OTB,

Yeah, bush turkeys, I always get the two mixed up :)

My very limited understanding of Utopia is that barely fifty people live there, maybe only thirty, predominantly old people.

Therefore no shops.

Therefore people need vehicles to go to and from Ti Tree 150 km away, or more likely, Alice Springs, 300 km away.

Therefore old people need people with vehicles to drive them to and from Alice Springs.

Therefore old people who are starving are likely not to have any younger relatives who are willing to drive them to and from Alice Springs.

I suppose that back in the UK, Bilger's gullibles would find it impossible to imagine tiny populations of thirty to fifty people 100 miles apart, spending half their time on the road to the nearest town. It would be like imagining the whole of, say, Wales having fewer than ten hamlets of thirty people each, and everybody doing their shopping in Shrewsbury.

If people could get themselves organised, for a weekly fee, someone with a large vehicle could drive into Alice Springs and pick up a load of groceries for each pensioner back on Utopia. Maybe for the other scattered 'communities further along the same road as well - like a mobile grocery shop. It would need to have a refrigerated unit, etc. But surely someone has costed this sort of project ? Maybe the total population who would make use of such a service is far too small to make it worthwhile ?

There are costs in living in tiny 'communities' a long way from anything, shops, hospital, admin offices, pubs, the casino. People make choices, and so bear the consequences of their choices.

Joe

I'm for small remote communities to wither through withdrawal of services to the point decisions are are made by inhabitants to live on the land (together with welfare money),or, to live in towns and cities (with welfare money). How ridiculous to expect equality of services and outcomes for young people locked into the stone-age situation of their ancestors by their parents decisions.

Nobody is owed anything not earned or defended, history tells us so, but some believe the laws of nature should opposed whatever the cost. The black-armband is gaining grip but the notion that whites have ruined a utopia that pre-existed him for tens of thousands of years needs fair questioning. European man is but one of waves of immigration to this continent and, if you only own that which you have the power to defend, China-man may ultimately displace him (watch the South China Sea).

From https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/history-wars/2002/06/the-extinction-of-the-australian-pygmies/ :

"..... there had been several waves of Aboriginal migrants, each of whom had violently dispossessed the other. Rather than a story of aggressive white imperialists disrupting an arcadian Aboriginal people living in harmony with one another and their environment, the long term history of Australian habitation would have resembled more that of humanity at large where the stronger have pushed aside the weaker, irrespective of the colour of either side. Hence, instead of a simple moral tale of goodies and baddies, the history of this continent would have reflected more the hard reality of the human condition everywhere."

Settlement, invasion, call it what you will, nature takes its course.

H Luciferase,

We have to thoroughly understand that nobody, nobody, nobody is living a traditional life in Australia now. Nobody. The odd weekend trip, yes, by four-wheel-drive and rifle. Three-quarters of the Indigenous population lives in the cities and large towns, and have done for a couple of generations.

Perhaps eight to ten per cent live in 'remote' areas, 50,000, but usually within shopping distance of towns. Nobody makes their living by hunting or gathering - nobody would be that stupid. Probably, if someone had the courage to do actual research, they would find that half of the 'remote' population had been into town in the last month, and pretty much all had been into town in the last six months.

Meanwhile, all Indigenous people have the same access to the same welfare payments as other Australians. As well, Indigenous people have relatively cheap rents, as well as access to pretty substantial mining royalties, and conservation park royalties, amounting to tens of thousands of dollars per household. Indigenous people, consciously or not, are IN Australian society, albeit at its remote fringes, and in it forever.

Of the urban population, say four hundred thousand, of whom perhaps 250,000 are adults, forty thousand have graduated from universities. One in six or seven. Probably around the rate for Europe as a whole. Twice as many women as men. Around 22 % of a surrogate age-group, say 25 years old, of university students graduate each year, rising by 8-10 % per year. Fifty thousand in total by 2020. One hundred thousand in total by 2030-2032, or one in four adults. Top that, Britain.

Cheers,

Joe

Hi Luciferase,

Currently there are supposed to be thousands of 'communities' across Australia. But under that easy heading - 'communities' - the vast majority are (or more likely, were) single-dwelling or two-dwelling 'hamlets'. 'Were' ? Yes, I suspect that the great majority are deserted, or maybe lived at for a few days each year at most.

There are probably only a couple of hundred 'communities' with more than a hundred inhabitants, most of whom have been to town in the past fortnight, and almost all in the past six months, usually many times. Nobody lives by hunting and gathering. Nobody, except for the odd couple of days, by 4-WD and rifle, to relieve the boredom and/or tensions of remote settlement life, and if they can get the petrol.

There is a very incisive article in this weekend's Australian by Nicolas Rothwell, which should be compulsory reading for any dreamer of myths about 'community' or 'self-determination'. He unavoidably points to the probably-unsolvable questions:

* what do Aboriginal people in remote communities want which is at all achievable in the world of 2016 ?

* what do they have to eventually face up to, given that they are not living at all traditional lives, even if they still perceive the world (of 2016) through traditional-oriented lenses ?

* what has been tried (again and again) and failed (again and again) and therefore should be put on the back-burner, to be replaced by .... what, in the context of those first two questions ?

* where the hell do we go from here ?

Nicolas' article is well worth reading a few times over. I might frame it, and learn it off by heart.

Joe

I strongly recommend everyone interested in understanding Aboriginal issues to read "Blind Moses: Aranda man of high degree and Christian evangelist" by Peter Latz. It tells the true story of the first Aboriginal preacher at the Hermansberg mission in central Australia in the 1880s. By reading it, you will understand that the genocide that John Pilger talks of is of one Aboriginal group against another and why the Christian religion was so readily adopted by the Dreamtime people of central Australia.

Most of what Pilger writes is simply not true. His is the black armband view of Indigenous-Exdigenous relations over the past 230 years, meaning that it is excessive dark, pessimistic and highly exaggerated. A direct response to his many vacuous and distorted claims is just not warranted.

If they're starving out there we should get them some food and whatever else they are in desperate need of.
- KRudd didn't have a problem sending millions to Africa when they were starving and those people weren't even Australians.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-13/rudd-announces-money-for-afican-drought-victims/2793932
I guess he was butt-licking for a job at the UN.
How sad for everyone, except the Africans...
I guess they will pay for it if and when he gets the job.

Anyhow is it really all that hard for the army to drop supplies out of the back of a damn plane?
They can do it for the Kurds why cant they do it for Australians?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-31/australian-planes-drop-humanitarian-aid-into-iraq/5708636

The government are so inconsistent that its really easy to make them look like stupid hypocrites, but hey don't blame me for pointing it out.
I didn't do it, and I didn't write the articles.

Your always moaning about them Loudmouth..
Why are you so angry?
Did one impregnate your daughter or mug you or something?
Why are you so against them?
What did they ever do to you?