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The Forum > Article Comments > So who's the problem? > Comments

So who's the problem? : Comments

By Colin Tatz, published 15/11/2013

The record shows a long list of failed 'ations': pacification, segregation, protection-segregation, assimilation, integration...

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This article appears to ask what 'we' should be doing for 'them' - what the non-indigenous community should be doing to improve the lives of the indigenous communities. But I keep wondering - am I responsible for my own life and can I expect anyone else to fix my problems? I may be able to turn to others for help and support, but ultimately only I can decide to stop drinking, lose weight, stop smoking, eat better, stop gambling, stop taking drugs, stop fighting, look after my children, stop hitting my partner etc etc. Perhaps the flaw in 'our' thinking is that we are unable to cure anyone else's problems - we appear to have a lot of difficulty solving our own problems. Non-indigenous communities have problems with alcohol, drugs, suicide, despair, violence, diabetes, obesity, as well as more general global warming, resource depletion, unsustainable economics etc etc. When are indigenous peoples (or anyone) responsible for their own actions and their own solutions? Or are they just as incapable of approaching the problems outlined in this article?
Posted by Chris S, Friday, 15 November 2013 7:21:50 AM
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What a negative, pessimistic article. The last sentence said it all: Can Abbott translate his feelings of care to actual care? No, he can't.
Abbott has been our PM for about five minutes, and already the author is ready to write him off.
To answer the question posed in the title, "So who's the problem?", you are.
Posted by halduell, Friday, 15 November 2013 8:03:42 AM
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I too am an old white man. Well, ‘elderly’, as they say in polite society. Like Colin Tatz I have had a long time to observe, via the media (because I don’t actually get to see what happens in aboriginal communities), how things are going in those poor rural areas. Badly, is what I conclude. What does that say to me? Two things. That governments have been unable to fix the ‘Aboriginal problem’. And that the harder governments try the worse things get.

This is not a criticism of individual programs and efforts. Each may well do good and certainly the motives are fine. No, there is something more fundamental at fault.

I have long advocated what I see as the fault. It is simply the racism that underlies the policies. I have always hated racism. Racism in any form is bad. No matter how it is dressed up, no matter how beneficent the motives are, using the laws of the land to define for separate consideration and treatment a group of human beings on the grounds of their race can never be good or do good. I cannot prove that of course. No-one can. It is an axiom. And it is an axiom worth testing experimentally, every day if necessary.

Maybe I suffer from confirmation bias. But I see evidence for my axiom every time I read a newspaper. My conclusion is that the most productive action would be to do the precise opposite of what Colin Tatz proposes; less, not more. I confess that this is probably politically impossible. But maybe, just maybe, there would be a ray of hope if the racial basis of present policies was slowly and steadily turned off.
Posted by Tombee, Friday, 15 November 2013 8:12:00 AM
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The reality is that nobody, including the Government and Professor Tatz, has a "quick fix" for issues of Aboriginal disadvantage.

So called "closing the gap" will take very many generations to achieve because thousands of years of geographic isolation and the negative effects of colonialism are not easily overcome. Indigenous Australians have a tradition of oral learning rather than learning in educational institutions. This makes it more difficult for Indigenous communities to embrace the standard route of education to advance themselves.

A first step for these communities might be to address issues of poor parenting, which seems a much bigger issue for them than for non-indigenous Australians.
Posted by Bren, Friday, 15 November 2013 9:04:11 AM
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"Aboriginals" are nowadays an extremely diverse group. Majority are mixed race with substantial numbers who 'identify' having less than 25% genetics. By same token there are mixed race 'Aboriginal' people with little/no inclination to be identified as Aboriginal or be part of the 'Kulcha'.

In my humble experience it's generally the latter - more intelligent, those who've had benefit of a relatively "Australian" upbringing who are doing the best.

