IASB

IASB

IASB

Part A Letter

Subject: suggesting change to existing standards in IASB

Dear,

Sir David Tweedie,

Chairman of the IASB,

An examination of Changing Perspective from a series of viewpoints, from historical to personal, to contemporary political perspectives reveals change in relation to the past and present lives of the Aborigines. However, on another level, by presenting these changes, composers align the responders with the Aboriginal plight, so in effect, change also occurs in the responders. Didactic example of this was seen in The Stolen Children: Their Stories (TSC) by Bird; Duttereau's painting "The Conciliation" and its transformation "The National Picture" by Parr; Jopson's article "Who's sorry now?"

Geoff Parr's collage "The National Picture" is a parody of Duttereau's painting "The Conciliation" which not only alerts the responders of the radical changes wrought by European settlement, but also suggests that Australians are still trying to subdue rather than understand the Indigenous culture. Colonial Australia appeases the Indigenous while modern Australia is depicted as bleaching them our of the "National Picture". The sole indigenous person is dressed in a neat white suit as though he/she had to put on a "white skin" in order to be accepted. His/her identity is signaled by the Indigenous colours of black, red and yellow; but in a European style- a scarf. Another symbolic repression of the Indigenous perspective is Parr's placement of a row of spears carrying natives in the background. In the painting the back row natives stand as part if and in reinforcement to, the native group in the foreground. However, in the collage they look like grey statues hidden behind the corrugated iron fence that forms a barrier between the modern group and the original inhabitants of land - suggesting that white Australia is till trying to "fence off" the history of indigenous relations. However, those grey ghosts have endured for over 2 centuries and appear unlikely to go away, suggesting that at some stage Australia will need to reconcile with the traditional owners.

Parr's collage is later supported by many more works, one of which is Bird's TSC. Bird already attempts to change the responder's perspective in her elaborate introduction, where she makes prolific use of connotative words, often in couplets or triplets to illustrate a bipolar world of subjugation of Aborigines. For example, those who removed children "tricked" families into allowing it, then, they "forced" them to "forget and deny" their identity, inflicting "contempt and denigration" on it. This technique makes the responders sympathise Indigene and so aligns the responder's with the Aboriginal plight.

Considered in its entirety, Bird's compilation is a construct used to change the responder's perspective and another way this is achieved is through the emotive stories she presents. Paul's account begins by expressing his loss of identity suffered at the mercy of governmental control as "State Ward 54321". This tag blocks out his name, his tribe and ultimately- his Aboriginality. The exploitation of Aborigines through usurping their land and then considering them as sub-humans has scarred them for ...