"my patience is very low"
THAT is what you assume is "implying threats to use violence"?
Wrong again. Nice try though. :)

Anyway, you might be aware that we have granted, and continue to analyze formal requests to grant traditional Aboriginal areas NATIVE TITLE; certainly if these areas would request more autonomy, it would be of no skin off our back? Anyone not of their race who has residency in these areas will surely be just as successful in playing a role in government in these regions, as an Aboriginal Australian would be to get into federal politics, right? Just as the right of the Scots to legislate in Scotland but also to elect members in the UK Parliament seems not to upset many English people; they simply accept that if they don't like it, they would call for Scotland to be booted out entirely, or accept that permitting a not-quite voluntary nation within their union some local autonomy is a perfectly reasonable concession. Knowing well that this union primarily represents England and thus representing English viewpoints satisfactorily, or, feeling it doesn't, could always follow the Scots example and demand for themselves a regional autonomous body, and be perfectly equal.

Again, a lot of song and dance over a simple concept that the "Whiny Poms" are whining a lot less about and actually agreed to it long ago.

AGIR, you are going to have to point me to the specific sentence of paragraph where Dodson makes that claim. I've just done a word search on the text, just in case I missed something, and "Christ" including its various derivatives as well, does not come up once.

Dear Graham...it was not in the article Pat wrote but it is in his wiki bio *here*

//He was the first Indigenous Australian Roman Catholic priest, reasons for leaving the priesthood in the early 1980s included Dodson's understanding that traditional Aboriginal ceremonies and Christianity can be reconciled and his rejection of clergy celibacy.//

It's from wikipedia...a bio of Pat.
But it nevertheless is about him and his background.

I was addressing his position from the bio...not the article. I don't think we can understand the article without knowing more about the man and any position he happens to hold on particular issues.

For me the key for the article is what does he 'mean' by "reconciliation" ?

Given that the bio indicates what it means to him, i.e..that

*traditional Aboriginal ceremonies and Christianity can be reconciled*

I don't see why that belief cannot be addressed...

I provided the source link...

Back in the days of Whitlam, indigenous activists and social scientists led the public and politicians to believe that self managing communities would be the solution. From then on the Spinifex curtain that was quickly drawn down on indigenous communities ensured that media scrutiny was prevented.

For decades millions of dollars of taxpayers money were tipped into 'indigenous affairs' under the guiding hands of a special department and other governmental bodies staffed with indigenous workers and advised by academics and other consultants (certified 'sensitive' to the indigenous) who supplied services for apparently endless needs. The demand was for a never-emptying trough of public money and self-management. The mantra was to let aboriginals manage themselves because they knew best - along with the hordes of consultants, of course. Even the usual reporting for expenditure of 'guvvy' money was declared discriminatory, though the Australian National Audit Office still managed to get a leg in when the proverbial hit the fan, which it often did.

In all honesty, it was only the occasional whistle-blower (so often medical professionals who were quickly damned and their careers ruined for having the temerity to comment on indigenous matters by advocates of the people they were trying to help) who managed to lift the Spinifex curtain to make a shocked public aware of what was really going on. The many nurses, teachers and other public servants who tried to help the vulnerable women and children in the communities were more easily silenced, often by their own managers who feared the certainty of retaliation through accusations of racism and discrimination.

tbc

contd.

The social experiment of creating a nation within a nation has already been tried and it has been an abject failure. Anyone who has had occasion to drive through (you never stop for fear of abuse, theft and assault) townships like,
Wiluna
Arukun
Walgett
Brewarrina
Bourke (Crystal City!)
Halls Creek
Roebourne
Wilcannia
South Hedland
Dubbo
Moree
(..need I go on?), would agree that it isn't more autonomy, more guvvy hand-outs or more experts that is needed by the indigenous people, it is the full-time employment that develops self-reliance and self-respect. That and law enforcement to protect the vulnerable, resident and visitor alike, from drunken bullies.

It is a wry but common joke that newly trained school teachers and doctors arrive in these towns preaching understanding and indigenous rights, only to depart cursing at the end of their compulsory stint, vowing never to return again.

You just don't encounter a similar extent of violence and drunkenness among indigenous stockmen and other workers. It isn't necessary for the property or business to have indigenous ownership, it is the full-time employment that makes all the difference. It isn't the money, it is the job, something productive to do with available time.

Although it is heartening to see so many indigenous students successfully completing tertiary studies, there is plenty of opportunity in skilled and semi-skilled trades, as evidenced by the demand for migrant workers. The problem is that the employment simply isn't available in country towns and isolated communities. Walling off more of Australia and permitting indigenous communities to approve entry and levy taxes (eg., visitor fees and mining royalties) add to existing problems and do not increase jobs.

It is great to read Pat Dodson's speech on OLO. This is a high calibre article.

Pat suggests that dialogue is an integral path to reconcilliation but sometimes this meaningjul conversation is deralied by those who are to afraid to let go of their preconcieved ideas and hatred.

Most of the posts are not on topic or are hellbent on denigrating Pat - why? What makes people so afraid of opening their hearts and mind and engaging in meaningful and constructive conversation with Indigenous Australians.

Australia does need reconcilliation for as long as Indigenous Australians are subjugated and live in poverty relevant to other Australians, Australia as a nation will never be the first world, socially just, and egalitarian society it likes to think itself to be.

Non-Indigenous Australians need reconcilliation so they can walk tall without the taint of hidded dirty past deeds, and ongoing dirty deeds like the NT intervention.