I've been around longer than the average Social Sciences graduate and it strikes me there are 4 fairly distinct groups. Up the top is the "Part of modern Australian Society and getting on as best we can" group. This is followed by the "Urban Aboriginals - we want 'kulcha' our style and all the white fella things but you pay" group - out of which comes much trouble and helps fill courts & jails. Then the "Aboriginal Industry" group - who wail about past and current injustices and the plight of their people whilst growing fat on siphoned proceeds of grants, poorly managed projects, royalties etc. They usually manage to stay out of jail ...

Then we have the "Victims" group - the minority camp and outstation mobs who despite all efforts and money directed at improving their situation refuse to live otherwise.

Yes, "REFUSE". If people of any other racial background are violent/destructive/drunkards/substance abusers/sexual predators/filthy of person or living space/neglectful or abusive towards offspring/cruel to animals - they would be considered of low standing in their community at best - or a criminal who needs locking up. BUT WE'RE SUPPOSED TO CONSIDER THIS GROUP OF INDIGENOUS AS VICTIMS.

There are victims of course - the hapless children born into this 'KULCHA' which your average Social Worker would agree needs to be part of that childs life, of course! And many women. However at what point of an adults life does one get told to get off their backside and help themselves?

Nothing works? Maybe it's time to start doing nothing - bar what is available to any other citizen
Posted by divine_msn, Friday, 15 November 2013 11:02:51 AM
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Think about it a little less emotionally, Mr Tatz, and a tad more pragmatically.

"The record shows a long list of failed "-ations": pacification, segregation, protection-segregation, assimilation, integration, self-determination, self-management, mutual obligation..."

That is because they are all aspir-ations.

Without them, no progress whatsoever would be made. With them, there is at least a level of consciousness that guides us along a particular path. And that elbows our mental ribs when we try to head in the opposite direction.
Posted by Pericles, Friday, 15 November 2013 3:00:49 PM
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Colin, help me out here. Why do black nations and even black communities within white majority nations have very disproportionately higher rates of AIDS infection than whites and Asians? Is it because the AIDS virus is racist? Or is because the AIDS virus an oppressor?

Can you think of any other explanation? If you can, you might answer all of the other questions you have been asking.
Posted by LEGO, Friday, 15 November 2013 6:45:28 PM
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Here's the answer. Stop treating Aborigines as Aborigines. There. It's easy. Just treat everyone as citizens with both obligations and privileges. Remove every law, benefit, organisation funded by the governments that has any specification for Aborigines. Issue everyone benefits available to those eligible only because of their citizenship - not their racial identity.

In fact if all the government programs were stopped and the same amount of cash issued directly to the intended recipients, they would be able to budge to their hearts content and we who pay the taxes would be able to see the stupidity of treating this group as a distinct identity with special needs.

And whatever we do we should never allow the proposed change to our constitution to go ahead and enshrine a separation of citizens based on one race versus all the rest. We already recognise that Aborigines occupied this land before British settlement. Why put it in the constitution? Why not a section recognising that the sun rises in the east and had done prior to settlement. It would have the same meaning. Zip!
Posted by Captain Col, Friday, 15 November 2013 7:53:37 PM
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So true Captain Col, it really is time people like Mr. Tatz grew up & faced the facts as they truly are.

Quite a few years back Palm Island ran out of water. We tax paying citizens were paying for a barge to run 24 hours a day to supply the poor people with water from Townsville. Water usage per head was more than triple that of Townsville.

One of the staff noticed most showers did not have a shower head. People showered under a 35 liter a minute open pipe.

We produced a solid brass water saving shower head. They are excellent shower, I still use mine today.

The department ordered $120,000 worth of these showers to try to reduce water usage. We supplied the first half of the order, then got a request to supply a person to fit them. The plumbing staff were too busy, & the aboriginals would not do it themselves.

Our man returned from fitting them, & refused to go again. He couldn't handle the filth. When he asked why they didn't clean up, he was told him they weren't paid to do that.

