Mark Latham releases ‘Aboriginal Rescue Plan’
Mark Latham is calling for “unviable” remote Aboriginal communities to be closed down, saying the Land Rights Movement has “been a failure”.
The NSW One Nation leader believes indigenous people living in and around welfare dependence, squalor, violence and drug abuse should be relocated to areas with economic activity.
Mr Latham tells Alan Jones “the land rights movement hasn’t lived up to the promise of 30 or 40 years ago and in fact, there may be a handicap.”
“The notion of land rights locks indigenous people into remote locations where, if you go there, there’s no economic activity there’s no prospect of developing businesses.
“I mean you could stick Bill Gates out there and he couldn’t earn a dollar in some of these desolate remote places.”
Heading into next month’s state election, the Upper House candidate has released what he calls, The Aboriginal Rescue Plan.
Mr Latham wants to abolish the Aboriginal Land Council and use the $5 billion dollars in assets from the NSW Aboriginal Land Trust to pay for relocation, education, job training and employment subsidies.
“You’re better off investing that money, the $5 billion dollars, getting a rate of return and paying it in subsidies to people who need help.
“And the second thing is, we’ve got to close down unviable remote communities.
“If they can’t have economic activity, they’re completely welfare dependent and overrun by these problems of squalor and violence and drug abuse.
“We’ve got to close them down and move people closer to where they can actually get a job.”
Click PLAY below to hear the full interview… skip to 9m45s for The Aboriginal Rescue Plan