When interviewing Neil Gower, the CEO of Mamabulanjin Aboriginal Corporation in Broome recently, I was struck by the urgent need for regular contact between people from similar organisations. Maningrida's Bawinanga Aboriginal Corporation sprang to mind immediately despite the obviously different contexts. ATSIC provided some of the networking in the past but was clearly insufficient. Unity is still strength.
A video of the interview is available at 'Labor View from Broome' http://laborview.blogspot.com/ and youdecide2007.org

Kevin Rennie

I am so sick and tired of the new and sophisticated methods to describe how corruption works. Name it. You are talking about corruption as facilitated by social networks. Yes in reality it exists, but ideally it should not. Merit is under-rated!

Thanks Stephen,

You have identified a key fundamental in being able to get ahead in life, that is networking.

Being Koori, in a single parent family and being from rural area meant i sufferred the lack of opportunity you mentioned in my home town, forcing me to the city. I even told them i would work for free at most of the shops in town, but the family reputation and 'branding' by many in these towns means you have no options and no future.

I then went from that to a major University with the old boy mentality you talked about, I was one of 2 rural kids (the other left after 6 months), the only state school student and definately the only Koori in my year doing this degree.

I played footy for Randwick, and once i had the leverage of playing for a renouned club, and the network of friends and their repsective familes who i met, my first job interview for the opportunity of a lifetime was more about footy and friends than the role or my experience.

One thing that i had the 'advantage' of in white circles is that i have light skin, and dont appear as the stereottypical indigenous Australian. i have found that the attitudes to indigenous Australians is horrific, and without many knowing my heritage I have heard and been subjected to disgusting demeaning, racist comments.

You point out an important point about networking being critical in your success. Weather you achieve it by education, sporting or some other association, it is important for indigenous Australians to enter non indigenous networks to get iahead in this society, and break the cycle of economic misery we suffer.

Unfortunately, many of us come from rural areas, many of us may not have the opprtunities for advancement, and many of us dont get educated in the manner in which is required to prosper.

"Unfortunately, many of us come from rural areas, many of us may not have the opprtunities for advancement, and many of us dont get educated in the manner in which is required to prosper."

That is why programs such as the one which is being run by Noel Pearson are so important as it gives Indigenous youth the entree into the networks so described in the article.

David

Well, isn't Hagan saying the obvious here?

Admittedly, sometimes it helps to say the obvious.

From my perch 14,000 miles away on the East Coast of the USA, indigenous Australians strike me as being singularly bereft of numeracy skills, which have traditionally helped other "out" groups gain a foothold in the modern economy.

And one of those reasons is that for 30 or so years, Aborigines have been following separatism, whose spokesmen Hagan lauds at the beginning of the article!!

It's understandable that Aborigines, after being savagely dispossessed and then rejected by White Australians, should have, in despair, become separatists, but it didn't help them.

Hagan's heart is in the right place, but sometimes his thought process is muddled.

Burchardt & Piachaud (using bourdeurs’ theories of social capital) suggested that an individual is socially excluded if he or she does not participate in key activities of the society in which he or she lives’

Participation is defined along four dimensions:

o Consumption (the capacity to purchase goods and services),

The majority of Indigenous people live below the poverty line and so this greatly mediates how they consume or acquire the means to purchase goods and services.
It’s called poverty Steve.

o Production (participation in economically or socially valuable activities),

We do participate in many socially valuable activities (sport for example) but this is often curtailed by our ability to participate in consumption. See above.

o Political engagement (involvement in local or national decision-making),

If one believes that the system of white liberal democracy (and even the 67 referendum) allows for full and democratic access to local decision making structures as a right of citizenship for Indigenous peoples – you might as well believe that pigs fly.

o Social interaction (integration with family, friends and the community— sometimes called social capital).

If you live in a nation where the standard ticket to enjoying and participating in deep social interaction is predicated on being white (and you are white) then you’ve got no problems (other than class and status).

If you’re white your right, if you’re brown hang around, if you’re black…

Interestingly most of my old white school mates are either dead or doing it hard somewhere so they hardly represent the old school tie network Hagan wants us all to believe is useful.