario? My view is it is in that example. I am aware of a number of first nations people who believe if it is tokenistic, then it is disrespectful. Im pretty sure if i looked a bit harder i could find some published quotes too.

It doesn't colour my view as to whether its appropriate in a relevant scenario, which i think it is and can/should be respectful. Just arguing that when weighted against the new woke corporate culture that's been emerging, it feels like the intended respect is diminished, whitewashed and the message lost. Its kind of like saying sorry to your wife for doing shit stuff, and then continuing to do that shit stuff. After a while your sorry means nothing to your wife.

I have been privy to at least two meetings where the acknowledgment started with "we acknowledge the blah blah blah, now on to the agenda"....THAT is a prime example of what is happening at the coal face where people are expected to apply this platitude at every meeting.. For further context, reporting this behavior didn't even raise an eyebrow at HR. Woke when it suits.

Perhaps some businesses and leaders do this well and manage the expectation of their employees, but I think at the moment that's a minority. Maybe the respect will catch up when/if we do more for first nations people to narrow the gaps.
 

Dales Cannon

lightbrain about 4pm
Staff member
I think that is a you problem. You think it is a token apologetic move or are trying to generate support for that way of thinking. Guess you feel the same about safety shares too? Some of these are absolutely ridiculous (we had to remove a crane driver from a site because he only put 3 plastic wedges under the tracks of the 800t crawler crane when the site rules said to chock all the way around, the thing couldn't move with the superlift counterweight on the ground but you know rules...) and have people scratching to find something to say but at the end of the day if it changes an opinion or makes someone aware then it is not a bad thing.

We as a country did a lot of shit we shouldn't be proud of and it is going to take some time to turn opinions around. You can argue all you like about whether it is pointless or will do any good. In my opinion any little token is better than nothing. To be honest I thought the days of black shaming were long gone but I had a recent example outlined to me and I was speechless. Guess there are more dinosaurs out there than I thought.
 

fjohn860

Alice in diaperland
I’ve been harassed by Victorian police many times on a baseless nature, via profiling, while driving.
My first car was a bright yellow 1978 XC Panelvan with a 302 V8. Combined with the white on red P plates I got stopped all the time by cops in the country (always numerous times when on the coast) for car/drug searches etc.

Surprisingly I hardly got pulled over in the city. I think generally the cops were more interested in all the P plate Commodes in the city.
 

Squidfayce

Eats Squid
I think that is a you problem. You think it is a token apologetic move or are trying to generate support for that way of thinking. Guess you feel the same about safety shares too? Some of these are absolutely ridiculous (we had to remove a crane driver from a site because he only put 3 plastic wedges under the tracks of the 800t crawler crane when the site rules said to chock all the way around, the thing couldn't move with the superlift counterweight on the ground but you know rules...) and have people scratching to find something to say but at the end of the day if it changes an opinion or makes someone aware then it is not a bad thing.

We as a country did a lot of shit we shouldn't be proud of and it is going to take some time to turn opinions around. You can argue all you like about whether it is pointless or will do any good. In my opinion any little token is better than nothing. To be honest I thought the days of black shaming were long gone but I had a recent example outlined to me and I was speechless. Guess there are more dinosaurs out there than I thought.
My argument isn't that its pointless, its that under certain circumstances the message is becoming so diluted that that its is becoming tokenistic. That is is leading to people caring less. Which is the opposite of what the intent is. Surely that's damaging. That's not a "me problem", that's a problem for the initiative and the wider community it's supposed to serve. I reported the deplorable behavior i mentioned to HR, twice, no action. Why is having this view a problem? Im did my bit, no one else in the environment i did my bit in seemed to give a shit. Im demonstrating to you what ive observed happening and continue to see.

I guess you can interpret whatever ive said how you wish. I think ive been clear. no problems here.

I dont know what safety shares are so have no opinion.
 
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