I agree with Andrew that Labor has made a bad situation worse with its “rights” based ideology. But disagree with Andrew that “enforcing the rules which exist in the rest of the country” will work either.

Well meaning Labor ideologues are utterly convinced that all human races and ethnicities must be equal in every way, and therefore everyone on planet earth must have equal rights. Rather perversely, by some application of Doublethink, these same people demand that indigenous people should have different rights than everybody else. That sure looks like racism to me. But these people seem to think entirely in moral absolutes and are unable to discern the contradictions in their own orthodoxy. Hence they can support the UN’s new “Indigenous Rights”, which differ from other "Human Rights", without clashing mental gears.

One right of equality which the left wingers utterly demanded was the right of aborigines to drink alcohol like white people. When it was pointed out that the consequences for aboriginal people would be catastrophic, the lefties were nonplussed. Every race must be equal, and nothing less than that was acceptable. This stupid policy created much of the ghastly problem which we see now today. Unable to admit that they were wrong all along because something was fundamentally wrong with their sacred ideology, we see the left wingers wasting squillions of sorely needed taxpayer dollars with all sorts of expensive programs to alleviate the damage they created.

Past administrations simply took it for granted that aboriginal people were not very intelligent, and that the white administrations had a responsibility to look after them. These administrations enforced race based rules which were designed to protect aborigines and to give the aboriginal kids a chance. From my perspective, I think that this paternalistic and racist approach was far more successful in alleviating aboriginal dysfunction.

But the Humanitarians think that they are the keepers of the gate for all that is good and holy, that they are the intelligent ones, and for them to admit hat they were ever wrong would be a particularly unpalatable piece of crow to eat

The Commonwealth government continues its' previous disgraceful approach to policy, continue disgrace making bad situations worse, restrict people in these situations from improving.

Responsibility rests upon current and previous Commonwealth MPs.

Australian's overwhelming vote on their 1967 Constitutional amendment confirmed their intent that their constitution restrict government to policy based upon equality of rights and opportunities for ALL Australians - policy without racial identification.

Governments continued pass legislation, to govern, using their own definitions and principles of racism.

Governments constantly re-defined the rights and responsibilities of Australians to suit their racial identification.

The Commonwealth Attorney-General told Parliament the racial test does NOT exist, nor will one be implemented in Australia.

The Commonwealth Attorney-General needs explain how and why they qualify rights and responsibilities by this non-existent test !

The Commonwealth applies the Himmler principle: tell lies long enough and loud enough and many will come to accept it.

Real issue is why do so many Australians - despite their wide cultural backgrounds, continue to permit Australian MPs application of racial rights policy ?

Forcing the Commonwealth to cease their racial testing of Australians does NOT stop them helping needy Australians

“The entire cohort of Aboriginal youth can now refuse interviews, training and job offers with impunity” says the Hon Andrew Laming, Federal Member for Bowman, implying that when he ‘the Honorable Liberal’ will topple the ‘Honorable Labor’ one, now in charge of the Aboriginal Affairs portfolio, he will substitute impunity with punishment.

It is the language of all politicians. ‘If you don’t do as I say, off to jail, if you are lucky.

It has gone on for two hundred and thirty years in this country, and yet, these blacks refuse to adapt to our civilization.

Since those ships poured us, the white, on their shore, we have insisted (with bullets) that the Aborigine, the black, have to learn our ways.

Isn’t it a bit as saying that if the Aboriginal had gone to England, the English would have had to learn the Aboriginal ways?

But here we are; we’ll never know how the world would have shaped if the latter event had happened but the little that we know is clear and simple: Politicians are vindictive animals.

Oh for god's sake, are you people serious? Putting aside Andrew's natural bias (he's proudly LNP for f%$k's sake) can't you see the point being made? The lifestyle of some people who identify as "indigenous" and who live away from Australian work/lifestyle hubs (like cities) is something that would be unacceptable to most people. Be honest. Is this not true? Assuming you are capable of seeing that it is, what to do? A possible answer - DON'T encourage people to remain in geographic outposts unless there is something that can economically or strategically (e.g. defence) support that decision. And please don't subsidise (due to feelings of colonial guilt alone) anyone who wishes to stay in a remote outpost. I don't see how subsiding lifestyle decisions is the lot of government.

Sorry, bitey -- that's far too sensible. No, let's continue to hurl taxpayers' money at the Indigenous people to live -- if you can call it 'living' -- in remote squalor, and the white support staff who 'service' them.

I certainly don't agree with LEGO on this one, but Skeptic's comments are just plain silly. Who is being threatened with jail for not working ? If someone doesn't want to work, then they don't get paid: no problem. If they commit offences in order to avoid both working and being broke, then like anybody else, they are either fined or incarcerated. No problem. Do the crime, do the time.

