One could describe this as a rhetorical article, i.e. one that requires no response.

A tanty rant with no solutions, and one wonders if it is just to tweak the noses of anyone who doesn't comply with politically correct aboriginal industry thinking, so as to provide fodder for smug racist accusations.

I'll not bother with these again, opinions are not sought nor is discussion encouraged.

The more constructive approach is that non-indigenous assimilation into indigenous decision-making through constitutional reform providing for law enacted by agreement between a women's legislature [a reformed Senate] and a men's legislature [a reformed House of Representatives] interpreted in courts of women's and men's jurisdiction, is the hub of the matter.

Strangely, the author thinks that the dirty, dangerous and horribly degrading conditions in which women are struggling to exist and raise children are completely unworthy of mention. They might not exist for the author but they do exist for the Hon Jenny Macklin who has met with women and is taking action as requested by them.

'Several weeks ago, Ms Macklin met Aboriginal women in Hoppy's Camp, one of the worst camps. She said she saw about 50 people living under a shelter with no walls.

"They were living in filthy conditions. One parent raised with me the enormous problems with cockroaches. They were waking up in the morning with cockroaches all over the children.

"The conditions in these camps are horrific, I can't put it any more plainly," she said.'

http://www.theage.com.au/national/macklin-cites-camp-horrors-20090524-bji5.html

Through my touring over the years with a four wheel drive club I have seen first hand the terrible conditions in some self managed communities. The question remains, if it is all because of misdirected government effort, why do some other communities get it right and are safe, clean and positive places for women to have and nurture their children? The women are right, not all communities can solve their own problems and so often the causes of their strife are living with them.

There is white-anting of government initiatives, of Brough before and of Macklin now and the author needs to recognise that and focus on what prevents change in some communities and take to task those who have a vested interest in things remaining the same.

I too wish that aborigines had never been ‘interfered’ with. That way, we might not have had the constant problems we have now. Of course, unlike John Tomlison’s brand of non-interference, there would be none of the handouts, pandering, and useless attempts at trying to help aborigines; none of the hypocrisy that involves ‘self-determination’ - but with truck loads of money given out when aborigines constantly fail at self-determination.

I would also like to know how aborigines got to have $500 million stolen from them by Queensland authorities. Half a billion dollars is a fair swag.

It’s hard to see how “assimilation has been forced on people throughout Australia, including the Northern Territory”. The Macquarie Dictionary defines ‘assimilation’ with regard to people as: “the process whereby individuals or groups of differing ethnic heritage, as migrant groups, or minority groups, acquire the basic attitudes, habits and mode of life of another all-embracing national culture.”

Tomlison doesn’t use the word “acculturate” which means to cause assimilation and, certainly since the time of Nugget Coombe’s, the exact opposite of assimilation has been the fashion, particularly with Labor governments: back to ‘noble savages’ roaming free – all the romantic stuff, with the added ‘safety net’ of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money to prop up an illusion when the wheels fell off, as they did.

“Acquire” (assimilation) is the key word; and how many aborigines have acquired the mores and habits of the national culture? It is hard to tell, because those who have voluntarily assimilated over the past 200 years or so don’t stand out. They live their lives like the rest of us, and don’t appear on TV, living among scores of dogs and squalor that is shameful in a country like Australia. The do-gooding whites have set them up to stay like that: uneducated, dirty and poor because of the bad bits of European culture they have taken to – booze, drugs, child abuse, you name it, they do it. And, they get paid to stay that way.

Continued...

...continued

It is strange to see John Tomlinson now bashing a Labor Government for ‘intervening’ – continuing something the Howard Government started. What about the children these ‘noble savages’ are neglecting? I would like to see Macklin make an effort to exempt aboriginal people who are working and being good parents; I would also like to see white parents who neglect their children because of their own bad habits, have their income garnisheed, too. But, like it or not, there are more neglected, illiterate and abused children in what are euphemistically called ‘outstations’ and ‘communities’ than there are in wider society.

The 30,000 people supposedly “necessary community services to hundreds of communities in the Northern Territory and elsewhere in regional Australia” clearly have not done much to prevent the suffering of their charges, and they will not be a loss to the North Territory.

“The whites in Darwin, Katherine, Tennant Creek, Nhulunbuy and Alice have amply demonstrated their racist intolerance of iterant Aboriginal families in their towns”, cries Tomlinson.

Now, there is sweeping statement: the sort that these know-all, politically correct lefties are always accusing the ‘racists’ of. The wandering aborigines – the latest group to migrate to Alice Springs arrived en masse because their ‘right’ to booze and harass in public was curtailed in Port Augusta – are not popular, and neither they should be. But there is no problem with those living and working permanently in the town. Another example of the problems caused by the NON-ASSIMILATI0N of massive drinking/drug-taking, petrol sniffing aborigines.

This time last week, I bought art from an aboriginal owned and run market in Darwin. Nice people; knew more about their stock and how to give service than their white counterparts back in Adelaide. We saw no aborigines acting differently from anyone else in the city.

Self assimilation has helped many aboriginal people. Self assimilation could help the rest. If they don’t want it, they should not expect to be carried by the rest of society.

A timely article John, following on the piece by researcher, Thalia, which has been attacked by the regular ill-informed 'experts'such as Leigh who is blissfully unaware the Queensland Government embezzled Aboriginal wages they held in trust funds.

Unfortunately, many people do not know the difference between
'Town Camps';'remote communities'; 'settlements' and 'outstations' or the variation in the quality of life for the inhabitants.or the history of past Government institutions such as Kahlin Compound, Bagot Aboriginal Reserve , Now Bagot Community,Retta Dixon Home,and fringe camps One Mile Dam,the 13 Mile & the development of Larrakia clan from the genesis of Kulaluk.

You're certainly swimming against the tide trying to tell it as it is given the extent that Aboriginal bashing is alive and well amongst Aussie rednecks.