Lizz the yank,
Thanks for your insight into US First nation Peoples .It's good to get your perspectives.

Been to the US - friends there.

You're puzzled by Aboriginal Affairs in Australia - some of us are definitely not and hence our extreme annoyance at the status quo and the garbage and racism that occasionally surfaces on these pages.

As for my families, both white and black , he puffs his chest out] ,they are very smart at maths and the arts.

But then perhaps that's because my wife's name is Liz....

Paul.L,

I live in Canberra and I can assure you that Indigenous employees don't do nearly so well (at least in a visible sense) as they do in Townsville (not that I've been there lately, but I'll take your word for it.) While one sees plenty of Asians (as students and working in fast-food shops and restaurants) and some Indians working in professional jobs etc, you don't see many Aboriginals around.

Being the home of the Australian Public Service, Canberra attracts bureaucrats, academics, lobbyists and intellectuals of all backgrounds. While it's a pretty atypical city in Oz, it is the perfect place to test my central point/thesis that Aboriginals don't do well here because they just can't compete or cohabit effectively with a more developed culture.

For example, despite the fact that the public service has an Equal Employment Opportunity policy that gives specific preferment to Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders, in the last State of the Service report, the numbers of Aboriginal APS employees went backwards. (I suspect it's because they're getting crowded out by Western culture.)

I imagine that Townsville, as a medium-sized city, and with our national low unemployment rate, is crying out for whatever workers it can get - like lots of other towns and cities at the moment - which has opened up opportunities for Aboriginals that they've never had before. Good luck to them if they can make a go of it.

Lizz-the-Yank, “Col Rouge, I did not mean to turn this into a US/Australia slagging match,”

Nor I. I am sorry you took it that way.

I was merely commenting on my personal observations of life in USA.

Regarding “But the situation with Aborigines is way worse. Why? “

I might speculate

1 the resilience and quality of the Australian aboriginal genes might be less viable than those of American Indians or other races.

2 observing the parallel colonizatoin of New-Zealand along side that of Australia and how the ability of Maoris to socially organization ended up with a treaty with the British Crown, whilst the lack of "social organization" observed in Kooris resulted in no treaty.

It might be speculated that the Australian Kooris comparative lack the skills to form such cohesive and effective social organizations has been reflected in an inability to compete effectively on “a level playing field” with people of other races.

All that is speculation, I make no claim to be an anthropologist.

CJMorgan

You just don’t know when to give up do you?

I find it almost flattering, your groveling attempts to endear through childish banter.

It amuses me to give you a good public slapping from time to time.

But you are becoming a bore.

Remember CJ, debating is a battle of wits.

And you have clearly arrived hear lacking the basic weaponry.

Now run away, that’s a good fellow, someone might want to tax your intellect, maybe check your IQ produces an integer larger than your shoe size.

Col R: Sometimes the Internet isn't the best way to communicate. I wasn't accusing you personally of engaging in a US/Australia competition - just wanted to make clear that this was not what I am about.

Regarding genes, I don't think that American Indians are genetically hardier than Aborigines. Smallpox devastated them to a perhaps even greater extent than it did Aborigines, not to mention other diseases.

However, one could say that their level of development was Neolithic as opposed to Paleolithic. That might explain something....

Kartiya Jim: You may be interested in this:

http://www.ihs.gov/AboutIHS/index.asp

Anyway, everybody, thanks. You've all been very informative.

Liz

Give the pseudo science a rest. The devastation caused by smallpox has NOTHING to do with genetics and everything to do with EXPOSURE and ANTIBODIES.

The idea that the differences between races is genetic was very popular with Adolf Hitler. Great company I'm sure.

Just think about the hundreds of millions of white people who died from influenza and plague

I live in Darumbal country and the racism here is as thick as shag pile carpet. Hypocrisy and cruelty are nothing new to indigenous people, they have been fighting them for over two hundred years. Indigenous Australians are a strong and intelligent people they do not fall for trickery and slight of hand as poor westerners do. They will not be socially constructed as easily as the English lower classes. Why don't we just stop trying to trick people with symbolic gestures and enter into a treaty with the people who have kinship with this land. Migaloo woman Darumbal country.