Jenni,

Aboriginal people who enjoy generous benefits from working in Aboriginal organisations,
or as academics, “most certainly will not” hold a mirror to themselves
and face responsibility for their own part in perpetuating second-rate services
and squandering money intended for Aboriginal benefit.

And indeed why should they !?

They are victims too !

Arthur Bell. For more info www.whitc.info

Sorry Michelle, but those of us who have worked in country and city Aboriginal Communities know that having representative Aboriginal people speaking for all other Aboriginals as to how things should be done, hasn't worked up until now.

The problem is that there are so many different groups of Aboriginal people, including tribal groups and family groups, that one person or group is not welcome to speak for another, as a general rule.

Even when a whole Aboriginal community 'agrees' to help build new houses for their own people in that community, there is never any surprise when the houses are soon trashed.
The blame is always placed on '...that other family'.

The only way out of poverty and welfare dependence is widespread, modern education of the new generation of kids.

Many of the Aboriginal academics and political leaders of this country were either members of the Stolen Generation, or the children of those people.
Rightly or wrongly, these people were given an education, and then used that knowledge to try to help their own people.

But there aren't enough of these people to really make a difference.
I believe that if we ensure today's Aboriginal kids (and children of other poor socio-economic groups) are given the good education their parents mostly never got.

Dare I say it... even if it means having those kids attend boarding school during school terms, if they are too far away from regular schools... and sometimes, even if they aren't.

Professor Jon Altman among others referenced in this article are hardly the kind you infer jenni. Do you know his material. Have you read some of the submissions for The Native Title Reform Bill. Actually, do you even know what you are talking about. Sorry, you may be well meaning but the point is that we do need everyone to discuss this issue.

http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/legcon_ctte/native_title_three/submissions.htm

OLO authors can do no more than put some material out there. You can see with only eight responses to this topic be it written well or not there is a distinct lack of interest in discussing the issues Indigenous people are facing.

Don’t abandon Aboriginal homelands - Sign Petition. "Right now the government is stripping funds for essential services from traditional Aboriginal homelands. This will effectively force families into larger towns and cities like Alice Springs." In fact you could even say Indigenous basic rights to essential services are being peddled and underwritten in Mining deals, at the cost of the greater picture or an accumulative equity in the profit margin, issues that Jon Altman and many others are scrutinising.

http://www.amnesty.org.au/indigenous-rights/dontabandonhomelands/?

Having worked in Indigenous Communities, I cant tell you how complex the issues are at ground levels. The 30 year Development experiment must end. As someone said on face book the other day, 'if Indigenous people didn't have welfare, most white people wouldn't have jobs'. I tell you the "gap" is not about distance. I stand by most of what John Altman has written over the years in particular, alongside Amnesty, Human Rights and many of the Indigenous leaders who tread a fine line between speaking out on the one hand and not being stonewalled on the other. Ask Marcia Langton for example.

http://www.kooriweb.org/foley/resources/pdfs/131.pdf

Read her essay linked abov: "The resource curse" from a few years ago and then write to her yourself and ask what she thinks about the Kimberley Land Councils position today or, in the Pilbara for example.

https://www.facebook.com/Jedamann?sk=photos

For a basic visual treatment go look round the photo's and comments on the FB page links above.

http://www.miacat.com/

miacat, is it lack of interest or just not wanting to be attacked and abused?

I'm waiting for the usual aboriginal industry bullies to arrive accusing everyone of racism, and that everyone should just pipe down unless you sing the industry songs.

I'm very sorry for the current generation of kids who , because of the industry prejudices, cannot get access to technology or a decent view of the world. They have to be kept in the settlements so as to feed the industry of wise nodding heads, who will all have another meeting to discuss this terrible turn of events, caused by the government.

People lose interest when they see that it doesn't matter what is done, there is no progress.

The catch cry is that the government must do something .. well they do, constantly.

now we need the people to do something, without being showered with money too, because that hasn't worked either.

As abhorrent as it may be to some people, I think they have to try something different, and get out of the isolated settlements, and join mainstream Australia, regardless of the loss of culture .. whatever that is.

Perhaps when we see the aboriginal people changing, for the better, we'll take up interest again, but at the moment, after the apology and all the rest, what's the point?

The remote communities are an out of sight solution, it will do nothing for integration. The preservation of culture has nothing to do with isolation. It certainly keeps a distance away from grog. The hardest part of integration is tribalism. If one clan can't understand the other, how can they integrate, and that includes the white clan. White people have given the indig far too much, things that they never asked for, in the way of disease, grog, so it is our problem, and so far we have failed.

“You seldom listen to me, and when you do you don't hear, and when you do hear you hear wrong, and even when you hear right you change it so fast that it's never the same”. - Marjorie Kellogg

There are people who have interest in keeping the situation of the Australian Aborigine as prostrate as it is.

Restoring to them their dignity would put into question the very Constitution of this country and, before it, the various organizations that claim huge amounts from the State and the people of Australia, only to add more bureaucratic chains to the Aborigines’ neck, in the name of ‘Charity’.

Now even American business sharks, who never spared a thought for the Aborigine of their country, have scented that there is money to be made here. Last May they held a money making ceremony at the State Library of Victoria. www.yalary.org is their address, had you a heart for their hunger.