| The following is the text of an anonymous statement circulated on the internet
during April 2005, shortly after Noel Pearson appeared on the front page of the Australian advocating that young
Aborigines from Northern Australia should be encouraged to pick fruit in order to 'learn the value of money'. It is re-printed here to encourage public awareness and debate on the bizzare notions (often developed by Right Wing 'think tanks') that Noel Pearson sometimes embraces and advocates. | |||
| Noel Pearson is Dangerous | |||
| It's funny how Noel Pearson's
"great idea" of getting Australian
Koorie kids off the Dole and welfare system by
sending them away to go fruit-picking, only came
out after ATSIC was abolished. The idea would have
been debated within ATSIC and maybe Noel prefers to do
things the Government way: sneaky, making the
decision first and then lying about it to people when he's
caught out. Fruit-picking is hard, dusty and thirsty work, especially when the temperature gets over 40 like it often does in the fruit picking areas of South Australia, West Australia and Queensland. The money isn't great unless you're a "gun-picker" and most people are not, so in the past Australia's fruit growers and orchardists have relied on illegal immigrants and backpackers to do most of the fruit-picking. It's also odd how Noel Pearson's "great idea" of getting koories to go fruit-picking fits in with the Government's crackdown on illegal immigrants and backpackers who overstay their visas. It's as if the whole thing has been coordinated by someone high up in the Government, with lackeys like Pearson running around doing the donkey work. have seen, with my own eyes, the Australian Immigration Department raiding farms outside Robinvale in Victoria and carting the illegal immigrants off by the bus-load. The farmer was suddenly left with no-one to pick his fruit but before you could say "coconut" Noel Pearson turned up with a bus-load of Koorie kids that he'd flown in from the other side of the country to do the work. Like I say, it's almost as if the whole thing has been coordinated and it also just happens to fit in with the Government forcing unemployed and Disabled people to do more Work for the Dole. You can bet that Noel Pearson's kids will never be forced to go fruit-picking but he's quite happy to get paid (a lot of money) to con other people's kids to go and do it. He's even happy to fly them around the country at taxpayer's expense just to prove to the Government what a "can-do" sort of guy he is. It's strange that, even though Noel Pearson says fruit-picking is a "worthwhile career", he nevers goes fruit-picking himself. Or does any other sort of hard, manual job. HE'S TOO BUSY DOING THE GOVERNMENT'S DIRTY WORK to do any fruit-picking himself but he wants Koories to "make themselves useful" by doing it.
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