Oh dear Bruce, do you hate yourself that much? You look to me like the very thing you rail against in this piece....A white middle class so and so.
How about you give up your white middle class life and get a job helping these poor kids who have been forced by their white oppresses into committing crimes*. Get a job as a prison guard and shown them all hows its done. Be sure to only ask for $50K a year to show how you don't need to been paid well to work there and still get high quality people.

Lets us know how you get on.

* Lets ignore the fact that many of the people in detention have committed crimes against other Aboriginals in Aboriginal communities.

Leave poor old Bruce alone, he cannot help being so stupid.
Bruce help me out here. We set up an act to combat "Racism" by being racist? The act excludes any race who feels they have been hard done by past injustice. Mate that is everyone. Try reading some history. One hundred years ago some men and women in Europe did not even have a vote. These was no National assistance and disease was rampant. So why this nonsense?
The rest of us do not feel guilty mate but you certainly should. It is your ilk that have made this nonsense not the average tax payer who incidentally pay for your ex PS grandee lifestyle.

Could we suspend discussion on 18c until the verdict on the Queensland student case is known? Then we will have some solid to discuss.

' Could we suspend discussion on 18c until the verdict on the Queensland student case is known? Then we will have some solid to discuss.'

the fact that their is even a case displays Bruce's blindness and ignorance.

Bruce, it isn't only white helpers of aboriginals who have got their snouts in their trough while managing aboriginal money. You only have to look back to the heady days of ATSIC to see that scenario writ large with their own people ripping the system off.

David

Good point, Outrider. But I wish they would get on with it.

On Mr Haigh's contribution, far be it for me to criticise someone for being pig-ignorant, but there are too many fallacies in his argument. Most people funded by the $ 6 billion annual Indigenous budget allocation employed yet doing nothing are Indigenous, for one thing. Most Indigenous people incarcerated have committed offenses, usually against other Indigenous people. And what impact would giving MORE power and money to useless parents have on their nurturing skills ? The road to Don Dale is paved with good intentions, Mr Haigh.

Anyway, on a more positive note: currently, Indigenous enrolments and graduations from universities are at record levels. They have improved at around 8 % per year since 2007. There are currently around forty+ thousand Indigenous university graduates, one in every nine adults, perhaps a bit better than for Tasmania as whole. By 2020, there will be around fifty thousand graduates, and by 2030, around 80-90,000, or one in six adults.

There are around fifteen thousand Indigenous students at universities this year, and that number could double by 2025. Around 120,000 Indigenous people have, at some time, been to university, overwhelmingly urban.

So the 'Gap' between Indigenous and non-Indigenous participation and performance at universities is closing at about 4 % per year, in spite of the drop-kicks in rural and remote areas.

Of course, the vast majority of Indigenous graduates are urban people, living and seeking work in urban areas. The 'Gap' between working/educating Indigenous people and welfare-oriented people is growing. And who is it up to, to close that Gap ? Not the urban population, they are on the right track, and why should they turn back now ? Their country cousins need to get off their backsides and join the contemporary world of obligation and responsibilities like anybody else.

Joe

I've been ruminating about how Indigenous organisations are 'run', somewhat stretching the meaning of the word to give a false impression of actual activity:

The problem for Indigenous affairs in Australia is that it is totally dependent for funding on the tax-payer. Let's call that the dominant funding system - the DFS. Funds are disbursed through various government departments, and directly to the thousands of Indigenous NGOs, and those Indigenous units use those funds to employ both Indigenous and non-Indigenous to nominally, or officially, provide services.

So there are two major systems, the DFS and the Indigenous Dispersal System (IDS). In between, middle-men, go-betweens, 'cultural brokers', from both systems liaise to keep the relationship running smoothly. Usually, the departmental 'broker' is non-Indigenous, working closely, extremely closely, with the head Indigenous person in the organisation, who in turn is a 'broker' between the DFS and the organisation which he or she dominates. Sometimes a trusted and loyal non-Indigenous broker liaises on behalf of the organisation.

So the 'brokers' link the two systems, forming a cosy and very strong relationship, often lasting for decades. Sometimes, the DFS has a major 'broker', Indigenous or non-Indigenous, liaising with many organisations (which gives him/her enormous clout). Conversely, a large and diverse Indigenous organisation may have a major 'broker', or specialised 'brokers' liaising with many potential funders, brokers with intimate knowledge of processes, and in turn, enormous clout.

