Thanks for your input, Alan, I don't have any crystal ball, but I did say

<How do issues get articulated, and promoted ? People feel a need, perhaps a dire need, and they come together to find ways to resolve those needs, they may form groups, associations, organisations, to promote solutions to those issues. Pretty quickly, they would find other groups with similar concerns, and so they would co-ordinate their activities to pressure relevant bodies, perhaps governments, to resolve inequities or right wrongs.

<That's what I thought might happen back in the early seventies, when representative bodies were proposed for Indigenous people - that local bodies, and then regional bodies, would be organised and set up first, then state bodies and a federal body, by whatever name, it diddn't matter. Issues and mobilisation would come from the people themselves, so I thought. The point was that issues and concerns had to come from the grassroots UP, not from some government-appointed, lap-dog body DOWN.>

Yes, of course there are other options besides the tried and failed ones that, as Individual says, get re-cycled over and over again, simply because people can't think of what else to do. Organising voluntary bodies, independent of government funding, seems to have worked for other ethnic groups, Vietnamese, Dutch, Maltese, the various Greek communities, so why not for Indigenous people ? The initiative should be with them alone.

Forty years is a working life-time, Alan. How many of those do you have ?

Meanwhile, the Indigenous population inexorably moves to the towns and cities. Inexorably, the numbers of tradespeople and university graduates build up, and their influence, one would hope, becomes greater. What might be the outcome of those two processes is for Indigenous people as a whole to decide and I am full of hope for the next couple of decades. And yes, for the next forty years. People have agency, they are not passive victims, and their future should be in their hands.

Joe

@Loudmouth
Pt. 1.
Firstly I'd question your claim to support the Greens while spouting the typical Conservative rhetoric & posting links to Aboriginal neo-con opinion pieces.

If you actually knew anything about the Greens, you would know that it's their Senators & leaders who, with drastically less resources, actually bothered to rock up to Indigenous community based events & rallies dedicated (not to the almighty dollar) but to the protection of rights most other Aussies fully enjoy without them being infringed upon.

"..Of course, whatever 'a largely traditional lifestyle' might mean in the context of welfare and royalty incomes, Toyotas and half-million-dollar homes. Are people actually living 'a largely traditional lifestyle'? I don't know, I don't think so..."

It is the governments who implement & defend strategies that do bugger all (if anything) to achieve better employment outcomes on communities, quell the welfare trap or refuse to support local organisations adequately. Being drip fed doesn't give you a chance to thrive, but means you're lucky if you survive!

I take offence to your accusations about defining 'traditional lifestyles' & questioning what Indigenous peoples do with private royalty payments (that is compensation for them & nothing to do with you!).

Traditional lifestyles have been maintained as best they can, in the face of oppression ,institutionalisation... virtual cultural genocide forcing us (sometimes) to relocate time & time again, drop our heritage to be Anglicized, constantly being torn between two cultures/societies only to then have mud slung in our face accusing us (on 1 hand) of not being black enough (while on the other hand & with a big stick) being corralled into the mainstream...

Pt. 2
Since every Tom, Dick & Kardiya Wajalla seems to be an expert Indigenous adviser, here's some tips from the other side... Find out what it is you really expect from Indigenous Australia & ask yourself if that is what's happening (&/or why not)? Secondly, ask yourself if we do actually get equality in service delivery/infrastructure in comparison to other Aussie communities?... Were the (no offence) bushfire ravaged communities declared 'unviable' after the devastation that took place, I think not. There seems to be inconsistency (if not hypocrisy) when it comes to us blackfellas, so while I am well aware how much work needs to be done from both blackfellas & non-Indigenous camps, it is bleeding obvious where all the fingers are pointing...

PS. So how much 1st Aussie cultural heritage were you forced to learn at school or have volunteered to research, not much it looks like!

Kele mwerre, arregenenge!
Dibirdi Gumerungi Bunbajee, Berradkiah-Gununa
(Where the White Doves Fly).

Thanks for the serve, Bunbadgee :) You're right, people can do what they like with their royalty payments, and spend their welfare payments as they wish just like other people; they can live in houses and drive Toyotas - but whether all of that fits in with a traditional lifestyle is questionable. I guess I assume that 'traditional lifesyle' includes a traditional economy, living from hunting and gathering and, as you say, people can't or don't do that much any more. So I'll stick by what I wrote.

How much did I learn at school back in the fifties ? Not much, but at my school, the houses all had Aboriginal names: Wandoo, Nardoo, Mulga and Wilga. We listened to Harold Blair and learnt about how astute Sturt was to respect and follow tribal boundaries, and so on. I hope kids therse days learn a great deal more.

Volunteered research, etc.? My wife Maria was Indigenous, my kids are Indigenous, we lived for years in one community and the best part of a year in another. Through the seventies, we made Aboriginal flags after work and sent them around the country, free (probably the first one you ever saw was one of ours). Maria opened up a pre-school in one community where I set up a vegetable garden. We found, re-typed and circulated the birth, death, marriage and school records of my wife's community, and constructed genealogies - and clan affiliations - of most of the families there, and circulated them. We typed up the 600-page journal of the first missionary there, and the 1000-page letter-books of the superintendents. We studied the annual reports of the AFA from the 1860s through to the 1960s. We drafted a history of education at that community. I researched the income and employment conditions at another community. Between us, we worked for forty years in Indigenous tertiary student support.

Sorry, Bunbadgee, I don't speak Arrentye, only some Ngarrindjeri: we put together a 120-page grammar and vocabulary of the language too, come to think of it.

Joe

Thanks for this, Bunbadgee. Agree that traditional lifestyles have continued “in the face of oppression , institutionalisation ... virtual cultural genocide forcing us (sometimes) to relocate time and time again, drop our heritage to be Anglicized, constantly being torn between two cultures …” It has been a privilege to have visited traditional people both in Arnhem Land and Central Australia who have copped all this yet still retain powerful stories, art, music, language and lore.

Joe and I have been discussing replacing the current state and federal government Aboriginal departments with an elected Indigenous body – like ATSIC but set up properly by Indigenous people themselves, not foisted on them.

There is an argument that this is necessary, though by no means sufficient, to restore confidence and hope. This argument has won me. What do you reckon?

For what it's worth, Bunbadgee, I have thought of myself as being on the Left from birth, coming from a CPA family. But for the past fifty years, I've tried to think for myself and not just mindlessly go along with whatever passes for left-wing du jour. So I don't have any trouble asking the question again:

<does the Left want to 'Close the Gap', or 'Maintain the Gap' ?>

Ask your friends: if you get a straight answer, you might be disagreeably surprised :)

You might then want to ask another question:

<who are the real conservatives these days ?>

Joe Lane
Adelaide