And yet he was arrested for trying to break into his own house (having forgotten the keys)... How many people here have had to break into their own house on at least one occasion?

How many had the police called on them? How many, having had the Police called on them, were actually hauled in and charged?

I'd say not one...

CJ, funny, yeah Townsville is/was a friendly redneck sort of Town... Nobody thought anything bad about it...

The problem with Flinders St Mall started with Mooney's drive to clean up the park so that the Council could sell it for unit developments. The parkies on the whole, were inveterate alcoholics, who were not welcome in their communities, although they were rarely violent (except when deliberately provoked, ie. the trifecta, Drunk & Disorderly, Resist Arrest, Assault Police, and the cop got a nice payout from the victims of crime fund plus compo)...

It has long been racist as all hell, the blacks don't like white people and vice versa, especially in the older suburbs. Now, we have new suburbs springing up on the floodplains that were badly inundated several times when I lived there, the inhabitants (and the houses) look like they have been lifted straight out of Sydney/Melbourne and put in these cookie-cutter suburbs. They have no concept of the underlying racial tension and are as likely to be preyed upon by the older white families as the black.

The fact that they have bought their inherently racist, "I'm not racist, but..." culture with them, makes them flinch or appear scared when confronted by the local indigenous groups, who take it as a sign of weakness and that is that.

Yup, Townsville, it was friendly but by god it was vicious... (I saw that piddly little "fracas" on TV from Melbourne last night... If I didn't know better I'd place the "doers" from Townsville - it is the same modus operandii I grew up with, except no-one was kicked on the ground, and it was reported - it certainly wouldn't have been in Townsville).

Thanks everyone for your comments. I'm a bit alarmed that some thought I was playing the race card - what I was trying to say was far from that. I questioned Quayle's statistics to get a better understanding of them, and I noted that, when one lives in a largely black neighbourhood, it is obviously more likely that the people you see doing good OR bad things will be black. When someone ducks through the hole in my fence carrying the clothes off my washing line, I'm unsurprised that the person is black. If I lived in a much "whiter" neighbourhood, I would be more surprised by that. Similarly, if I was mugged by a white person at 4:00 in the afternoon on Flinders Mall, I'd be surprised because there aren't that many white people around there at that hour. Sorry if I seemed to be playing the race card. I was just commenting on the odds.

I think the decline of the Mall has been caused by three factors: the development of the shopping centres out in the suburbs, which took the shoppers away; the development of the Strand, which took the events away; and the development of surrounding areas, which supplanted the parkies and forced them into the Mall. Now the Mall is being redeveloped and reopened to traffic. It'll be interesting to see where the parkies will pop up next. It's like the gypsies I saw when I was in Athens. They are constantly being moved on, hidden around a corner somewhere, but the underlying problem is not addressed. It's all about a clean facade, rather than a nice, clean and harmonious town.

It is completely misleading to focus on racism as the 'problem' in places like Townsville, when reducing crime, in particular violent crime, is what authorities should be concentrating on.

Crimes are commited through choice, because the offenders enjoy the adrenalin of crime and the easy life of no routine, no responsibility and no work. Indigenous people too want these offenders dealt with and it is a shame that the victim industry doesn't represent the real victims who are those affected by crime.

However there is no Guvvy gravy train for those who advocate for victims of crime and that is the difference. For those who commit crime and get busted for it, there is no work and no responsibility in gaol either and maybe that should be changed as well.

Townsville's tough streets could contribute workers (colour of skin is no impediment) to build infrastructure for indigenous communities in remote areas of Queensland. Being a guest of Her Majesty is not so attractive where offenders are obliged to live in temporary camps and do some hard yakka from 5.00 am on to earn their keep. However there are many men and women who voluntarily live like that for their whole lives, earn a pittance and are fiercely independent, eschewing the easy life in town bludging on government hand-outs and welfare. They are not the squeaky wheels that do-gooders might notice and of course there is no money in them either for the advocates, lawyers and consultants of the victim industry. There are no OLO articles devoted to them but that comes as no surprise either.

AlGoreisRight in regards to your statement:

I don't mean to upset your 1650 time warp thinking there, but Indigenous Austalians do not have a right to self determination other than that allowed by Australian law.

I do not have a 1650 time warp, but Indigenous people do have a right to self determination unless offered under Australian law, self determination should never be a right that needs to be practice under Australian law, it should be an inherent right to be able to make and have choices not based on race. But in saying that I have seen Aboriginal people practice their self-determination rights, Mabo for one challenged his rights to his lands and the concept of "terra-nullius" empty continent, land belonging to no-one and won, hence the Native Title Legislation.

I am a bit amazed that you believe that self-determination equates war, you've really pulled a long bow there, and in regards to governance there are many Aboriginal people who practice governance everyday in their communities.

My point was that for the majority of Aboriginal people their rights aren't recognised under the Australian legal system, but I have certainly seen legislation changes to accommodate Aboriginal rights.

The Native Title Act, the NSW Land Rights Act, Intellectual Copyright Act, UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, and many more areas of law have changed. My point is there are many more areas of law that needs to accommodate Indigenous people's rights to self-determination and Aboriginal people have exercised their rights not through blood shed, nor violence, but through patience and lobbying government, court challenges, media, etc, because that is our rights as Indigenous people and as Australian citizens.

If the purpose of any article on OLO is to stimulate discussion, then clearly this one is a winner.
I have to say I thought the author's arithmetic was a little cute:
"But today one fifth (or 20%) of the population in Australia was born overseas, and almost 20 per cent (or one fifth) of the population has one or both parents who were born overseas."
Well yeah, that would make sense, wouldn't it?
And if a significant number of these 20%(or one fifth) also disapproved of boat people (as polls suggest they do), what does that make them?
Ethnic rednecks?
I'd like to pick up on a point Banjo made, about us being multiracial, rather than multicultural. In my (limited) experience of blackfella culture, many still appear to have a tribal attitude to private ownership; ie what belongs to one, belongs to all.
I know my blackfella mates are very careful to lock up everything they own.
This is clearly a cultural thing, which gets little or no truck with the (whitefella) law.

Hi Otokonoko,

Firstly I think it's interesting because I didn't answer your question after a set time frame that people have automatically assumed that I have avoided your question. I did mean to get back to you, but other things took precedents and some other opinions caught my attention, to which I felt an impulse to reply to theirs, with the intention of getting back to you.

Now in regards to the statistics of crime verses the statistics of imprisonment. Imprisonment is not a measurement of crime, but moreso a measurement of who and how many people receive a prison sentence.

I agree the imprisonment of Aboriginal people is 13 per cent higher in NSW and 37 per cent higher in Australia. The imprisonment rate has risen because Aboriginal people are more likely to be refused bail and the number of Aboriginal people on remand, it doesn't mean that more Aboriginal people commit crime.

I was also talking about more non-Aboriginal people in the general population are more likely to commit crime and yet people appear to just focus on the prison population, assuming crime is greater in the Aboriginal population.

I never said that Aboriginal people don't commit crime, I just said that crime comes in all colours. I did respond to your question partly by cutting and pasting Professor Chris Cunneen's research when I replied. Yes, a bit sloppy, but not with the intention to say "I'm a professional, don't question me" I was just being lazy at the time and well the reality is sometimes people shouldn't make uneducated statements without backing their beliefs or statements by evidence, because that's how ignorance, racism and stereotypes flourish.