Without much oversight - as Sara Hudson has pointed out in her review of Indigenous organisations recently - an Indigenous system is fairly independent of its original funding source. Within an IDS, the Indigenous head (and often the broker as well) wields enormous power, over who gets positions, perks, vehicles and in 'communities', housing, etc. He/she almost invariably appoints people close to him/her who are, first and foremost, loyal. Performance doesn't matter. Often they are relations, brothers, daughters, cousins.

So

{TBC}

[Continued]

So the head/broker, whether it is in a 'community' organisation, university or government department Indigenous unit or other organisation, has great discretion in who gets jobs, etc., provided they can display complete and uncritical loyalty in return. This applies to his/her up-stream 'broker' as well, as long as they demonstrate two features: they are completely loyal and uncritical to the head; and they can deliver ever more funding from the DFS.

'Big men/women' are commonly unqualified, gaining their position through family connections and, I suspect, links to political parties, particularly (at least here in South Australia) the Labor Party. Of course, they gain their strength through their control of the flow of assets to 'clients' who, in turn, are loyal to their 'patron'.

The big men form alliances with each other across Indigenous organisations, usually based on family or marriage connections. But often, perhaps usually - since even families are fractured and 'communities' are riven with parochial family rivalries and feuds - some of these alliances are fragile, and at even local level, require the creation and preservation (and, of course, funding) of a multitude of organisations, which are often at each others' throats.

Qualified Indigenous staff have to walk on egg-shells in such organisations, since they are often not only more qualified than their managers, and thus a constant threat, but because they have enough expertise to understand the unworkability or idiocy of some of their decisions. Their efficiency is thus a double threat, to non-Indigenous brokers as well.

Qualified non-Indigenous staff who raise queries don't last long in Indigenous organisations: my record is eighteen months in academia, and two years, as a labourer on a 'community' in the Riverland.

There are similarities with much larger-scale patron-client systems, say the regimes of Marcos in the Philippines, or Ceausescu in Rumania, or Mugabe or Mobutu in Zimbabwe and Zaire. The Mafia is a network of such patron-client systems, often at war. Even the Communist Parties in the old USSR or present-day China (or, God help us, North Korea) show strong signs of being patron-client systems, or dispersal-loyalty systems.

[TBC]

There are many problems faced by Aboriginals in Australia today. But blaming them on white people and relieving Aboriginal people of any responsibility will do nothing to fix these problems. What is with the self loathing exhibited by this certain class of white people that seems so common these days. It seems that everyone’s history is important and to be admired except for the history of white people. Everyone’s culture is important and valuable unless you are white, in which case you should be ashamed of yourself.
Now it seems that white people should work for free too.

[continued]

In Indigenous organisations, such intermediate patron-client systems (i.e. between the DFS and IDS) tend to cement themselves in power, and in their relations with funders. They control the information about themselves and the client groups who they are supposed to serve. In Australia, since Indigenous organisations often don't actually achieve much from one year to another, the big men/women - well, everybody actually - can fall back on the underlying racist notion that 'Well, what can you expect from Blackfellas ?'

I suspect that that attitude rules even in Indigenous higher education units these days, and in national committees which are supposed to oversee the situation and advise governments: 'nothing has changed in ten years', sort of propaganda. [Participation and graduations doubling in nine years ? Nothing's changing ? The elite don't want to know. Everybody is an elitist.]

Still, the Indigenous people will keep participating in higher education in ever-greater numbers, and graduating in ever-higher numbers. I anticipate that improvements in 2015 over 2014 might be in the order of 8 to 10 %, and something similar every year for the next ten years at least. Total graduate numbers will keep climbing, fifty thousand by 2020, perhaps seventy thousand by 2025, one hundred thousand by 2032 or so.

Back in about 2000, when graduate numbers were around fifteen thousand, my wife Maria and I predicted fifty thousand by 2020, and that now looks pretty likely. Whether those graduates can get a fair deal in a corrupt, or at least flawed, system will become a bigger problem as time passes.

Meanwhile, out in the 'communities', where most of the tax-payers' money is being spent, little is improving, as Sara Hudson's review indicated. Are 'communities' in a death spiral ? I don't know, and can do little or nothing about any of that, even if I had a mind to. Pity the little children, suckling on dogs' teats .....

Joe

The author highlights the concequences of politically lazy decisions.
The final state of ATSIC should be blamed on lazy overseeing and lack of Government accountability.
If anybody has money thrown at their feet, of course they would stoop to pick it up!