We then got a request to cancel the rest of the order. The Palm Island people had discovered the showers were heavy brass. The whole $60,000 worth had been pinched for fishing sinkers, & everyone was back showering under the open pipes again.

Mr. Tatz, I think it is fairly obvious "who's the problem", & it sure isn't the tax payer.
Posted by Hasbeen, Friday, 15 November 2013 10:58:25 PM
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Spot on Hasbeen.

Then there is the sorry tale of aboriginal education in the NT. According to one news report, two thirds of the education budget in the NT goes to aboriginal education, who make up one third of the population. The reason for this is that it costs a lot more to educate aboriginal kids in remote areas.

But there is a big problem, the aboriginal kids living in isolation with everything provided by the government see no reason to go to school, so they don't. Some schools have only 10% of kids bothering to turn up on any day.

What is the bureaucratic solution? More taxpayer money and fairyland thinking. What the NT has is two school curriculums, one very easy one for aboriginal kids and one for everybody else. No wonder the socialist teacher's unions don't want national examinations which would disprove their social theories on human equality.

Then the idea came around to feed the aboriginal kids at school since their parents don't worry about that too much. The reason why aboriginal kids did so badly (so the theory went) is because they are hungry. Feed them and everything will change. But that didn't work. Then there was the proposal to pay aboriginal parents to make their kids go to school, but that didn't work very well either. Next came threats to dock welfare payments from aboriginal parents who could not care less if their kids went to school or not. Not much success there either.

Lastly comes the latest bit of fairy land thinking that squads of aboriginal people, presumably kitted out with government supplied cars and petrol dockets, are going to be paid "truancy officers" and they are going to go around aboriginal settlements picking up the kids and making them go to school.

Look, we as a enlightened people I feel do have a responsibility to look after aboriginal people because they self evidently don't have the brains to look after themselves. But what sticks in my craw is articles like this one that seek to blame white people for aboriginal dysfunction.
Posted by LEGO, Saturday, 16 November 2013 5:38:48 AM
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Hey Colin Tatz, since you live in an ivory tower that is so high that you can't see the land for the clouds, here is a letter from "The Australian" newspaper that might give you a clue to answering your own questions.

Aboriginal literacy declining

Letter to the Editor

The Australian March 16 2010

When I worked at Kununurra about five years ago, it was common to see a group of young men from Wadeye being escorted by an older man in the town centre. The young men needed the old man because the young men could not speak sufficient English to make themselves understood, and could not write well enough to withdraw money from their bank account. The old man, schooled in a mission school, could do both quite well.

The culture of aversion to school at Wadeye is years old. How come we have another generation being schooled in the same dysfunctional manner?

Chris Squelch, Mount Isa, Queensland.
Posted by LEGO, Saturday, 16 November 2013 6:03:40 AM
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The really sad part is that Colin Tatz's opinions probably represent the official line at most of our Unis. And worse, are often the ONLY version that students get to hear.
Posted by SPQR, Saturday, 16 November 2013 6:23:11 AM
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I don’t actually get to see what happens in aboriginal communities), how things are going in those poor rural areas
Tombee,
The poor aren't poor in an economic sense, they are poor in many other aspects of western philosophy. Those who are able, capable & willing are actually doing a lot better than the average non-indigenous in this country.
I you as a non -indigenous were to not go to work yet fill in your time sheet for the full hours you'd cop the brunt for doing so. Not in many cases of indigenous in the employ of Government Departments. Nothing is done stop those who do the afore-mentioned from rorting the system. I know ! But they are not to blame. The blame goes directly to mainly european descent ALP supporting bureaucrats who simply do not have the gonads to put a stop to the practice. Most of them only spend two or three years in the communities so they never get to fully experience the error of their incompetence. If any particular entity is to blame for some of the dysfunction in indigenous communities then it is fairly & squarely the fault of the ALP.
Posted by individual, Saturday, 16 November 2013 6:57:42 AM
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From considerable personal experience in the Wilcannia and NT outback the relevant problem is easy to see, it is the wrong 'advice' from the wrong 'advisors'.

