Redressing the slander and injustice done to the Christian missionaries

"The missionary days were good. The missionaries looked after the kids much better than the Government does today."

Those words are not the words of Cardinal Pell, which would draw every anti-Catholic bigot around Australia raging out of the woodwork. They are the words of Aboriginal leader and former Australian of the Year, Galarrwuy Yunupingu, who was speaking about the terrible degrading circumstances many Aboriginal children find themselves in.

It is to his great credit that he has stood up and said what many of us know to be the truth. Since 1967 the PC-class's policies on Aboriginal matters have meant only degradation for many of them. We have to hope that Galarrwuy Yunupingu has success, where nobody else has, in breaking the ideological hold of the PC-class and that effective practical policies can be adopted - policies that mean a real increase in Aboriginal welfare and the enabling of all Aboriginals to take the part in civil society that is due to them as Australian citizens.

Civil rights are the benefits of civil society. Those who are barred from entering civil society by an ideological position that forces them into a distant imagined past will never enjoy those civil rights. They will be condemned to dream in the dust and squalor of their surroundings.

A major feature of the political rhetoric that underwrites the PC-class's policy on Aboriginal affairs is its anti-Christian bigotry. This bigoted mentality together with the ideological delusion has blinded them to the concrete circumstances of Aboriginal communities. Grave injustice has been done to many decent people who actually did something and made personal sacrifices to help Aboriginals when others offered their useless speeches. The injustice to those people needs to be redress.

Read The Age report: Bring back the missionaries