Howard's backwards move in abandoning the CDEP was plain stupid, and typically an ignorant wrong Government decision. The CDEP was A "gem" for Aboriginal youth. It taught a work ethic and responsibility, "effectively", its role being deferred to the local prison work gang when abandoned.

I agree wholeheartedly with the author when describing capitalising NGO's. Again, accountability is missing, with lazy Government oversight the usual villain.

Thanks. Great post Joe...:-)

Joe, you and Leak, the cartoonist should get together. I am sure that you could provide him with enough material to produce a weekly commentary for many editions of the newspaper.

David

Totally agree Joe. Nepotism and powerful families control funding in indigenous organisations and those indigenous brave enough to challenge the system soon get shot down in flames and give up trying, unless they are incredibly strong and able to withstand the constant abuse and name calling. People like Anthony Dillon and Bess Price come to mind.
My issue with funding is that despite many organisations going bankrupt, despite lack of measurable outcomes, the government still keeps funding these projects, all in the name of " Closing the Gap".
If indigenous people are going to learn self management they have to be allowed to fail and find their own way back. If that means cutting back on services or reducing staff levels, so be it. Measurable outcomes need to be listed in all grant applications and if those outcomes are not met, then funding is not renewed.
Even the ongoing issue of indigenous housing in remote areas could be solved by applying the same rules that apply elsewhere. All tenants pay rent and pay for all damages. If correct rents were collected, there would be a reliable stream of money with which to build new houses. As it is, very little rent is paid on houses crammed with people, leading to constant damage to the building and no money to build more.
We need to start treating aboriginal people the same as everyone else, no excuses. There are too many examples of successful aboriginal people to continue with the myth that special allowances need to made to enable aboriginal people to progress.

Great article Brucey!*

Note: I'm still holding my epiphany. Your mugshot still looks like Sonny Hammond (out of Skippy)...
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Uh8WY_nFSWk/VUny9EOsr-I/AAAAAAAAADk/__Y1w1tNQO0/s1600/url.jpg

* I'll stand by you if you grape farm (at Mudgee) turns to wine. http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/author.asp?id=4504 Put me down for 10 cases, purleaze, and send the High Court the Bill.

Oh, and may your olives turn to guaranteed triple virgin (oil).

Hi Joe

Further to your observations about higher numbers of indigenous graduates.

At a uni I was attending there were a few PhD scholarships. With special preference going to Indigenous Women.

On such topics as:

"What My Aunt Mabel Said to Me About Her Rabbit Proof Fence Experience Over Long Cups of Tea For The "Three" (cross that out) Four Years Of The Scholarship".

Bruce had to give us another baseless, lying assertion that the flaws in the aboriginal community are all caused by white men
In his twisted and distorted view, he has evidence:” It's the condescension, it's the awkwardness, it's the body language, and it's the conversational tone. It's the inability to converse in any meaningful way, to get on the wave length. It's the lack of understanding of others lives, struggles and pain. “
Yes, the twisted lefty view of the decent, respectable white man. That is something that Bruce can never be, due to the self-imposed mental disability of being a lefty, and incapable of taking an honest view of the world.
There are plenty of aboriginals who take responsibility for being aboriginal, and have made a start to forming an educated self reliant aboriginal community, despite the efforts of miserable, dishonest lefties like Bruce trying to mislead them and cripple their efforts.

Leo lane.

I thought the author was making the point that non-aboriginal NGO's were failing in their attempt to assist Aboriginal communities to live a more tolerable life.
Obviously you didn't see it that way....I believe though, that many Aboriginals are intimidated in the presence of whites. I don't see that as racist though necessarily.
There are places whites should not go in my opinion, Aboriginal missions is one of them; and for the reason the author observed, it has a bad look if you are Aborigional.

The NT Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1976, which gave Indigenous people control, mediated via land councils, over their lands, has come into direct conflict over the years with the interests of mining operations, pastoral leases, neo-liberal economics and White paternalism.

When left to their own self-determination, outback Indigenous communities have, at times, managed to negotiate on an equal footing with mining and pastoral companies and to build their own communities based around their cultural traditions and connection to the land. But White superiority, paternalism and neo-liberal interests have continually interfered with this process.

The well-documented descent of dispossessed indigenous communities worldwide into alcoholism, domestic violence and child abuse has been used as a weapon against them.

The most outrageous example is the 2007 NT Intervention against child abuse, which even roped in the military to support its banana republic aims. Hundreds of children were submitted to sexually abusive examinations and their parents and minders had their benefits quarantined.

