Canberra’s Billabong Aboriginal Development Corporation is the ACT’s finalist for the National Landcare awards, Indigenous section. Responding to a question from the ABC’s Rural programme, Billabong’s founder and chairman Jim Best says eight out of ten of those young people got work out of it.

It’s really important to pick up a whole range of skills.

We had a core group of young people doing the Conservation Land Management Certificate 2, and while that’s a very valuable six-month course to be involved in there are also other skills that go with that, that they require.

So we put them together with fencing, propagation, pricking out, seed collection (and we’ve got a very good seed bank down there, about $10,000 worth of high demand species for the ACT region.)

We’ve put together 50,000 plants that have hardened off that are ready for the regeneration projects.

We’ve also trained them in business skills which enables them to get onto the internet, word document, excel, write reports, get the language right, the numeracy, the literacy.

To me at least, it appears that Billabong is providing an important community service not only for the Indigenous community in the ACT and its surrounds, but for the Australian community as a whole. Indeed, one would have to agree that a work placement outcome of 80% from any work ready programme is an enviable achievement; even more enviable considering that Billabong’s programme is primarily focused on indigenous participants.

Instead of lauding Billabong for its achievements, which should be the envy of all indigenous work ready programmes, the ACT’s Minister responsible for Indigenous Affairs Dr Chris Bourke, told a Budget Estimates committee hearing that the not-for-profit Billabong Aboriginal Development Corporation is not an Aboriginal organisation.

That prompted the corporation’s chairman Jim Best to write to the committee, disputing the minister’s evidence as misleading and disappointing.

Mr Best says there were factual errors about the name, registration and status of his Corporation.

He also asked for an apology, and provided documents to show his organisation is registered as Indigenous.

Mr Best’s understandable outrage at Dr Bourke’s outrageous comments prompted a media release from the ACT opposition calling for Dr Bourke’s removal from the Indigenous Affairs portfolio. In its media release the ACT opposition’s Shadow Indigenous Affairs Minister Jeremy Hanson called for Dr Chris Bourke’s removal as Minister following, what the opposition described as “a bizarre display” in a recalled Estimates hearing on Monday. Dr Bourke was forced to apologise to the Billabong Aboriginal Development Corporation on Tuesday, after giving misleading answers in Estimates last week.

While the ACT opposition and the ACT Greens are continuing their pursuit of Dr Bourke over the issue, Billabong’s Chairman Mr Best declined to comment on Mr Hanson’s press release, saying that he accepted the minister’s apology:

As far as we’re concerned, the man’s apologised and it’s time to move on we’re getting back to doing what we do and that’s working with the community.

That’s the way it should be, but for a few minor details. The ACT Labor Government that Dr Bourke represents as Minister for Indigenous Affairs, is the same Labor Government that fitted-up and sacked its Wiradjuri Commissioner for Revenue for demanding that the white controlled Australian Labor Party (“ALP”), which is the party that has held government in the  ACT since 2001, hold itself accountable to the same standards of the ‘rule of law’ that it insists Aboriginal Australia meet.

There were a number of issues in dispute at that time, the main one being the theft of about 130,000,000.00 dollars from the ACT Home Loan Portfolio, some of which was apparently transferred to the New South Wales (“NSW”) Branch of the ALP. ‘Pat’ the then ACT’s Wiradjuri Commissioner for Revenue first raised his concerns regarding this issue with Mr Peter Wallace, his immediate superior, when Pat was Principle Project Officer with the ACT Department of Urban Services GST Implementation Project in 1999, now 13 years ago. What has been done in those 13 years? Apart from Pat having been fitted-up and sacked by the ACT Government and racially vilified and attacked by the ALP and the Australian Federal Police (“AFP”), nothing.

It is also the same ALP Government that failed to collect Land Rates on a number of Canberra suburbs over a number of years, a situation which as occurred on more than one occasion. It is also the same ALP Government that has allowed a land tax fraud, first raised by Mr Alan Wylucki, a quantity surveyor, in 2001 to go uninvestigated since!

A corrupt and incompetent ACT Government and Public Service

Earlier this year the ACT Government introduced a Land Rent Scheme in the Australian Capital Territory (“ACT”). According to the ACT Revenue Office website the Land Rent Scheme is part of the ACT Government’s Affordable Housing Action Plan. The Land Rent Scheme gives a lessee the option of renting land through a land rent lease rather than purchasing the land to build a home.

The Land Rent Act 2008 is administered under the Taxation Administration Act 1999. Under the scheme, purchasers of a single dwelling residential block (previously unleased land) sold by the Land Development Agency (“LDA”) have the option of applying for the crown lease to be issued as a land rent lease. The advantage for potential lessees in taking up this option is the reduction of the up-front costs associated with owning a house. That is, lessees will not need to finance the cost of the land, only the costs associated with the transfer of the land (such as duty) and the construction of the home.

Being a card carrying Communist, I will not argue that the sentiments behind the scheme are anything other than laudable. However, its implementation and administration have been incompetent, to the point of corruption as defined under the ACT Public Sector Management Act (1994).  In fact in 2003 the ACT Auditor-General defined corruption as extending to:

… readily incorporate improper conduct such as breaches of values/principles, or mismanagement leading to waste and abuse of public resources.

In 2003 the ACT’s Wiradjuri Commissioner for Revenue ‘Pat” reasoned against such a Land Rent Scheme arguing that it would breach the aforementioned guidelines regarding corruption. Pat argued that not only would it not assist low income earners, it would adversely affect the ACT’s budget bottom line as it would impact negatively on land sales revenue. This is exactly what has happened.

