Transki, it is politically correct, well meaning people like you who are dooming some Indigenous children to a life of abuse, neglect and early death. All in the name of some misguided notion of ensuring the 'stolen generation' never happens again.

I never suggested the kids should leave their communities at all. They should stay with friends or family who will treat them like they deserve to be treated. There are good, kind people in all Aboriginal communities - thus ensuring that not all kids would be removed, as you seem to think would happen.

Are the numerous present day Indigenous children, who are being abused and neglected today, to be ignored in the interests of ensuring we never have another 'stolen generation'?

We can't ignore them, or the cycle of sexual abuse, domestic violence and neglect will just go on and on.

Suzeonline when you wrote they need to be "removed from the situation" you did not qualify that statement in any way whatsoever.

Unfortunately, it's politically correct people like you suzeonline, who make no distinction between removing aboriginal children in remote communities compared to removing children from an inner city broad community, who have traditionally been responsible for dooming some aboriginal children to abuse, neglect and cultural isolation.

I repeat, as I said earlier, the health, social and cultural needs of remote aboriginal communities are NOT the same as the wider community. You have just shown you don't understand that basic fact of life for these people.

Coming in as an outsider, and informing these people that YOU know what's best for them NEVER works. That approach is the same tired old politically correct way of doing things that's failed dismally for over 200 years. Drop the political correctness suzeonline, and think about the aboriginal people. We need to stop blaming them for what we've done to them over 200 years. The only thing that can work is an all encompassing "inclusive" approach. People need to understand that traditional aboriginal people are not inferior people to the wider community of Australia - - - - the old style political correctness of "we know best" has worked against aboriginal people, not for aboriginal people. All my comments on this thread refer to remote aboriginal communities.

The Prime Minister’s announcement of her new Ministry last Saturday provoked an anxious response from the "Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health sector"
Some of the Aboriginal Elite. With appropriate noises at appropriate times.

“A number of organisations, including ANTaR, publicly expressed their concerns about this change and the shift it seemed to signal.” More of the Aboriginal Victim Industry (AVI) Bull Shot !!

"Post by suzeonline, Friday, 17 September 2010 10:24:25 PM."
This one's all-right.

Post by Loudmouth, Friday, 17 September 2010 5:23:41 PM
"There are already around five thousand Indigenous organisations in Australia, employing perhaps tens of thousands of relatives and friends, with a combined budget into the billions. The main purpose of many organisations appears to be to maintain the current income stream and employment make-up of the organisations. Period.
I'd take a wild guess and say that the majority of Indigenous people have no desire to come within cooee of these organisations"
This part of this one is good too.
Arthur Bell. For more info www.whitc.info

Transki <"We need to stop blaming them for what we've done to them over 200 years."

I don't know about you Transki, but I have never 'done' anything to Indigenous communities in my lifetime.
I don't have any guilt like you seem to feel.

I have worked in Aboriginal communities in the North of Australia, as well as with Urban Aboriginal people. Have you?
I don't draw a line at only assisting remote community Indigenous people.

The only way of dealing with Aboriginal health issues is with education.
We can't keep looking back in history and blaming all their health problems on everyone else.
They need to take some responsibility for any changes that need to occur.

We need to use 'white' people to provide the bulk of the health care to these communities simply because there aren't enough qualified Aboriginal health professionals to deal with the huge issues involved.

We can't ignore the abuse and neglect of innocent children in any community - Indigenous or not.

Transki,

The inconvenient truth is that the Aboriginal groups which have had the least involvement with non-Indigenous people, who have suffered the least, who are on their own land, who are not within cooee of any whitefellas, seem to be the groups with the worst health problems, the highest rates of domestic violence and child abuse, and of murder and suicide. They also seem to be the most utterly dependent on all manner of outside support, so 'self-determination' seems to have turned into its opposite over the last forty years.

Meanwhile, mainly in the south and in cities, more than 25,000 Indigenous people have graduated from universities around the country. Enrolments and graduations are at record levels. Indigenous women are commencing university study at a HIGHER rate than NON-Indigenous Australian men. Not being on their own land, they nevertheless are seizing the opportunities that are available and putting in the hard work to make something of their lives - which might be described as 'self-determination'.

Suzeonline you know very well what is meant by "we need to stop blaming them for what we've done to them", so please drop the Howard era political correctness of "I have never 'done' anything". You know EXACTLY what I meant, and twisting it to "imply" what it DOESN'T mean does you no service at all. Please drop the political correctness!

You wrote "I don't draw a line at only assisting remote community indigenous people". With that statement you falsely imply that I do. Nice trick there suzeonline, you can't debate reasonably so you make up things that you imply I beleive in, then argue against those made up things. They call that the "strawman" argument.

You wrote "we can't keep looking back in history and blaming all their health problems on everyone else" and "the only way of dealing with Aboriginal health issues is education". You are wrong, wrong, wrong. The only way of dealing with it is a multifaceted and "inclusive" combination of ALL the issues that have lead to the current dysfunctional state of affairs, of which "education" is but one. There is NO clean, easy, simple solution. The history, both recent and past IS a vital ingredient to understanding culture and the people themselves and why the current state of affairs exist. To deny history is 100% pure political correctness. Drop the politics suzeonline, and think about the aboriginal people themselves.

You wrote "they need to take responsibility for any changes that need to occur"; more political correctness there from you suzeonline. Why is that so? It's because "implied" in that statement is that the aboriginal people of Australia have only themselves to blame. It shows a fundamental lack of understanding of aboriginal culture. It's a typical old time "whitey" approach of "let's edgycate 'em, tell 'em what's good for 'em, and if it doesn't work we'll just blame THEM".

Suzeonline, we need to do a whole lot more than just "education". Your post shows to me you have a fundamental lack of understanding of culture.