New laws put in place (some before the intervention occurred) scrapped the pastoral and mining permit system (and, thus, the opportunity for Indigenous communities to negotiate with, and benefit from, mining and pastoral interests) and stripped Indigenous peoples of their right to determine who enters their community. New leasing agreements were put in place to grant generous government contracts to property developers to build houses on Indigenous lands and determine their own rents.

This is just one example of how the bureaucratic state, steeped in its sense of righteous superiority over inferior peoples, has deliberately destroyed Indigenous self-determination. The narrative is always framed as one of social dysfunction – of helping people who are already beyond help.

What to do? What to do? We only have their best interests at heart, but they just don't want to help themselves

Loudmouth

Yes, of course, many Indigenous youth have made significant inroads into the White system and attained the pinnacles of White academic achievement. Some were brought up in outback Indigenous communities, but most were urban Indigenous and part-Indigenous people already divorced from their culture generations ago.

This is not a criticism of their situation or their achievement. However, as with Whites, not all Indigenous people have the personal qualities or opportunities to achieve success in the White world.

The worst problems afflicting Indigenous communities are in the Outback and that remains the benchmark of Indigenous advancement.

Once again, Bruce Haigh displays his racism towards the white race by blaming us for the dysfunctions of the aboriginal race. Hitler did the same thing with the Jews.

Australia once had a sensible paternalistic attitude towards native people because we realised that they were people emerging from the stone age into the modern world. Then the socialists of the world got the stupid idea into their heads that "all people are equal". They demanded that native people in Australia were equal to whites, and that they should get total equality with whites. That meant the right to drink alcohol, and we all know how that ended up.

Next came an aboriginal "parliament" called ATSIC, which was so corrupt it could have taught every President-for-Life in Africa a thing or two about how to put your hands in the till. Then the Bruce Haigh clones demanded a sort of "self determination" for aboriginals. That is, that they be left alone to live on their tribal lands, with their own flag, and the Aussie taxpayer footing the bill. We all know how that turned out too.

With tribal areas turning completely anarchic, and with six year olds being treated for sexually transmitted diseases, the Howard government (with Labor opposition approval) instigated the "Intervention". This meant by-passing the self appointed native "big men", with long beards, black hats, and sticky fingers. That this is eminently sensible is obvious to everybody but the left liberal ideologues like Bruce. To admit that it is right, is for Bruce, to admit that he was wrong. And that is one thing a left liberal will never do.

That is why Bruce supports 18C. He knows that if people are allowed to discuss aboriginal dysfunction, they will eventually come to the conclusion that the ideal of human equality is the biggest load of bunkum since the ideas about virgin births, multiculturalism, and a classless society. And just like every other ideologue with a bankrupt ideology, from the Inquisition, to the Anti Discrimination Board, to the Politburo, Bruce wants to the shut up any discussion on the issue.

Thanks Dan. You've been lucky: all the CDEP programs that I've ever known have degenerated rapidly and determinedly into welfare programs. Sometimes I think welfare-oriented Aboriginal people (maybe all welfare-oriented people) have a genius for doing that to any promising initiative.

David, I don't know if that is high praise or a grave insult, but to be lumped with Bill Leak is high praise indeed.

Hi Pete,

Yes, I look forward to, say, a health-oriented Ph.D. called something like 'Diet and Exercise: the Missing Links', rather than 'Bush Foods my Auntie used to Eat', which should be sub-titled: ' ... but is too bloody lazy to go out now and collect them - where's a social worker when you need one ?'

Killarney,

' .... dispossessed indigenous communities' ? Do you mean in the cities ? Or out in remote areas, where Aboriginal people have native title, AND experience the worst depravities ? Hmmmm, Aboriginal children living on their own land, AND experiencing abuse, violence, neglect ? Gosh, how can that happen ?

And your rather snide, praise: ' .... many Indigenous youth have made significant inroads into the White system and attained the pinnacles of White academic achievement.... ' is breath-taking: the 'system' and 'achievement' is for everybody - why should Indigenous people be excluded from them ? Do you realise how racist your comments could be interpreted ? Apartheid died decades ago, Killarney.

In the south (pardon all those Indigenous people who have survived for living on and heavens ! even 'achieving'), people have, since the War, seized opportunities and broken down barriers, to enter arenas which racists once thought of as exclusively their own, including universities. Perhaps, as you hint, they shouldn't have but I'm sure each one of them would say, Killarney, kiss my arse.

