Not being able to speak the truth for fear of reprisals is exactly what keeps the truth from coming out from academics. The main losers are people on the ground. Again Dr Anthony is to be congratulated for his courage. No doubt he is aware of legal action taken by the industry against Bolt for expressing an opinion most would agree with.

Runner, thank you for your thoughtful contribution. I am well aware of what happened with Bolt. Have you read the reviews of Anita Heiss' book on Amazon? OMG.

Aka, why do I have to keep repeating myself with you?
"You clearly dismiss the research ... one from the AMA. So how do you do your research? Is there any literature you do agree with besides the few you have cited? Do you dismiss any view that is not compatible with yours regardless of the gravitas of the the researcher?"

I don't just "dismiss any view that is not compatible with mine regardless of the gravitas of the the researcher?" I dismiss it when it is flawed. When someone makes a statement like "The earth is the centre of the solar system" or even worse "Aboriginal people are suffering because of colonisation" that is not research, it is simply a statement. Only a fool would believe it to be research. When statements of a causal nature are made (eg, colonisation causes problems today) then causality needs to be established. And most importantly, counter examples that would seem to debunk the claim need to be addressed.

There are a lot of alternative, strengths based approaches that people have presented to redress the significant concerns that exist in the Northern Territory.

I would suggest you start with ANTAR Policy Paper "A Better Way: Building Healthy, Safe and Sustainable Communities in the Northern Territory through a Community Development Approach. This is available here http://www.antar.org.au/issues_and_campaigns

Emma,

"ANTaR's A Better Way: Success Stories in Aboriginal community-control in the Northern Territory" publication, released in 2010, which calls on governments to empower Aboriginal organisations and communities to drive solutions to the challenges they face.

A publication "which calls on governments to empower Aboriginal organisations and communities to drive solutions to the challenges they face."

Gee, what a brilliant, new idea. But ....... isn't this precisely what governments, Federal and State, have been trying to do for nearly forty years now ?

To " .... empower Aboriginal organisations and communities to drive solutions to the challenges they face" ?

So why hasn't it worked yet ? It may well do, perhaps at Wadeye, but I wouldn't want to put my working career on it.

Simple question: what if people, communities, elders, etc., simply don't have the expertise to 'drive solutions to the challenges they face" ?

Would you expect the people, elders, etc. up and down your street to have all the know-how and expertise to "drive solutions" to every challenge that they face, in electricity supply, sewerage disposal, garbage disposal, school and clinic administration, road maintenance, etc., etc. ?

No ?

Then why expect it of people with limited education in small, remote settlements ?

Having just visited a community where we lived for some years in the seventies, a village of thirty or more houses, mostly pretty new, and now all but one abandoned, a community which once had a thriving economic base, equipment and sheds galore, and a set of council chambers fit for a town of a couple of thousand, I'm keen to have a good look at what AnTAR is proposing. Well, sort of.

Should I expect anything startlingly new ? Or more of the same ?

Cheers,

Joe

Tony Dillon has earned a reputation for using unscupulous academic methodology to prosecute, as Rainer notes, his self-loathing and conflict with identity. He once claimed atrocities committed against Aborigines were the outcome of a love affair gone wrong.

As usual, in his state of utter confusion, Tony misses the point altogether. The essential problem of Aboriginal disadvantage is the misogynist fraud which passes for governance in Australia, leadership appointed by a majority of men, a Cabinet comprised of seventeen men and a token five women, a parliament women attend by male consent, law without a women's jurisdiction, and so forth, all of which can be fixed simpy with the provision of the Aboriginal tradition of governance by agreement between women's and men's legislative assemblies, presided over by elders.

When Tony and his colleagues decide to address the cause of Aboriginal advantage instead of blowharding incessantly about their own self-righteous concerns, all Australians will be better off, not that their purile rants particularly effect anything anyway.

While it's sad to see the perpetators of male privilege swoop like vultures on Tony's excruciating public pain to further their insidious cause, his commentary also speaks volumes to the depth to which tertiary standards have descended in the death throes of the discrimination Europeans introduced.

* When Tony and his colleagues decide to address the cause of Aboriginal disadvantage ...