Tony & Felciity Dale in Australia (By Oikos Australia)

The Simple Church Conference brought inspiration and encouragement to many people around the nation. The big surprise is how many in traditional churches are appreciating this opportunity to be challenged to see simple church multiplication as a way forward. Tony and Felicity very capably bridged these groups because of their involvement both with independent groups for many years, plus their close association with several mega churches in the United States who work alongside the house church movements. One of the inspiring challenges that has come out of these meetings is to see legacy churches and home churches working together in greater cooperation in reaching people for the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.

Both Tony and Felicity have a depth and graciousness in the way they impart effective teaching, stories and practical ways of engagement in simple church. Their time with us will have a ripple effect that will be seen for a long time in the way missional home churches develop in our country.

Reports from each of these events all over the nation will be gathered, along with photos, DVDs and podcasts.

Welfare… for Whom? (By Andre Van Eymeren)

Sometime ago a Christian Indigenous leader in Melbourne alerted me to a bill being put forward by the Rudd government. It related to the Northern Territory intervention, the racial discrimination act and the welfare act. The racial discrimination act was suspended to allow the Howard government to ‘intervene’ in the Northern Territory. The Rudd government has continued with this intervention, despite mounting evidence as to its ineffectiveness and disempowerment of the communities affected. To an outside observer, the Northern Territory Intervention could appear to be a positive thing. The Government’s said aims of improving the quality of life for children and limiting drug and alcohol abuse in Aboriginal communities, are outcomes that anyone would applaud. However the methods and their outcomes have been largely devastating for the Indigenous communities, and now the Rudd government wants to take things a step further.

There is a strong push to re-instate the Racial Discrimination Act. Should it be re-instated, it has significant implications on the intervention in the Northern Territory. In order for the intervention to continue, the Rudd government has also needed to propose reforms to the welfare bill. These have the potential to affect all Australians who are on Centrelink benefits. Now do I have your attention?
I wonder did your interest level go up, when white Australians came into the scenario? If that was the case for you, join the club with most Australians.
Have you ever asked yourself why indigenous issues are hard to get on the radar of most Australians? My view is that it goes back to Terra Nullius (land belonging to no one). The time when that awful, disgraceful lie was spoken over our country. That it was a land with no human inhabitants. That lie was spoken about the indigenous people of my country, your country. I believe in the minds of most Australians today, they continue to be non-people… ghosts.

Here perhaps we need to pause for a moment.

A mate of mine lamented that whenever we talk about indigenous people, it very quickly becomes political. Why can’t we love them as fellow created brothers and sisters? At one level when you are building a relationship with an individual, it is easier to stop and see God in the other. And with any of our interactions, with whomever, that is where we want to aim. However, when relating to a people group, especially an oppressed people group, things are bound to get political very quickly. In simplistic terms (which is about all I can understand) politics is about influence. Because the indigenous people of this land have had very little real influence, significant interactions are going to revolve around politics and ways to move forward. Thus the role of the advocate.

Back to the issues at hand. Since 2007 Aboriginies in the Northern Territory, Queensland and in Western Australia have suffered a new wave of massive injustice. They’ve had the army roll into their communities. Their men have been accused of being paedophiles and rapists. Their young people have been gaoled for minor offences, many dying in custody. An indigenous leader returning from a recent trip to the territory reported that the camps are in a shocking condition, saying they are like refugee camps. His pain was visible as he relayed the deadness in the eyes of the women and their lack of hope.

A further injustice has been indigenous peoples subjugation to blanket income management. For people under income management, 50% of their benefits have been paid onto a basics card, which enables them to pay rent, bills and buy staples from certain supermarkets.

At first this doesn’t sound so bad, but stop and think for a moment… put yourself in that situation. What would it be like to be told that you are not able to manage your money? Not to choose to do it as part of helping yourself move forward, but be told? What would it be like to go to the supermarket and only be allowed to buy certain things, and then have the embarrassment of not having enough on your income management card? (it is not simple to get a balance on this from the government) Or if you wanted to travel, not being able to put that money aside… I guess just not having the freedom, or the self-determination, to live how you choose.
With the Federal Government desiring to re-introduce the racial discrimination act, for this intervention to continue, there is the need to change the welfare act, enabling income management to be rolled out across the country.

Despite the government now needing to say the reforms are not racially driven, a response to the proposed changes to the welfare act by Dr Seth Purdie, points out that the areas they propose to roll out Income Management (IM), just happen to be high in indigenous population.

