The Forum > Article Comments > Can Australia afford not to be reconciled? > Comments
Can Australia afford not to be reconciled? : Comments
By Patrick Dodson, published 3/12/2010Patrick Dodson's reflections on the way forward for indigenous Australians
- Pages:
-
- 1
- 2
- 3
- ...
- 10
- 11
- 12
- Page 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
-
- All
Hazza,
Sorry for misreading some of your points. But your insoluble problem is that there is nowhere in Australia, no region, let alone state or territory, which is populated only by Indigenous people: everywhere, and the larger the entity, non-Indigenous people are in the majority. In Australia, as a formal democracy, everywhere, non-Indigenous voters are in the majority, and I really don't hear any calls for autonomy, let alone statehood, let alone independence from them.
Of course, there are settlements and towns and villages and out-stations which are overwhelmingly Indigenous, but I'm presuming that you are advocating separate rule for entities which are large enough to be called regions ? Are you proposing that the non-Indigenous people there should not be able to vote on issues to do with federal-regional relationships ? If they can vote on those issues (that's if those issues ever get raised), then why hasn't it happened already ?
Please consider chucking aside this notion: I'm not saying that you are racist, but this notion is fundamentally racist. Mansell's notion of an independent Black Australia is a racist idea, especially if it presumes that there are parts of Australia which are NOT Indigenous: all of Australia is Indigenous and also non-Indigenous: it belongs to all of us - apart from the private property rights (including Native Title rights), of course.
Alison,
Any private property owned by an Indigenous group or individual is still private property - you can't go onto it, any more than any Indigenous or non-Indigenous person can come into your yard, on onto your property without cause. BUT -
* any roadway, facility, school, clinic, etc., on Indigenous land, which has been financed by public funds, is a public facility: you and I can make use of it. If a publicly-funded road goes through an Indigenous community, then you and I can drive on it. We can send our kids to the school there, get treated at the clinic there, use the publicly-funded airfield there if they have one.
And vice-versa.
[TBC]