Joe Lane, another point concerning the definition of who is an Aboriginal.

Consider this. If you look at the number claiming to be Aboriginal in two successive Commonwealth censuses, you will find that there is a significant percentage increase each time. If you apply these figures to a geometric progression, you will find that after we turn over a comparatively small number of generations, almost the whole of the Australian population will be eligible to claim Aboriginality. This is not just conjecture, it is an incontrovertible fact. I wonder what will happen when we get to that point.

David

Joe I think that's a wonderful thing all those young Australians getting on with life and stepping aside from the obvious and easy route to wasted lives. That's the kind of reconciliation that makes sense and I'm more than happy for the government to pour money in it now, since it will not be needed in years to come as these young people join the community and no longer need "special treatment", as a Melbourne singer says.

I do also agree with David VK3etc, that there is another way many people are going and that is to declare aboriginality and thus reap benefits, just for that declaration.

They talk about first peoples, a term borrowed, or stolen, from North America (perhaps they owe someone an apology, but I digress). In North America you cannot just declare your aboriginality and get the benefits you do here, you have to provide proof, beyond just a few loose connections - I doubt anyone in Tasmania would survive the prerequisits if they applied here, way too tenuous.

Reconcilliation seems to be understood by Australian as helping aboriginals join the community and get out of the aweful conditions many are in, as Joe says, many are. To some other aboriginals, it appears to be code for, put your hands out and try to hold as much money as we can fill them with.

Pretty basic, yes, but that's the perception in the community - this new body we all suspect, will attempt to retain the status quo because that's their power base. If all the aboriginals move away from camps, abandon their current destructive lifestyles and join the mainstream, then there is no need for this body.

Most Australians question the need for such bodies, it is divisive and racist in its nature, a misguided reaction to the greedy few.

RPG. You have hit the nail on the head. I couldn't agree more. I have just come back from a trip to the NT and I must say that things are looking up in some areas compared to what they were a few years ago. Alice Springs is still a bit of a worry, but has definitely improved over what it was like 10 years ago.

David

VK3AUU why is it that you feel you have the right to redifine who is or isn't Aboriginal, and why is it that you take offense if your attitude is considered racist?

rpg, you object to the use of the term 'first peoples' claiming it to be a stolen term - yet you do not appear to object to the fact that Australia as a national entity is based on stolen lands, and that you directly benifit from this theft.

There is a certain meanness of spirit here. rpg reconcilliation is not about your version of assimilation and 'helping aboriginals join the community and get out of the aweful conditions many are in'. Have you not understood that these awful conditions you lament are directly caused by colonisation, oppression and the mean spirited racist attitude of blaming some fundamental flaw in Indigenous Australians like those espoused on posts like this.

Before you arc up and the dummy hits the floor, get enlightened on the real history of Australia and its governments heavy handed policies that has ensured that many Indigenous Australians are still battling incredible odds.

I certainly wish the National Congress well as Australia's first peoples need a say in how their country is managed.

G'day, Aka, you took your time :)

I fully agree with you, that 'Australia's first peoples need a say in how their country is managed.' and for that, they certainly need an effective, and dedicated, body of highly capable Indigenous leaders. There is too much as stake this time around for yet another bunch of talkers and rip-off merchants.

Seriously, I think that the Indigenous population is becoming so fragmented, in terms of space and class, that another ten years of inaction - where everybody says, 'Oh yeah, ATSIC [or whatever], they're probably focussing on some other mob, we never hear about them' - will see very sharp distinctions between Indigenous groups, remote/rural vs urban, employed vs unemployed/unemployable, which may never again be bridgeable.

When Maria and I were making Aboriginal Flags back in the early seventies, we thought that it might help to pull people together, to provide a means of unity and solidarity, given that the population was so broken up, across nearly ten million square kilometres, under eight different administrations, with extremely diverse histories over 10-180 years and - truth be told - no former history of any unity whatever, and extreme parochialism, group against group. So we sent dozens of the Flags all over the country, and overseas as well and in her lunch hour, Maria used to take them to visiting artists like B.B. King and Roberta Flack and Nina Simone and the wonderful Buffy Sainte-Marie, who displayed hers over her piano at her concerts: she would ask the crowd, 'I suppose you know what this stands for ?'.

It's not for me to say but I do feel that the Flag did temporarily give people a common tie and it's really a tragedy that some groups are now devising their own p!ssy flags, pushing their own chauvinism and actively fragmenting themselves from other groups.

As long as some new national grouping is active, dedicated, and prepared to deal with the hard realities, there might be a chance. Otherwise it will be no-business as usual, flubbing along, all talk and no policy.

Joe Lane

aka .. it's not "your" country anymore than it is mine .. it is ours, and the sooner you get that, the sooner reconciliation will take place. As long us you keep up this us and them attitude, nothing will ever change, I suspect you don't want it to and that you're very happy to perpetually beat the victim drum.

We're here, we're not leaving, and we pay the bills, all of them.

"Before you arc up and the dummy hits the floor, get enlightened on the real history of Australia"

I could say the same for you. The history, right now, is that the past is the past, we can't change it, we can't keep looking backwards as you perpetually want to do. Australia has not been in colonial circumstances for over 100 years .. why do you hang on to this concept?

Is it comforting to have a scapegoat for your "people's " problems? Less and less do Australians accept this is our fault, it's your fault, we are all responsible for our own happiness and our own lives.

What do you expect to accomplish with this attitude?

Nothing moves forward, because you won't let it, it doesn't matter what the rest of us do because so many aboriginals are stuck, as you are, in the "we're victims" mentality - not all, but you certainly always lean on that.

We can't help you out of that rut, you have to do it yourselves, stop saying it's everyone else's fault, the bottom line it that you are the only ones capable of lifting yourselves out. As long as you blame someone else, it will never end.

"many Indigenous Australians are still battling incredible odds", so join the rest of us and stop "battling" us.

How much do we have to give, how many times, before you stop spitting in our faces and accept that you are what you are.