Other responses point to the ineffectiveness of the strategy;

The validity of Income Management as a helping strategy is being questioned by many welfare groups, including The Australian Council Of Social Services (ACOSS). The primary and proper role of the social security system is to reduce poverty by providing adequate payments and supporting people into work. Appropriate activity requirements to assist people into employment are consistent with this objective. Compulsory income management, which does not increase payment levels and removes individual autonomy does not further this objective. Rather, it locks people into long-term dependence on others to make financial decisions for them without enabling them to manage their finances independently.

Senate Report Community Affairs Legislation Committee March 2010

The St Vincent de Paul Society, agrees;
Income Management is returning social policy in Australia to the depression era Sustenance Allowance, commonly referred to as the 'susso'. While recipients were obviously appreciative of the susso, the manner in which it was administered commonly stripped any remaining dignity from the recipient.

Senate Report Community Affairs Legislation Committee March 2010

Another damning statement, which needs qualification, comes from Prof Jon Altman; he says that there is no real evidence coming from Government regarding the effectiveness or not of income management. He comments;

Worryingly, the evidence might change over time. For example, there is forthcoming research from the Menzies School of Health Research, currently under peer review, that outcomes from income management might, at best, be ineffective and, and at worst, perverse.

Prof Jon Altman, Committee Hansard, 26 February 2010, p. 36. 31

Many social services that either gave evidence at the inquiry or responded to the proposed changes were negative towards income management and the administration of it. They commented that at the very least it needed to be part of an overall strategy to empower the recipients. Major concerns include:
The lack of clarity around how someone would get off income management.
The government has also not provided a sunset clause to the program.

Northern Territory Council Of Social Services says that perhaps Income Management (IM) can be used as a consequence for chronic drinkers. Other Northern Territory based organisations are mixed in their response to IM. Some are supportive of it in its current form, others say the system should allow for exemptions from IM or provide a clear pathway out of it. Some agree with the Government that it should go broader, so as not to be discriminatory.
One group that seems to be in favour of IM is the Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Women's Council (NPY Women’s Council). They believe IM has helped to protect women and children, and that within the communities there has been an increase in the amount of money spent on essential items;
The elected Directors believe that, along with other NTER measures such as an increased policing and child health checks, IM has increased the funds available to welfare recipients for the necessities of life, and served to reduce the amount of money available for grog, illicit drugs and gambling, and thus the level of demand sharing by those who spend their funds largely on substance abuse.

Senate Report Community Affairs Legislation Committee March 2010

Whilst successful even here, the NPY Women’s council admit that it is not IM alone that is making a difference. In their communities coupling IM with an increased police presence and child health checks has seen an overall rise in the wellbeing of the community. They are also concerned that removing IM from people receiving aged or disability pensions will increase demand sharing or humbugging. That they will be a target for those who are still on IM.1

It is difficult to reconcile these positives with the negative and heart-wrenching situation that a local indigenous leader experienced during his recent trip to the indigenous camps around Alice Springs. He was reflecting on the impact of the whole NT intervention and not income management alone. His views are picked up by Ms Jane Weepers of the Central Land Council, talking on the affect of the BasicsCard, to Parliament in February;
While there might not be rigorous academic reports on the issue, I can assure you—and you will have a lot of people before you today on this— that anyone who lives in Alice Springs can tell you racism is alive and well and discriminatory practices are alive and well. Certainly the introduction of the BasicsCard and its implementation have assisted to highlight just how different the arrangements are in this town for people who are black and people who are white...I can certainly tell you, from our council meetings and others, that there have been hours and hours of discussions around just how humiliating the administrative arrangements of the BasicsCard are for people. Ms Jayne Weepers, Central Land Council, Committee Hansard, 17 February 2010, p. 4.

A further concern around the proposed changes to the intervention, (outside of income management – which has the potential to go nation wide) comes from the Australian Human Rights Commission. The government is wanting to see the changes as a special measure, allowing basic human rights to be suspended. Any special measure that would repeal a people group’s human rights needs to fulfill certain criteria:

It must demonstrate a standard of consultation, and the consent of the people group.
It needs to be for their sole benefit.
It must also show sufficient, current and credible evidence that the measure will be effective.
It needs to also determine if there are effective alternate means, which do not limit human rights.
It must also show mechanisms for monitoring and evaluating the measure, to ensure its objective is met.

