[contd.]

Including housing leases: clearly, if community tenants could lease the land that their houses were on, say for 99 years, they could also buy them, or be required to buy them, and no longer be tenants. They could pay off their houses - and be totally responsible for them - with royalties (and they would not have to pay for the land, only for the house on it, apart from a minimal lease-fee). But again, as long as they can rent, some public housing authority is responsible for repairs and ultimately providing new houses every few years. Sweet.

Community people are not stupid: lifelong unemployment, royalties and housing provided forever by some outside body at relatively low rental - who would want to knock these back ?

But the price is - some would say, I couldn't possibly comment - the loss of a sense of humanity, of any common feeling with other Australians who work for a living, and any chance of ever being able to contribute in any way to one's own support, or to the society which feeds them.

Cheers,

Joe

Loudmouth, you are spot on.

The first step towards getting off welfare, is wanting to.

They get to hunt and gather, if they choose, knowing that the money will still be in their banks.

Thank god they don't get the chance to waste it so much now.

"Thank god they don't get the chance to waste it so much now."

I don't know so much about that. 90 percent of the people in the Alice Springs Casino seemed to be aboriginals last winter when I was there.

David

What is "Aboriginal Culture"? The answer would likely be as diverse as the "indigenous" population today.

If the culture or subculture of any particular community is a good healthy one then the people will need minimal scrutiny and less assistance. What help is afforded will likely be made good use of.

If the opposite is true, does any decent Australian believe that the innocents, the weaker and vulnerable members of those communities should be free game for the 'dingoes'?

I'm sick of the whole aboriginal thing and so are the majority of Australians. Sure they suffered as a result of white 'invasion' but what race or society hasn't suffered at the hands of another stronger group over the thousands of years? Today there are opportunities galore. About time the 'poor me' - you white fellas owe me a living' mentality was squashed. And the 'we want to make our own decisions and if that includes drinking, bashings, rapings, child neglect and abuse that's our choice' mentality that seems to have some support from the author of this article needs to be wiped - totally

D-man, in other words, it's time to move on.

Now as for my comment about less wasted, I was referring to quarantining of their welfare.

Something else some of their leaders feel is unfair and unawarrsnted.

Perhaps it's time to given them an ultimatum, toe the line, or be cut off.

Let's face it, no other race gets the freedom to miss mange and waste their way through life, at the expense of the tax payer.

Why should they!

I know many Australian Indigenous who genuinely want to do things which we see as getting on with life. Problem 1. bureaucracy, whenever they propose anything there's always something more some bureaucratic outfit demands. People just give up instead of trying to satisfy the many idiotic requirements. Licenses, permits, qualifications, the insane meet the criteria etc. Most people can do things to help themselves. The problem are the idiotic hangers-on bureaucrats who stifle every & any initiative. We need to decentralise this insanity to break it into more sensible & workable pieces. How can some highly educated idiot in Brisbane know what's good for a community on Cape York ? He can't & he doesn't yet he has the power to ruin whatever good propositions there are. You just have to look at the wild rivers legislation. Why don't they declare rivers in the south wild & see how they go.
How about declaring Mt Panorama a nature reserve ? How about stopping tourists & bureaucrats from coming up here to prevent the many flus very year ? Why do people have to pay for a permit to do things on their own land ? Get real morons !