How about somebody ask MP Nigel Scullion to comment here about indigenous employment and associated respect being achieved in mining in the NT right now.
Posted by JF Aus, Saturday, 16 November 2013 8:59:14 AM
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JF Aust,
I honestly don't know about the NT but here in FNQ a considerable number of Torres Strait islanders are employed by Comalco. They mostly drive the huge trucks & if what I get told by the drivers personally I'd say 3 grand a week ain't bad money. Why not many aboriginals are employed you might need to exercise your judgement.
I am not aware of any other positions being held by indigenous other than truck driving. Someone with more knowledge may wish to enlighten us.
And, yes JF Aust you're spot on with your assessment re the wrong advisors. That is a leftover from the ALP policies which the Coalition hasn't as yet addressed. They still keep some of these useless bureaucrats & for what reason I do not know. I do daily battle with these morons & I can't wait till the Newman Govt can get away from rectifying ALP stuff-ups & start concentrating on introducing some sense at bureaucracy level.
Posted by individual, Saturday, 16 November 2013 9:10:01 AM
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individual,

A majority of indigenous people have low tolerance to alcohol just like I do. Nevertheless I acknowledge that personally and do not allow myself to get drunk. If affected like I have been only 3 or 4 times in my life, I spin out, get dizzy, throw up, and I suddenly become very religious praying for help and saying I will never get that way again.

It is known some people when drunk get angry, others quiet, others sleepy, others pick fights, some pick fights with their good friends. Many have fatal car accidents.

From experience working with indigenous people I think the only real problem is the alcohol, and therefore I think all that are alcoholics should join and follow AA, to learn how to keep off it.

I have seen good indigenous people work hard and save and then go to town where traditional ways had them share their earning with mates, all hitting the grog and not coming back to work until money ran out. With reliability gone due to alcohol, so are the jobs.

Not many people want drunks living next door either, white black or brindle.

I think most indigenous people would agree alcohol is their most serious problem.

Out in the Pacific some indigenous people pilot aeroplanes.
Indigenous people can achieve like whitefellas, if the alcoholic-inclined stay right away from the grog.
Posted by JF Aus, Saturday, 16 November 2013 10:51:52 AM
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JF Aust,
I agree with everything you say. I only want to add my personal opinion based on personal observation. Indigenous will themselves admit that they have in general a low tolerance to alcohol & when they drink the effect of alcohol literally overtakes their reasoning before they can react & drunkeness is in place. Europeans or rather white Australians in particular on the other hand deliberately drink to get drunk. They deliberately do not control their intake & that makes them many times worse than others whose metabolism lets them down.
And yes, I know several Papuans who are in aviation & medicine etc. I know of no Australian indigenous doing that except a handful of mixed race who identify themselves indigenous but an outsider could never tell from just looking at them.
Posted by individual, Saturday, 16 November 2013 11:24:13 AM
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@ individual,

That we agree with each other is evidence of honesty in this discussion about the way the truly situation is.

MP Scullion was on ABC News 24 earlier today, about indigenous Australians being paid A.$70,000 a year and replacing fly in fly out workers.

No doubt a lot of those fly in's will object but they could camp out there too if allowed.
As long as the jobs get done.

If the indigenous people being paid well can stay off the grog, I think some of them could learn to fly and maybe even buy a plane.

(I think soon we will run out of posting allocation x 24 hrs)

Have a good weekend.
Posted by JF Aus, Saturday, 16 November 2013 11:51:07 AM
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So "universality" is the problem?
You need differing policies, laws and programs for every variation on a theme?

Well, what of the rest of the population?
They're not exactly homogenous either.
Do we forgo universality for the rest too?
Special policies, laws and programs for every possible ethnic/social permutation?