None of Westpac, the ANZ, the NAB, the Commonwealth or St George will lend to borrowers seeking to use the purchase property as security. They won’t lend because as the title of the Act suggests, it’s a land rent scheme with the title staying with the landlord, i.e. the ACT Government. Without title passing to the borrower, the borrower can’t mortgage the property for finance. Simple, so simple even a Wiradjuri can work through the issues. But, not so simple that the racists at ACT Treasury who went to such great lengths to purge the Department of the hated useless boong cunt could understand the implications.

Blak and Black has spoken to all the aforementioned banks, they have all confirmed that they won’t lend under the scheme. Blak and Black has also spoken to a number of prominent ACT based builders who say that they haven’t been buying land at auction, because it’s makes better sense to acquire the land under the land rent scheme, build houses and rent the finished property to the Defence Housing Authority. Successful builders don’t generally need to borrow to build on their own instructions. Who has this scheme helped, wealthy builders to the detriment of both the low income earners of the ACT and the Australian Taxpayer as a whole, as the ACT is funded to about eighty precent of its budget via Commonwealth grants. How is this not “waste and abuse of public resources”?

The ACT Department of Treasury has argued that the Territory receives a benefit via the Land Rent Scheme because it can levy rates on the properties once they have a house built on them. This is all well and good in theory, but one needs to remember that the white supremacists in the ACT Revenue Office have on more than one occasion in the last few years neglected to rate new suburbs. Again one must ask how this is not waste and abuse of public resources”a waste and abuse amounting to corruption.

Perhaps if the white supremacists in the ACT Revenue Office spent more time doing the jobs for which they are extravagantly paid, there would be better and more original policy coming from that area of ACT Treasury. Better policy would mean more revenue. More revenue would mean that the ACT Government would become less of a sponge on the rest of Australia’s taxpayers.

It’s high-time for some genuine accountability from Australia’s public servants, in tandem with genuine efforts to eliminate waste and prosecute those guilty of corruption. Remember racism is a form of bullying, which is a form of corruption.

This Post Has 31 Comments

  1. Anne Shiny via Facebook

    Another stuff-up, this time seen in advance by Pat, before any of the fallout happened. Well done, ACT. Just how many of those involved in this latest screw up are still there to account? How many have been promoted? Is this what counts as dereliction of duty in the public service?

  2. Mahmud Ahsan via Facebook

    Anne Shiny just goes to show the true nature and extent of the racism that defines the current ACT Government. They purge tha blackfulla and stuff up their poicy formulation, great work! Had Pat remained its doubtful if there would have been the problems with rates collections or Land Rent Schemes. I guess that if you rely on officers who can’t pass first year accounting at CIT, things of this nature are bound to happen.

  3. I wonder just what Dr Bourke things Billabong might be then, a knackery, perhaps? Will it explains a lot about the racist attacks Pat has endured from the ACT Government. Incompetent just does not begin to explain what the ACT Government is really about. Racist dick-heads, a good start!

  4. Dee

    As an Aboriginal woman i have to say Chris Bourke’s comments are so ill informed it is an embarrassment.
    The legislation he says Aboriginal corporations have to be incorporated under is only one of the avenues available to our people, not the only one.
    Hasn’t Bourke heard of the Office of Indigenous Corporations?
    If you can’t get it right don’t speak put on our behalf.

    1. Bakchos

      Hi Dee,
      Thanks for your comments. What Chris Bourke has done is to highlight one of the biggest problems we face as a people, that is, no matter how hard we try, no matter how much we achieve, it is never good enough.
      Cheers
      Bakchos

  5. Willl Bourke, I thought that you were a bro, seems you nothing more than a whitewashed blackfella – the worst kind.

  6. The question goes begging, what is Billabong then? What do you think Phillipa Coe K-Mart should stop selling white wash in Canberra?

  7. Well what can you say to that, yes Phillipa Coe it does appear that Dr Bourke may be using a little white-wash!

  8. An absolute disgrace when a brother attacks us in the name of the whitefella. Yep Phillipa Coe sounds like he is whitewashed to me.

  9. A bloody disgrace, that’s all I can think to say on this issue except to repeat what I said in my response to the Arnhem Land post – genocide by lawyer.

  10. Hey bro, get some paint remover, there is no room for the whitewashed kind anymore, its time to demand our rights and you are an embarrassement.

  11. Will Dr Bourke if it’s not an Aboriginal Coporation, what is it? Should it then be allowed to be in the finals of the Land Care awards representing the ACT if, as you say, it’s not an Aboriginal corporation!

  12. Canberra is being true to form, the dumb leading the dumb. They call this the Capital of Australia, explains a lot!

  13. Genocide by the dickheads in the ACT Legislative Assembly. If ever there was justification for post-natal abortion…

  14. Bill you have such a way with words. But, yes I agree that its a shame thatsome parents didn’t take the time to reach of the Ansel condoms before they, well you know what…

  15. Just another example of the continuous stream of shit that gushers forth from the mouths of every member of the ACT Legislative Assembly!

  16. If not ab Aboriginal organisation, what is it? Or is this just another example of the stupidity that passes for good government in the ACT?

  17. The ACT Legislative Assembly really is made-up by a pack of F wits, how about doing your jobs instead of spending the day cleaning each others arses out. P.s how about returning the missing $130,000,000.00 to the Australian taxpayer.

  18. Cuz unless you sharpen your attitude to YOUR race, you might not survive politically! You know as well as I that there is more than one way to become an Aboriginal organisation!

  19. Man, yet another example of an august member of the ACT Legislative Assembly mocking his own laws – stupidity!

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