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The Forum > Article Comments > Filling the idle hours of a day ... > Comments

Filling the idle hours of a day ... : Comments

By Rollo Manning, published 24/1/2007

The old world has been taken away from Indigenous Australians: we now have a responsibility to help them frame a new world in which to live.

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These comments have been around for many years and most people that have had close contact with Aboriginal people do agree. Dr Deveneson, Steve Larkin and others, in the early 1980 talked and wrote about the same subject.

People in policy areas have found solving these problems too hard - factoring in the Human Rights issues. Most persons involved in Aboriginal health know what the problems are but don't know how to fix them. Over the last 18 years I have seen great programs (white man's view) implemented with short term project funding – Aboriginal people get involved – try to make it work – and just as things are moving forward they project runs out of money – everything stops – until someone (again non Aboriginal) gets another bright idea – seeks funding and the cycle commence again. I feel really sorry for those people in communities who really try to do what we want and then have the rug pulled form underneath them.

I have worked with people of the lower socioeconomic group in non Aboriginal Australia and have found a lot of similarities of social disharmony, the same as Rollo writes about for Aboriginal populations. .

If we can't fix white Australian social problems how can we fix Aboriginal problems.

Poverty and poor education in all groups bring problems - if the recipe is the same the cake will be the same.

The important thing that most ignore is that we do not acknowledge and support the vast number of good hard working committed Aboriginal people We always look for the negatives.

I have always worked with peoples strengths and not the negatives that most people focus on

We continually give the Aborigines the impression that we are the superior race in all areas, we teach them and talk to them from a position of superiority - we talk down to them without being aware of it ourselves, we are part of the problem but we don't know it, or perhaps we don't want to know it
Glenn Norris OAM
Posted by Mar muck, Tuesday, 30 January 2007 10:32:46 AM
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