What a nightmare!
We need less, not more, bureaucracy.
Posted by Shockadelic, Saturday, 16 November 2013 9:21:24 PM
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This article, typically written in the style of high moral outrage so indicative of the trendy left, asks the question as to whether aboriginal dysfunction is a product of genetics or white racism? My answer to that is that it is genetics, primarily that of inherited low intelligence, and a genetic predisposition to violent behaviour and impulsive behaviour, coupled with a culture of violence and misogyny.

But I can see that this author does not agree with that. He prefers the other racist argument that aboriginal dysfunction is all the white man's fault. To prove his point, this COlin completely misrepresents past policies by previous governments (even leftist ones) which were sincerely meant to help aborigines, as some sort of sinister plot to keep them down.

But it is good to know that Colin Tatz has finally discovered what the real problem is and that he can suggest a solution. The problem is....... wait for it.....racism! Well, whodathunk it? Colin's "solution" is for "mandatory" classes in how wonderful aboriginal culture is, in all areas of education including (wait for it) architecture, nursing, medicine and law. Even bloody dentists have to be educated (re educated?) to understand his fringe group concepts, then everybody will respect aborigines and "voila."

This bloke is off with the fairies.

Colin has another bright idea. Government departments have to stop regarding aboriginals as a group, and deal with them by their tribe, clan and community identities. Colin sneers that "no government department is prepared to go the hard yards and do this." Although how this is going to prevent aboriginals from drinking themselves to death, eating crap, fuckiing their kids, and beating their "partners" to death he does not enlighten us with.

Finally Colin sneers at the paternalism of white people who have instituted the "intervention" and condemns this out of hand.

Look Colin, people like yourself demanded "self determination" for aboriginal people on their own land and the right to drink alcohol, you got it. The result was total anarchy. What's the matter? Are you too proud to admit that you got it all wrong?
Posted by LEGO, Sunday, 17 November 2013 7:19:15 AM
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Phantom aid and misappropriation applies to Australian indigenous people just like for Pacific Islands 'aid' - 'recipients'.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/phantom-aid-never-leaves-our-shores/2007/05/27/1180205079584.html

The majority of aid money vanishes.
Just go look at the destinations where the aid is supposed to go.
Virtually nothing there can be seen except poverty and hardship, of course alcohol can be seen but not always.
Any new buildings are the product of non-aboriginal business people.

Failure of promised and due aid is apparently not investigated, no results.

An indigenous leader or two have been asking where all that aid money has actually gone.
No answer yet.

So, indigenous people are not receiving enough if any aid.

Pensions and unemployment benefits can not be considered as indigenous aid because non-indigenous also receive those payments.

No wonder the problems are continuing.
Posted by JF Aus, Sunday, 17 November 2013 7:54:17 AM
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JF Aus - maybe all that should be provided is as for every other citizen? Then aid money couldn't go 'missing' nor be squandered on useless projects?

Maybe employers could be enticed with financial inducements to employ and train indigenous people where employment opportunities exist? That could be "aid" well spent - provided indigenous employees were capable and proved reliable. Discriminatory, but at least a chance of positive result.

Maybe in dysfunctional communities where houses and other infrastructure are regularly vandalised and destroyed and inhabitants resist behavioural change - provide shelter in form of large open sheds on concrete slabs? Cooking pits one end, composting toilets outside and let the people live their kulcha a little more comfortably than days gone by. Use "aid" to ensure everyone has enough food, potable water, a swag, basic clothing and ability to summon medical assistance. Problem solved! Minimal money wasted and they get to live that 'traditional lifestyle' you hear some idiots blathering about ...

Maybe where children are neglected and abused in ways Social Engineers would not wish made public - at least not in the sense of identifying statistics - because that would be RACIST - they could be removed and reared in a safe environment? Maybe with the chance of surviving relatively intact, an education and worthy role models they might become useful people instead of dead, deadbeats or jailbirds? That goes for all Australian kids - but there is greater reluctance to remove indigenous kids from horrific situations because of their aboriginality. Seems they need the "kulcha" more?

