I think you are drawing a long bow here Stephen. The capacity to leverage land ownership into an income stream, like rent, and to borrow against a portion of it, has been the key to every economic take-off by every community or people that have done so.

All it is doing is providing blackfellas with the capacity to rent money. And you are insulting the intelligence of your own people by suggesting that they could not make the intellectual leap between paying house rent and paying money rent.

Indeed, the great irony of your statistics is that most of the blackfellas who don't currently own a home are paying rent anyway. And many of them haven't bought a home because it could only be done on land other than their own. And, regardless of the perversity of it, this other land must be bought and paid for as well.

So the amounts your loan calculator indicated are not additional outlays that must be found. They are, in most part, amounts they are already paying as rent. It is dead money. And people soon realise that the more mortgage payments they put behind them, the more those payments end up in their own hands.

Rental payments increase with inflation, and that same inflation, over time, makes mortgage payments easier and easier to pay until they don't need to be paid at all. At the moment, the economies of blackfella communities are leaking money badly. And this is the best way to plug the biggest leak. And surprisingly, brewing your own beer and sharing/bartering with your own ones, is the next best.

to me its a question of who's selling who out.

yeah there'll be white fella's looking for 'opportunity' or 'location', but there's just as many blackfella's there too looking to skim the cream off the top before they give back to their mob.

so who's selling who out, is the black man more justified in ripping off his own mob over the white man who's doing the same thing?

its all good and well to pontificate on this and that, its a different matter to walk the talk and talk it too.

Dear Steven
speaking as one who has observed the indigenous land situation in Sarawak and Sabah (formerly British North Borneo) I tend to agree with your assessment on the surface.

"Land Grab"..... Let me outline some happenings. The largest Indigenous group of Sabah are the Dusun/Kadazan, They actually own most of the land. There is no law preventing them from selling it to anyone. Many of them take out large unsustainable loans, and when they cannot repay (the often borrow to finance a 4wd which they figure they will use to take paying passengers) they end up forfeiting their land to the Chinese financier and become his "employed worker" on what was their land. Unless of course he sells it.

Sarawak has a different situation. Native land CANNOT be sold to non natives. So, the ever creative Chinese, looking for land to expand on near the towns, will often MARRY an indigenous person who will hold the land in their name.

Not knowing about the Howard proposal in detail, I think it could be very dangerous for indigenous Aussies who might fall prey to the 'short term gain' approach, if it allowed borrowing, then forfieting, and the Banks would be the new owners of the land, which they can then sell to anyone.

Native land, currently held as communal, should be protected in perpetuity, and if it is turned into private land which can be sold, it should be only available to Indigenous people.

BD

I applaud your erudite and succinct post. Although I am not fully au fait with issues of native title, your comments and Stephen's article make a lot of sense to me.

Native title should remain as such into perpetuity.

Finding solutions to home ownership is difficult - I am having enough trouble coping with my own mortgage at present. On Newstart if I was renting I would receive a rental allowance, however paying a mortgage means no additional assistance at all - this double standard would also effect indigenous aussies.

Thanks

Scout

(formerly Trinity)

I agree with the orientation of Hagan's comments in this article. The question needs to be asked and answered "how are Indigenous Australians going to pay for a mortgage regardless of value?" Please don't respond with comments like "they get a job like other Australians!!" or words to this effect. The ABS data indicate that we have the highest unemployment levels when compared [proportional] to other Australians. The corollary of this is that the same data indicates that our fulltime permanent employment levels are significantly less than those of other Australians. If you disaggregate the data you will also see that within this range there are few of us who are earning a salary/wage large enough to sustain regular monthly mortgages and have some money left over for basic necessities. I am not claiming that this view is exclusive to the Indigenous community alone, as I am aware that Australians in general are having a tough time paying for their home. But, the PM John Howard's current two star Indigenous performers Messrs Pearson and Mundine seem to propagate the elusive dream that home ownership is possible here and now regardless of whether this is a viable option or not right now. Okay, guys, its time to wake up! Here is a hint. Revise your advocacy to focus upon the PM John Howard to direct government resources to ameliorate private sector investments to create jobs so people can earn enough to eat and pay for a mortgage as well. Stick this in your policy pipe and smoke on it!

You guys are assuming that the same circumstances that have produced the house inflation in suburbia will apply under native councils. The main problem of affordability for most of Australia is the influence of the planning staff who drive up the price with excessive regulation and so-called minimum standards that force people into houses they cannot afford. The one thing that A&I Councils can do is inject a bit of common sense into the system so people can actually build the house they can afford and expand it when they can afford. They might even consider building their own. I am, it is slow going but it sure beats barbie world.