I agree with a lot of what this author states, but I doubt much will change for Aboriginal people in general until at least the next generation.

For all that many go on about these 'advantages' that Aboriginals have, as opposed to everyone else, it sure doesn't look like the majority are living well and healthy does it?
Loudmouth I would argue with your figures about those doing well and say it is more likely only about 20% living well off government jobs/payments.

Poverty and early death are constants in most Aboriginal lives, for whatever reason.
I don't know what the answer is, but sitting down for yet more 'discussions with Indigenous people' is not going to do it. Way too much money has already been spent on discussions and meetings.

Big Nana: the services available to them far outweigh the services available to white children.

Exactly.

Big Nana: The problems arise because aboriginal people either don't take advantage of all these programs and services or they have extremely poor work habits when they do get jobs.

Exactly.

Big Nana: It wasn't always this way. Back in the 70s, before activism had reached its height, aboriginal people in the north at least were working to the same standard as their white counterparts, for the same pay, and sending their kids to school everyday.

Exactly. I come from Ayr originally & before the 70's Aboriginal people were hard working & respected.

Big Nana: Today's problems arise from those who wish to keep aboriginal people in cultural zoos in remote communities to justify some personal need to feel different to everyone else.

Unfortunately most of these people are the Aboriginal CEO's & the educated ones running the Agencies.

Big Nana: and until we see " aboriginal" problems as simply human problems, nothing will change.

Exactly, but you won't get the Agencies CEO's to let go of the reins. They fight like hell to keep their lucrative perks. Any suggestion of change will be greeted with a cry of Racism. Then all the PC, Greenies, Educated Lefty Latte Set will be out in Sack Cloth & Protesting in the streets.

Excellent article, Sara, but sadly it will be largely ignored by many Aboriginal activists who want to continue the black armband view of Indigenous history which seeks to make Exdigenous Australians feel guilty for past wrongs without wanting to solve problems in collaborative, constructive ways.

Hi Suse,

This year, around eighteen thousand Indigenous people will be enrolled at universities, about two and a half times what it was twelve years ago. As a rough measure, they will make up about 1.65 % of all domestic students - two-thirds of what parity would be: 2.4 %.

Very few Indigenous university students are coming from remote communities (which points to a huge job for those Indigenous academics, smug in their ebony towers, if they are ever going to be of any use to their people in providing pathways from remote areas to university).

66 %. Of the remaining 34 %, I would suggest - as Big Nana has pointed out, on the basis of her very long and rich experience in remote areas - that, financially, people in remote areas aren't doing too bad. Yes, at the cost of productive lives and of numbing boredom, addictions, poor diet, lack of any exercise, and brutal violence. But that's their choice - who are we to impose our values ?

I fully agree with you, that ".... sitting down for yet more 'discussions with Indigenous people' is not going to do it." As for 'consultation', I think we will discover, to our shock, that what many Indigenous people want in the coming Referendum is more stuff, more benefits and services, and less responsibility, less requirements to get their kids to school, to look for work, to stop bashing their wives and girlfriends (look at the terrible incarceration rate ! Poor blackfellas!), etc. 'Consultation', yeah right.

An article in today's Australian was slamming a proposed work tax on back-packers, specifically those picking fruit in Victoria's Goulburn Valley. There are many Aboriginal people living in towns in the Goulburn Valley. Perhaps they could pick up the slack if back-packers aren't available to do simple work like fruit-picking.

Nah !

Cheers,

Joe

There are two disparate groups among our indigenous people, the 'have's' and the 'have not's'. By and large, the have's are by far, the smallest, most elite group, and generally, the most vocal in demanding their 'rights'. Some of these individuals can only be described as parasites, subsisting on the adversity of their brothers and sisters, and should reside at Her Majesty's pleasure, in Long Bay.

As a former relieving police sergeant in the bush, it's the remainder, the 'have not's' that concern me. These are the poor buggers who live in dry creek beds, under old railway bridges, and have the highest preponderance to hang themselves. They drink to the point of absolute stupor, take any drug that will desensitize their minds, and yearn for that one simple courtesy and validation that always seem to elude them, that of 'respect' !

Regrettably, some of these poor buggers, when heavily inebriated, will fight one copper, or one hundred coppers - the result is always the same...upon return to sobriety comes misery and more misery, and even less 'respect'?

Remove the element of 'respect' from the black man, and he'll die, figuratively at least, but he will die?

O sung wu picks up on an idea first raised by an early commenter, Tristan Ewins, involving false binaries and conclusions.

The factor missed by most, as usual, is to do with the traumatised and dysfunctional state of indigenes at the bottom of the heap, imbued with the deepest sense of demoralisation.

The notion that funding is cut has always been a base notion proliferating from orgs like the IPA, devoted exclusively to pushing the greed=obsessed demands of the ultra wealthy, even to the extent of destroying so many other people through removal of essential services.