As for indigenous 'leaders' asking where aid money has gone - some seems to have found it's way into their back pockets (and their kids, uncles, cousins etc) in the past and I doubt that's changed. No aid money - no graft and corruption. Problem solved.

LEGO - I don't believe indigenous people are manifestly less intelligent per se. I do believe abuse of alcohol and other substances has resulted in an overall drop in intellect in some communities through foetal damage, brain injuries, lack of nurturing and education.
Posted by divine_msn, Monday, 18 November 2013 12:09:11 AM
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Dear Ms Divine.

I won't bore you with the details of my own childhood which was spent in poverty so bad you would not even comprehend it. But I lived on the wrong side of the tracks for so long that I know for a fact hat the biggest factor in poverty is low intelligence. People who are smart and who through circumstances find themselves on the bottom of society get their act together and are upwardly mobile. People who are dumb do not. I had teenage mates when Whitlam was in power and the dole was easy to get, who tossed in their apprenticeships to go surfing every day on the dole. Smart huh? They thought I was dumb because I went to work.

Put it this way. I lived through a time when Asian people were almost as poor as the Africans today. The Asians, through hard work and brains, and usually without any aid from rich countries, got their act together and they are now competing very successfully with white European countries. The Africans, despite billions in aid every year, never got anywhere. The Arabs, despite living in resource rich countries got nowhere either and are a threat to world peace.

If a white township existed which was full of people on intergenerational welfare, the adults were drunk out of their minds every dole cheque day, the males from that town were mostly in jail, the police routinely turned up to stop men bashing their wives only to be met by both partners throwing bottles at them, if the kids would not go to school and spend their time sniffing petrol, and if paedophilia was rampant throughout that community to the extent that six year olds were being screned for STD's, I am sure that you would have no trouble dismissing the inhabitants of that town as brainless idiots.

But with aboriginals, (and black people generally) a different standard applies. They must be regarded as equals, victims of white oppression who only behave that way because we white people who support them financially are the real problem.
Posted by LEGO, Monday, 18 November 2013 3:41:01 AM
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It appears to me that when it comes to australian indigenous the term Aid takes on a different meaning. Aid is supposed to cover a need that arose from many different situations, not desiring to put in any effort is not one of them.
I find it an insult to those indigenous who truly experienced unjust hardship & suffering by the whining of those who have already been mollycoddled to no end.
Posted by individual, Monday, 18 November 2013 6:27:01 AM
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Billions are ‘missing’, overflowing fat pockets should be visible in some way shape or form because so much money is involved. I think you will find many consultant at $100 and more an hour would get more closer to the total of ‘aid’ that never arrives.

In Australia, indigenous and non-indigenous receive social security money already but they live in cities and towns where food from wild life is no longer readily available and free. Dole money is often not spent on food. Rent if applicable takes a huge portion, then alcohol amongst the troubled ones, black and white.

Alcohol is a fundamental cause of lower intelligence even starting in the womb.
Alcohol drains money from families instead of being used to buy nutritious food for balanced meals.
Malnutrition is rife amongst alcohol addicted people, also amongst the poverty stricken.
No money to buy gas or firewood for cooking and warmth can mean floor boards and even timber from walls will be used for a fire. Settlement areas are usually denuded of naturally available firewood.

The pension and dole are never enough to get ahead, neither generally are take home wages. There is usually only enough to survive and that is the situation for some whole Pacific nation economies.

As for squandering and useless projects, many projects were put together on restrictive budgets from the very start. Other projects were impacted by world inflation.
Banks were eventually stimulated but accounts of ordinary people and small business received no stimulus, just increased costs.

Genuine Aid and social security money in any case, flows into and through economies.

Statistics tell what is wanted to be told, government economic advisors are never wrong and can even spin new taxes with invisible gas.

Government in Australia is somewhat dysfunctional, especially because there is not enough money for each department. One department is often not on working terms with others, there is competition for budget allocation.

