Hi Rainier,

Still waiting for your email :)

I'm not sure that we are disagreeing - if the Minister is misusing the funds that accrue from mining royalties for Aboriginal people, then that is reprehensible. But if funds are going towards housing, i.e. the public provision of housing for Aboriginal people on their land, IF that is the case, then that seems reasonable.

Yes, you are right that people have been conned into signing " .... use agreements which are not founded on recognition of Aboriginal land ownership beyond the weakest set of usafructory rights that native title law provides."

From 1851 right up to the nineties, in the Pastoral Acts of each State and Territory (even Victoria), the rights of Aboriginal people to enter, travel over, hunt and gather on, collect water on, carry out ceremonies on and camp on, every pastoral lease (except about four or five that were issued in the NT between 1911 and 1924, and they expired at least fifty years ago), 'as if this lease had not been made' were recognised. i.e. on all pastoral leases and on all Crown land. As you say, usufructuary rights; effectively all of the rights that they ever enjoyed over their land, except the right to exclude others from their land.

After Mabo, at a time when people were so 'sure' that they actually had no recognised rights at all - remember "We got nothin' ! We got nothin' !" ? - and their lawyers did such a poor job of checking the actual, existing situation (surely something they learn in Law I?) that ILUA negotiations started from that foundation, a foundation of nothing, and inched their way painfully towards the present-day situation whereby Aboriginal people now have to front a committee and get a permit, before they can go on a pastoral lease (and probably crown land, I don't know), i.e. onto their own land. In other words, less than they already had. Brilliant.

I certainly hope that there are plenty of Aboriginal lawyers now being fully trained up in Land Law.

[TBC]

[contd.]

.... and all the ins and outs of all the laws pertaining to mining, mining tax, royalties, etc. etc.

I am interested in anything which ENABLES Aboriginal people, gives them more strength through skills, knowledge, experience and expertise. To me, self-determination means doing more and more for themselves, capturing more and more of the powers over their lives from the well-meaning hands of outsiders. Making their own decisions, making their own mistakes and correcting them, taking direct, day-to-day control. I'm not interested in anything which makes people more dependent, which disarms them, or infantilises them, even if sugar-coated. In other words, anything which takes away their human responsibilities, which treats people as if they are inherently incapable. Surely to treat people that way is racist ? The racism of soft expectations ?

I don't agree with your easy insult, but if you define all that as neo-conservative, I'm happy to wear the tag :)

Cheers, Rainier,

Joe
joelane94@hotmail.com

Check your email Joe /Loudmouth.

Thanks, Rainier,

I'll take on-board everything you write about royalties and their abuse.

Cheers,

Joe

In the Australian's Weekend Magazine section this week, is a very interesting article on Aboriginality and how it is variously defined. The author of this article features in it.

It raises some very difficult issues, especially that of entitlement: if someone discovers that one great-grandparent (we each have eight) or great-great-grandparent (we each have sixteen) was possibly Aboriginal, to what extent is that person entitled to the benefits which have been earmarked for Aboriginal people on the grounds that they need them ?

And in a society with a racist past, in which - on the whole - the paler a person, the wider the range of opportunities were available, the fewer barriers were erected, and on the whole the better education one would have received, then it does seem a little unfair that very pale people can hop in and take benefits that may be implicitly intended for much darker, more 'Aboriginal-looking' people ?

Especially if those darker, more 'Aboriginal-looking' people have been raised in the bosom of Aboriginal families from birth, who have been reminded daily, by both Black and White all around them, that they are Aboriginal and nothing but Aboriginal, and who have copped so much more of the negatives of our society ?

So, as Anthony has written many times, here and in articles on The Drum, why not distribute benefits on the basis of need ?

One other point: during the nineteenth century, local-born Whites - as opposed to blow-ins from the home country - formed 'Natives' Associations e.g. the Australian Natives' Association, etc. Many people of those times, 1860-1930, had 'Australian Native' recorded on documents, such as death certificates.

Something similar happened in South and Central American countries - they were 'criollos', 'creoles', whites born and embedded in the colonies. Some were aristocrats, San Martin in Argentina for example: his ancestral colours were light blue and white, adopted later in the national flag. Bolivar was another Criollo aristocrat.

So how many 'Aboriginal' people are there out there getting benefits on the strength of a 'Native' ancestor ? Perhaps of aristocratic English ancestry ?

Joe Loudmouth, your premise on Aboriginality is incorrect, there a thousands of Aboriginal people that do not atypically Aboriginal (whatever this means). Some look like Anglo's, other show their Chinese or Malay ancestry. I have many stolen generation family and friends who we rediscovered over the past 3 decades. Andrew Bolt's and Dr Dillon's covert attempts to revive the quantum racist sceicne of the measurement of Aboriginality is a disgrace. Aboriginal affairs is the longest race experiment in history. John McCorquodale (legal scholar) analysis of 700 separate pieces of legislation dealing specifically with "Aborigines or Aboriginal matters" - or other seemingly non-Aboriginal matters - found no less than 67 identifiable
classifications, descriptions, or definitions have been used from the time of European settlement to the present.

Question: What does a typical white Australian look like? John Howard, Pauline Hanson, Wilson Tucky?

Of course this is a silly question because 'white people' can rightly claim to having diversity of appearance. Why then do not Aboriginal people have the same claim?

The simple answer to this is that most white people don't have to think about what it means to be white and for me this is highly unusual given they only represent less than 8 percent of the world population.

The three part definition used by Aboriginal people and organisations to define Aboriginality is:

three-part definition requiring all 3 parts to be established for Aboriginality to be recognised:
•descent (the individual can prove that a parent is of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent);
•self-identification (the individual identifies as an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander); and
•community recognition (the individual is accepted as such by the Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander community in which he/she lives).