According to the AHRC the government has failed to adequately meet any of these points.
So where do we go with all of this? On a political front, and bureaucracy will always struggle with this, more individualized responses are needed. It is obvious that what might be working in Pitjantjatjara country is not working in the camps around Alice Springs. Senator Rachel Siewert believes;



The best thing for the government to do at this point would be to drop this approach (IM), continue on with reforming the negative aspects of the Northern Territory Emergency Response and shift to a more consultative community development approach to addressing the underlying causes of disadvantage and social exclusion in Aboriginal communities.
If this approach includes looking at each community and developing that community in deep and authentic consultation and partnership with the Indigenous people of that community… then I whole-heartedly agree.

Broader to the Government hopes to reform welfare, by extending the possibility of income management nationally, Ms Kasy Chambers of Anglicare Australia says;
It was looking at communities that were quite discrete, that understand themselves as communities and where there are hugely strong kinship obligations. I do not believe we see those in Cannington or the suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne. We do not have that same understanding of a set of people as a community. So, whether or not the blanket approach worked in the Northern Territory— and we have a view about that—we do not feel there has been enough evidence or looking at the stuff that did go on to take it in this form to every other single community in Australia.

Ms Kasy Chambers, Anglicare Australia, Committee Hansard, 26 February 2010, p. 7.46

And perhaps we’ll give ACOSS the final word when it comes to Income Management;
The use of the social security system to achieve wider behavioural change not tied to this objective is inappropriate and inefficient unless individuals or communities have sought this approach. This is because the social security system and Centrelink are poorly adapted to providing the kind of intensive case management that is required, which is rightly provided by specialist local community organisations. Income management can be a useful tool for those services and communities, but it must be a tool in their hands, not an instrument applied by government.
As well as taking a stand politically, which I believe we must do, I want to call us to stand with our Indigenous brothers and sisters. To share in their pain for what is happening to their people. To recognise that when one part of the body hurts the whole body hurts. We also need to pray!! Only God can mend the hurt that stems from the past and seems to have no end. Only God can work in the hearts and minds of the policy and decision makers, and cause them to see beyond ‘easy’ fixes and adopt a response that sees and deeply values those affected by their decisions.

Debunking Aboriginal Myths (By Rebecca Walker)

I was recently lent a copy of All-About: The Story of a Black Community on Argyle Station, Kimberley by Mary and Elizabeth Durack. It is a children’s book published in 1935 which went through five reprints up until 1944. Even just looking at the cover, it is immediately distressing, as it emblazoned with a picture of an Aboriginal man who looks like a demonic ape. It purports to tell the story of a white family living on a station in Kimberly, with many aboriginal workers. The Sunday Times in Perth wrote of it that “The book is, indeed, a happy book for Christmas, full of good cheer, excellent fun, and a splendid tale of station life in the vast Nor’-West”.

Mary Durack went on to write many other children’s books about aboriginals up until 1964. If we assume that the books were probably in circulation at least until the 1970s, it gives us an insight into the kinds of myths about Aboriginals which have informed the understanding of many Australians growing up between 1935 and the mid 1970s, which has been passed on either consciously or subconsciously to later generations of Australians. Again just before we get started, it should be emphasised that this content is from a children’s book!

Myth #1 – Aboriginals are Inferior
From the opening lines in the dedication of All-About, the tone of white superiority is distinct. “You will never read this, for to learning you have no pretensions. You cannot sue us for libel, though we have exposed your characters, your secrets and your private lives. Forgive us! Our protection lies in your unworldliness”. So basically, Aboriginals are too dumb to realise what the Durack sisters are saying about them. This of course, means that it is completely morally acceptable to say malicious things about the Aboriginals. The fact that the Duracks felt that the Aboriginals might sue them for libel if they understood indicates that they were aware that what they were saying was, at a minimum unkind, if not outright slanderous!

This tone of superiority continues throughout the book, another awful example appears on page 17: “We have long ago had to face the fact that our more cultured mode of speech is equally intelligible to the blacks as is the pidgin form. The latter we use in evidence of the superiority which they so unreasonably refuse to recognise. Our darkies have none of the docile inferiority complex which makes such excellent servants of their brothers of other lands”.

This almost does not need commentary, it is so disgustingly prideful. To know that aboriginal people can understand the so-called “cultured mode of speech”, yet to insist on using pidgin when speaking with them as “evidence of the superiority [of the whites] which they so unreasonably refuse to recognise” is oppressive, racist and mean-spirited. It is appalling that on top of this assumption of superiority, they go further to censure the Aboriginals for not agreeing with that racist assumption. It is disgusting that in a book that is supposedly “the happiest book of the year”, the Durack sisters actually criticise the Aboriginals for not having the “docile inferiority complex which makes such excellent servants of their brothers of other lands”! Here the evil intent of the superiority/inferiority divide is made clear: it is to legitimise the enslavement of the “inferior” human beings.