Meanwhile there is a crisis in the Pacific and CHOGM focus is now on poverty. So PM Abbott should reinstate full and proper due Aid, without ‘consultants’.
Posted by JF Aus, Monday, 18 November 2013 7:09:12 AM
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JF - I do know of 'consultants' - indigenous people engaged to identify and advise on sites of indigenous heritage on a proposed dam site.

A relative, who'd lived in the area 35 yrs, with property there and working on preliminary exploration told me these 'consultants' came from a couple hundred kms, wrong direction, away and majority, if not all, weren't descendants. They came - late model Landcruisers in convoy, most with drivers who were family members, most as sole passenger. As only person with intimate knowledge of the area under investigation, my relative was "Tour Guide".

Cutting the story short - he claimed 'consultants' not only had zero knowledge of the area, they rarely left their air-conditioned cars bar when the billy was boiled, even when suspected 'sites of interest' were pointed out. Process dragged over several weeks with multiple days the 'entourage' simply failed to show. One day, over 'smoko' he asked what they got paid for this 'work' and said he nearly fell off his log. Consultants - $100/hr, drivers $50. The cars? Belonged to or hired by the 'Corporation' - an Indigenous Business Unit as far as he could understand. Relative said until then he'd felt very well paid at about $42/hr - for actually working and using his own vehicle.

Cost must have been enormous and being met by Dept of Natural Resources aka the taxpayer. Not a single site of significance was identified.

Guess the indigenous people involved were 'employed', and money going into their pockets but reality is the exercise was a wasteful farce.

Otherwise as far as "Aid" is concerned - for the able-bodied Australian of working age any sort of welfare support is meant to be a stopgap measure - not a way of life, and that goes for indigenous as well.

Agreed LEGO - poverty and idiocy walk together but I was trying to point out difference between 'natural' and 'acquired' low intellect. Many 'aboriginals' are predominately caucasian and/or other race anyway so hard to tell if the 'dumb' is indigenous, otherwise or both.
Posted by divine_msn, Monday, 18 November 2013 10:24:06 AM
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divine-msn,

I was not even thinking about 'consultants' out in the bush, but yes I have seen the new 4WD's, $500 Ricaro seats sometimes, due long distance they tell me, all day musterers don't get seats like that. My bum was sitting on springs at the time in a scrub bull wrecked Toyota.

'Consultants' that never leave the departments and those who work from home or office, are the one's I was thinking about?

It's billions of dollars that are not being seen in development, or justifiably accounted for transparently.

Billions.
Posted by JF Aus, Monday, 18 November 2013 10:43:55 AM
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Put it this way, Ms. Divine.

Those ethnicities that have developed civilisations have had to acquire skills that needed certain levels of intelligence. The need to plan the plantings of crops and the best time to harvest necessitated human beings developing abstract concepts like "tomorrow, next week, next moon, or next year".

Aboriginal people were kept on a stone age time warp when even the Africans had reached the iron age. Since Australia has no native food crop (other than macadamia nuts) that could be planted and harvested, and no herdable animals that could have provided aboriginal people with a stable food supply, they were reduced to the lowest level of human existence, hand to mouth.

As such, aboriginal people had little concept of abstract thoughts such as 'tomorrow" and concepts such as "next year" had little meaning to them. Not needing to develop high intelligence, they evolved only enough intelligence to survive. That does not mean that with the benefit of a couple of thousand years of civilisation and selective breeding they could not be the equal of whites and Asians, but at the moment (with some exceptions) they simply do not have enough intelligence to function as equals in the modern world.

Do we have a duty of care to these people? Yes we do. But what this author demands is absolute equality which simply will not work. The biggest catastrophe for aboriginal people was the granting of full equality which gave them the right to drink alcohol. This stupid policy was instituted by well meaning left wing fools like this author, and opposed by "racists" such as myself. It looks like the racists were right all along.
Posted by LEGO, Monday, 18 November 2013 6:48:07 PM
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