I really don't see any benefit at all in 'identifying' as Aboriginal, unless you really do have close Aboriginal blood relatives and are rightly proud of that.

Look around and tell me if the vast majority of Indigenous people are living a fabulous life on these supposed perks of being Aboriginal or not?
They mustn't be doing that well as far as I can see...

Suseonline,

You seem to have stock replies for everything. So far in 'de Nile' that you would have a permanent hyacinth garland. That saves thinking and looking for evidence.

See here,

http://www.kooriweb.org/foley/news/2006/aust20mar06.html
<Business of blood lines
There is pride in discovering an Aboriginal family background, but some people lie about it to gain undeserved benefits, reports Tony Koch....>

Tony Koch
http://www.tony-koch.com/

Is it the Indigenous people's fault if some Caucasian people pass themselves off as Aboriginal in order to secure a low interest home loan?
The stupid people in these cases are the Government who allow this to happen without more rigorous testing.

Again I say, I really can't see many Indigenous people living the high life because of these so-called benefits that no one else gets?
In fact, it seems they have the worst standards of living, the worst health outcomes, and the earliest deaths of all Australians.
Oh yes please, can I get those 'benefits' too then...

So I guess step one is to identify what indigenous actually stands for. We know its for full bloods but is it then considered on the mix of 1/8th, 1/16th 1/32nd or 1/64th.
If one parent is indigenous and the other not, what are the kids?
Say one parent is a 1/32nd indigenous, does that make the kids indigenous.
The indigenous card is often pulled to secure tax payer funding, the likes of abstudy being an example.
Who knows!

SOL: I really can't see many Indigenous people living the high life because of these so-called benefits that no one else gets?

You are right there Suze. No it's the educated ones who run the agencies who take advantage of all the loop holes for a tremendous advantage. They do dole out the entitlements to their constituents occasionally to keep them in line & to keep their job. Like, if an indigenous person goes on a bender & doesn't pay the rent for a month the Aboriginal & Islander Affairs will pick up the Tab. The Aboriginal children get taken to school by Taxi twice a day. But that's mostly used to pick up a carton or a Goony & deliver it to the house. A&IA picks up the Tab, also if they have to go the Hospital etc.

A lot of people close their eyes when they see this happening. They say they can't do anything about it. They would be declared a racist if they complained.

In the more remote areas, there is very little inter-marriage between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, but in the cities, the inter-marriage rate is above 90 %. As each generation grows up and marries, that is bound to have massive impacts on the sense of solidarity of Indigenous people.

In the 'South', especially in the cities, anything remotely like traditional culture is 100-150 years in the past. The last old bloke who knew the 140 clan names of the Ngarrindjeri, and therefore their countries, died 75 years ago. The last initiations there took place, in a very abbreviated - overnight - form, rather than the series of three six-months' stints between every hair being pulled out, [in the abbreviated form, the hairs were burnt off, not pulled out], occurred in about 1882.

Possibly people down that way are completely unaware that there used to be eight dialects of their language, (and that the language had more than 100 words in it), and seem to be unaware of the original boundaries of the 'nation': a friend asked what was the Ngarrindjeri name for Murray Bridge; I said that it might have been just outside of Ngarrindjeri country, and was actually in Ngangaruku country. He was furious. Another friend lost.

'Culture' is a sort of surrogate for 'ancestry', 'genealogy', 'relations', 'group', even 'race'. During the Hindmarsh Island scam, efforts were made to think up ceremonies, something that looked traditional: one little dance was accompanied by the traditional chant "Ngarrindjeri ! Ngarrindjeri ! Oy ! Oy ! Oy !" Quite stirring.

Culture is what people do, how they relate to each other, not what they have in some book somewhere. How does one live ? Now ? That's culture. And it's been that way for many, many generations now. What gets passed down is what people think is relevant and useful. If they don't think so, then they won't. It's not rocket science.

Joe