Hi Toni,

Are you suggesting that casinos should be allowed to operate on (presumably) some larger Aboriginal settlements ? That's an interesting proposition.

Who do you think might be the main clients ? How quick do you reckon the local ATMs would be cleaned out every pension day ?

At the risk of offending god-knows-how many people, do you think there may be incentives (i.e., for the men) if their wives prostituted themselves ? After all, casinos and prostitution are not strangers to each other. Ditto drugs. Ditto, money-laundering.

No, Toni, this may not be the magic bullet. As my son used to say, after he had listened long enough to me and the missus expounding passionately on some Brilliant New Initiative, 'Yes, just add the magic ingredient - effort.'

Effort is indeed the magic ingredient for Aboriginal people. Effort may be the secret wonder-component for things like getting vegetable gardens and orchards and chook-yards going, tree-planting, etc., and even for more immediate tasks, such as feeding one's own kids, cleaning up one's own yard and ultimately getting off one's own arse.

Nobody else can do THAT for them. Effort - the secret ingredient. And it doesn't even need to be patented, or highly funded ! It can be used now ! Today ! And what's even more amazing is that even Blackfellas in remote settlements can actually apply it !

You don't believe it ? Just wait until you use it in action ! At ....... ummmm ........ at ........ give me a minute, I'm sure there must be somewhere where people are actually putting some of it to use.

Nope, can't think of a place. I'll get back to you.

Joe

//Are you suggesting that casinos should be allowed to operate on (presumably) some larger Aboriginal settlements ? That's an interesting proposition.//

Larger Aboriginal settlements? That would be Sydney and Melbourne at a rough guess. I think we already allow casinos to operate in those places.

//Who do you think might be the main clients ? How quick do you reckon the local ATMs would be cleaned out every pension day ?//

Word on the street is that rich Asians love a punt. But that's a bit racist.

//'Yes, just add the magic ingredient - effort.'//

1980, Tennessee:

BJ: Hey Billy-Bob, you heard about them Injun casinos they's getting started up North?
BB: Sure have, Billy-Joe. Why, those casinos will never make no money. Them Injuns is just too darn lazy to work. All they wants to do is sit about drinkin white man's firewater and eatin that peyote of theirs.
BJ: Yep, reckon you're right. Say, what time we gotta leave for our Klan rally?
BB: Well, shucks, I done forgot our Klan rally. We was too busy sat here fishin. Open me another can, would ya?

2015, U.S.A:

Indian casinos are generating annual profits in excess of $25B.

I'm not saying that casinos are the magic bullet. We aren't the U.S. or Canada and the situation is different, but the suggestion that Indigenous people are so disadvantaged compared to non-Indigenous people is because they are inherently lazy is offensively racist bullsh!t.

Hi Toni,

I'm certainly not saying that people are lazy, just that many people may honestly, sincerely, believe they shouldn't have to work, it's their country after all, and whites should work for THEM (I've heard this said).

In other words, a sort of caste system, with 'traditionally-oriented' people, or at least the elders, considered as a sort of Brahmin caste, with whites more like the Untouchables, doing all the work, that's their proper role.

I've probably said it before, but in hunter-gatherer economies, people don't PERCEIVE that they are putting effort into anything, but that the magic, the secrets, of the old men is what delivers food into their hands. OF COURSE, they used to put effort in, but didn't perceive it as such.

Then along comes the Mission system, rations - in fact, rations especially for the people who would have been ignored and expended in hard times in pre-European days, the old women, the very young children - shelter, tea, sugar, tobacco, somebody actually feeding and clothing their kids - sweet !

And then, in the sixties, along comes the welfare system - which, of course, the magic of the old men has brought about (clever men, those old fellas) - and not only you don't have to ever hunt again, unless you have access to a 4WD and rifles and are a bit bored, but they give you money, housing, look after your kids - sweet !

Fifty years of the welfare system has reinforced the notion that, because of the superior knowledge of the old men, they are actually in a privileged position, and that, sooner or later, whites will recognise them as being a superior race, i.e. a separate race, a different species, (yes, I've heard that too), which is immeasurably superior.

Before you jump in, I'm not saying people shouldn't be entitled to the benefits of a welfare system, but that they may interpret that bounty in a different way from what you may expect: that it's actually recognition of their superiority, and that it will last forever.

Joe