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Black is the new black : Comments
By Peter Shmigel, published 26/11/2013It's only by switching off 'auto pilot' policy-making – and working with new and pragmatic indigenous leadership - can indigenous and non-indigenous Australia arrive at a better location.
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If someone is standing on the street handing out stolen $100 bills, I'll line up with the rest of them, and I don't blame people whose "rights" have been defined thus, for taking advantage of it.
But everyone will admit that the history of indigenous policy has been pretty bad, even disgraceful, disastrous. If the European administration had never adopted any indigenous policy but only impartially applied the same law to all people and their property - even if it had never recognised native title - I don't think there's any doubt indigenous people would have been better off than under the incredibly destructive policies of the last 200 years.
The starting position should be a repugnance at indigenous policy and it's dreadful attempts at race-based social engineering which brings out the worst in all parties.
The best that could be hoped for all is to admit the chronic failure and dysfunctionality of indigenous policy over two centuries, to consciously reject race-based policy on principle, to reject snout-in-the-troughism for all, to adopt respect the rights of liberty and property for all as the basis of policy, and to restrict government to the role of defending those rights, not trying to re-engineer indigenous society which is bad in principle and bad in practice.