Somebody’s got to do something!

One of the most distressing tragic events being played out reguarly across this country is the plight of the indigenous people. Any visit to any remote community leaves most city folk deeply saddened to see the squalor and crowding evident in community housing. The thing is, most city folk do not visit. The closest they get is a visit via the local tabloid with a few photographs, but the page gets turned (whether to the back page or page three) and the problem forgotten. I have attached a few words I wrote following the death of a young child electrocuted in a wall space, and our local Premier daring to say what many thought.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/newshome/5984134/barnett-attacked-over-roebourne-death-comments/

I have been mulling over this tragedy wondering how it connects (it may not have made much of a story in the east) and one of the key things about this is that state of the house. Barnett has just been castigated for saying what he sees by the looks of it. I am amused by the rallying cry - yet again “Somebody’s got to do something” or “the government to blame” . It looks to me the hole in the wall that this toddler has crawled through and got zapped has been temporarily repaired (see glue patches on the wall and the panel leaning up against the wall). I wonder when this was ripped off, when was the hole either uncovered, or enlarged. The lack of an RCD is a tragedy and I don’t want to predict the cause of that (apparently one was supposed to have been installed according to records, but there was only one for next door).

We take the blame for nannying these people, yet we also cop it for not fixing the (often willful) damage where they live.

Let me take up the cry “Somebody’s got to do something…” Guess who!