As for your comment that Aboriginal people have refused to adapt, one only has to look at early history almost everywhere to understand how quickly people actually did adapt. Along the Murray, the first parties of overlanders bringing cattle and sheep from Sydney to SA asked local people to track lost animals - which they did, from the first day. Along the south coast of SA, the whaling industry (which wanted the bone, skin and oil from whales) and the local Aboriginal people (who wanted the meat) came to a very rapid symbiotic agreement which sucked populations towards the whaling sites in great numbers. Wherever a frontier town was set up, it very quickly attracted people from way out beyond the 'frontier', almost everywhere.

Refusing to adapt to 'our' civilization ? Don't get too far up yourself, Skeptic: there are now more than twenty six thousand Indigenous university graduates (one in every nine adults) and close to half of all young Aboriginal kids can expect to go to uni at some time in their lives from now on - actually since about 2006. Fifty thousand by 2020, one in six or seven adults.

'Your' civilization ? Aboriginal people were crewing ships to New Zealand at least since 1814, they helped to build the first railway line in Australia (1852), helped to build the transnational telegraph, were probably on hand when the first plane flew in Australia, the first car was driven in Australia. The winner of the first open educational contest in Australia (1816) was an Aboriginal girl, Maria Locke, from Blacktown. Read and learn, mate.

Joe

loudmouth, why is every successive government ends up doing roughly the same thing, with the odd tweak here and there?

Why does nothing improve, regardless of the resources expended?

I can't help but feel sorry for the kids who grow up without technology and the rest of the things Australian kids take for granted.

The biggest problem seems to be the isolation, and it is also the reaction of just about everyone when you talk about this subject. Why do they stay in isolation?

If I want something that is somewhere else, I do without, or move or something.

I just see some parts of the community see the isolation as good, and "aboriginal", as if moving will remove the requirement for an industry to meet, and confer and travel and wring their hands and berate all other Australians .. as if it's our fault they are in isolation.

It's great to see some of the younger ones getting educated and I see you repeat this constantly, but it's not enough is it. The rest of the communities stay behind and the problem remains.

I can't ever see this not being a problem, as long as we treat them as different to everyone else.

We need to treat them the same as other Australians with the same obligations, if you want that lifestyle, then bloody weel get off your bum and move.

Stop the handouts for 'special" Australians, and the industry that promotes separation will die, thankfully.

truly I see the aboriginal industry and the well intentioned idiots who promote the zoo that is outback aboriginal "culture" as being the biggest problem, and don't even get me started on the UN!

Like most Australians I want these people to be as well off and happy as the rest of us, but it is beyond belief that the industry can keep things the way they are without evolving .. the industry itself is racist in insisting aboriginals are different and must be treated so.

@ Loudmouth

Footnote to your comment:
<< If someone doesn't want to work, then they don't get paid: no problem. If they commit offences in order to avoid both working and being broke, then like anybody else, they are either fined or incarcerated. No problem. Do the crime, do the time.>>

Except, that we know from experience, when a sizable number of one group ( Aboriginal or others) ends up unemployed or in jail,in our --- multicultural , everyone in ethnic pigeon hole , society -- it is inevitably “found” to be a evidence of society's crimes : systematic discrimination!

Hi Amicus,

I don't disageree with your comments, except to say that I have some trust that government policies - and even if the Coalition were the government - are slowly changing on the one hand, and that there is a much bigger proportion of Indigenous people who are NOT bludging on welfare than you might think, perhaps two-thirds or three-quarters.

SPQR,

No, you are way off the mark. Indigenous people now have a wide range of opportunities in addition to those available to ther Australians. The Employment Covenant of Andrew Forrest is one major initiative. As well, universities still (as far as I am aware0 provide a measure of specific student preparation and support for Indigenous people - commencements, enrolments and graduations are at record levels. Indigenous women are commencing uni study at close to the rate for NON-Indigenous men.

But meanwhile, those who pursue lifelong welfare and seem to see it as some sort of feudal right, yes, they are committing offences at a far higher rate than other Australians, including working Indigenous people. Yes, do the crime, do the time. Otherwise, seize the opportunities that are available - even if they almost invariably require effort, study, input, work. Indigenous people have the option to either work, study, live off the land (if they are so 'traditional') OR commit offences and go to jail. I'm not losing any sleep over them.

And just to stir the possum, it's worth repeating that the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in custody found that they were no more likely to die in custody than other prisoners: 23 % of prisoners (back in the days of the Commission) were Indigenous, 22 % of the deaths were Indigenous. What else would you expect ? 2.5 % ? And if only 1 % of prisoners were Indigenous, would you still expect 2.5 % of deaths to be Indigenous ? In the NT, where 80 % of the prisoners are Indigenous, what would you expect - 2.5 % or 80 % ?

[TBC]

[cont.]

The disgraceful reality is that Indigenous people - especially those who are unemployed - are far more likely to suicide OUTSIDE OF custody than other Australians, up to ten or fifteen times in many remote 'communities'.

Where is the outrage about that ?

Joe