Myth #2 – Aboriginals are Promiscuous
Probably the strongest theme in the book is that Aboriginals, particularly the women, are promiscuous. The book is full of sly gibes about Aboriginals sleeping around, and needing white people to point them towards marriage. This is rather hypocritical given the number of children many Aboriginal women had to white fathers. Clearly, the white men were not following their own advice on sexual morality. And that is without mentioning the numbers of Aboriginal women who were raped by white people. To accuse Aboriginals of promiscuity, in the moralising tone the Durack sisters use, is hypocrisy in the extreme.

All of the Aboriginal women at one point or another are accused in the book of promiscuity; of sleeping with both Aboriginal and white men. One particular example is the character Polly. On page 10, Polly explains Aboriginal sexual ethics, if an aboriginal woman leaves her man and runs away with someone else, then her tribe will kill the man she ran away with. If she even looks at a white man, then her tea and meat will be poisoned so that she dies. The next page goes on to describe how she tricked her husband regarding one of her sons, “He caused her no worry after she managed to convince a somewhat dubious husband that her son’s extraordinary lightness of colour was due to a shortage in the charcoal supply at the time of his arrival. ‘S’posin’ me got plenty charcoal put ‘longa this piccaninny, ‘im go black then like ‘nother kids; only too late now”. So not only is Polly promiscuous, she is also hypocritical.

Myth #3 – Removal of Aboriginal Children is Good
Another theme of the book is that Aboriginals are bad parents and that the good of the children demands that the government remove the children from their families. Page 11 describes how Polly’s daughter was removed by the government. It starts by talking about how Polly hid Daffodil so that she would not be taken. “The ‘Government’ brought torches to seek her out, and old Polly fought for her young like a tigress at bay... But the white men had right on their side and were fired with the spirit of purpose. Daffodil must learn to read and write and sew fine seams with her slim brown fingers and learn the godlessness of her mother’s people. Later, if she wished, she could go back again, provided she kept away from the blacks’ camp and as much as possible from the old black mother who had fought so hard for her ignorance”. You almost cannot caricature the obscenity of this viewpoint!

What is the Truth?
The bible is clear in its teaching that all people are created by God in his image and so are of incredible value. When we feel or are taught that we are less than loved and valuable, it comes not from God but from the Devil. Obviously we are all fallen, and all fall short of the glory of God. However, this does not diminish our value. This is a state that is shared by all humans; there is no racial grouping that are more/less sinners than others. Jesus taught that we should be more worried about the plank in our own eye than the speck in our brothers. Yet the interface between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal cultures in this country has been based on the unjust oppression of Aboriginal people, supported by the notion of white superiority.

The social basis of the kingdom of God is of a harmonious people brought together from disparate cultures around the one King Jesus Christ. This is displayed in the very throne room of God, “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb… And they cried out in a loud voice: ‘Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.’" (Rev 7:9-10). What then should the relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people look like? We are brothers and sisters, and one day we will join in one voice to worship our Lord and our God as one holy, equal and diverse people. This is how we should be beginning to live now.

Work & Calling (Kitty Cheng)

The Transforming Melbourne team was invited to participate in the Cre8 Kingdom Summit organised by Australian Marketplace Connection. Being part of the Cre8 team, I had the privilege of learning from the process of assisting to organise, as well as during the conference.

I was reminded that the Bible has a lot to say about work and business. Indeed, Jesus said, “do work / business till I come.” So how would Jesus have us, in the midst of our busy and often stressful work environments, rise up and bear fruit to our Father’s glory?

According to Dr Wynand J de Kock’s roundtable sharing “Vocation and Careers” during Cre8, many workers feel unfulfilled and frustrated in their work, including Christians. Work can be boring, mundane, stressful, and insignificant. Many do not see a bigger purpose for their work than simply earning money or meeting temporal needs of those served. While satisfying the needs of self and community are necessary, these purposes are ultimately unfulfilling if one does not sees a connection with God’s purposes.

For some, work feels a bit like the Egyptians must have felt when Pharaoh said, “let them collect their own straw but don’t reduce their quota of bricks.” This is not how work is meant to be. The Bible gives us an entirely different view of work – a realm where we can expect to see His kingdom come, His will be done on earth as it is in heaven. This is the way God intended work to be from the beginning of time – His children managing His creation in relationship with Him.

We should establish that our everyday business as a call from God for which He anoints us and equips us. God’s personal invitation for us to work on His agenda using the talents we’ve been given in ways that are eternally significant. (Thomas Addington and Stephen Graves, A Case for Calling).