Yes John right on the money as usual!

Every boy and his dog know these folk are intellectually incapable of owning and running a bauxite mine? Absolutely ridiculous!? Right?

And evidenced by the fact, even with the best will in the world they've yet to see lawyers, Doctors, teachers and other professionals graduate from university?

And why should they when vastly superior white folk with stratospheric IQ's just like you John are prepared to hand out never ending sit down money along with the usual tea, sugar and baccy ration?

They need to know their place and eternal servitude? Right?

Own their on mine in their own traditional land? The very idea?

We should send you up there John with a horse and a whip, where you could apply customary control and whip these moribund mongrels right back to the stone age from whence they sprung!
Alan B.

Alan, thank you for highlighting the problem so clearly.
Yes, Aurakun has totally failed to produce any doctors or lawyers or other highly skilled professionals. Despite multibillions of dollars thrown into these 4 communities, illiteracy, abuse and alcoholism continue to thrive better than education, good health and child
protection.
The communities who have produced university graduates are large regional towns and cities, where the parents work, pay mortgages and generally ascribe to be contributing members of society.
However, you seem to have missed the point about remote aboriginal people being intellectually incapable of owning and running a mine. The author claimed no such thing. His point was they were educationally incapable, which is a whole different ball game. Mines are managed by people with extremely high educational levels and years of extensive experience, not illiterates with substance abuse problems and no work experience.
Very few families expect their ten year old to manage the household budget unsupervised yet that is equivalent of handing millions of dollars to councils with poor literacy skills, little life experience, no accounting ability and subject to the demands of cultural expectations.
Conditions in most communities have gone backwards since the movement towards self government in the seventies. At least when missionaries were running them the kids got educated and fresh food was produced locally, providing some form of employment within the community

These people should be left alone to rot or survive on their own. Billions of our dollars; moaning and growing by do-gooders and media revelation of violence etc.has made no difference whatsoever. Bauxite mining should go ahead without any reference to them at all.

Yes ttbn, the only thing that will keep these people out of trouble of their own making, is to be too damn busy trying to catch or find something to eat.

Sit down money has been the implement of their destruction, pushed on us & them by noisy do-gooders.

This does not only apply to a few isolated northern settlements. It applies just as much to the welfare bludgers throughout the country. Give them stuff all, & they will get into less trouble.

Many of the early immigrants came here with nothing, and could not speak, read, or write our language, yet are now some of the wealthiest families in the land. If they could do it, anyone could.

The truth is it's not the dog in the fight, but the fight in the dog that matters and these people (generalizing) simply don't want to contribute or better themselves, because they don't have to.

I still think hasbeen has the best approach for welfare bludgers, a tent to live in and three cans of beans a day. That will get them off their backsides.

We just pussy foot around throwing billions at wasted causes, a cause that has been made so much harder thanks to the apology and introduction of national sorry day.

The truth is, they are not sorry and there in lies the problem.

Thanks to authors of the calibre and forthrightness of Gary Johns and the wisdom and fearless frankness of Nana and some others, I don't miss so much the in-depth, investigative articles that used to appear in the better weekend broadsheets.

Gary and Nana, thank you.