Some 120,000 Indigenous people have now been to universities - forty thousand have graduated, fifteen thousand are currently enrolled. It's not a 'White system' any more, Killarney, and it never will be again. Suck it up.

And you probably think you're on the 'Left' ? Christ help us.

Joe

Joe, not just a passing thought, but how long do you think it will be before the urban "Aboriginal" with one percent of black in his/her DNA is going to be allowed to continue with this charade which allows them to access all the benefits that are denied to white kids. I mean Abstudy as against Austudy. Is this real?

http://www.gwb.com.au/onenation/truth/edu.html

David

Hi Big Nana,

Sorry, I missed your comment. Yes, I agree with everything you write. As usual :)

David,

That could be at least ten years out of date, and I haven't kept up, but some of those payments are still available.

Cheers,

Joe

Loudmouth

You left out the part where I said 'However, as with Whites ...'. A lot of Whites also have trouble achieving success in the White world.

I always fail to see why reeling off statistics on how many people have attained degrees is some benchmark of success. Nowadays, a degree is for many the base qualification to join the workforce. It's no longer a benchmark of high achievement.

Even if it were, it's based on the false premise that high achievement under capitalism will set you free. That could apply to most people, if capitalism hadn't been hijacked in recent decades to further the interests of the rich and to push everyone else into a lifetime of debt.

Remote Indigenous communities have a very different socio-political environment from those in urban areas. If you had read my previous comment, remote Indigenous communities are up against very different barriers to those in urban areas. Generations of bureaucratic White benevolence and the geographic position of remote Indigenous communities in regard to mining and pastoral agendas ensure that they are set up to fail, and thus, to keep them welfare dependent.

This is not just an Australian problem. It's a well-documented global issue that Indigenous peoples have to deal with worldwide.

Hi Killarney,

Thanks for your comments from Olympus. Yes indeed: "Nowadays, a degree is for many the base qualification to join the workforce. It's no longer a benchmark of high achievement."

As for Whites, suffering the slings and arrows of capitalism, my heart goes out to them. There is a good article in this week's TIME magazine on intergenerational unemployment in the US Appalachians, i.e. the hillbillies. As an escapee from there describes it, life sounds very similar to that in remote communities here, and similar to what Oscar Lewis called the 'Culture of Poverty': family instability, serial partners, truancy, violence, no deferral of gratification, living for the moment, short lives. Time for a reassessment of Lewis.

Aboriginal people in remote communities are not chained to posts, Killarney: they can physically move around, and of course they do: research might show that many 'remote' people spend a huge amount of time in towns and on the road. Go to any remote community and I'll bet you'll find many vacant houses, some empty for years, while other houses, mum's or granny's, are over-crowded by transient younger people. Often not so transient.

Your disdain for 'southern' people, for Indigenous people getting off their arses, is typical of the pseudo-Left, so I forgive you for it. But any positive development in Indigenous affairs will come from them, not for Cargo Culters, who are more like dung beetles waiting at the rear end of the last dying diprotodon.

And if anybody in a remote community tried to set up a vegetable garden, say a mile or two out of town, I don't think it would be some international mining company which would sabotage it: the dynamic of a work-less community is that nobody can be seen to be working, it spoils the show for everybody. Pity the children ......

Joe

Well, look at all the same self-important opinion givers doing just that and barely a fact between them. And certainly no real knowledge of the degradations and deprivations foisted upon Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people since invasion. When your cultures are destroyed and lost it leaves a void that may never heal over. When your children are targeted by authorities you learn to hide them and your identity. When you face racism on a daily basis that leaves scars and shapes attitudes. I wonder how many of those self-important opinion givers have been refused a taxi ride because of their skin colour. Oh yeah, probably none...and doubtful they'd actually know any Aboriginal people anyway. We are the 'other' and easier to have overblown opinion than actually find out about us.

Hi Minotaur,

Thanks, but I'll stick by what I've written, since it's the only truth I know. It may not be pleasant, but there it is. I don't believe that people are victims now if they ever were: they have made, and are making, their own choices. What you see is of their own creation. Their future is up to them on the whole.

Still, forty thousand university graduates is surely something to be proud of ? A good start ? Or do you think those numbers have been fabricated ?

Cheers,

Joe

@Loudmouth, Tuesday, 13 September 2016 4:20:44 PM

Hi Joe. I was particularly interested in your comment (in part):

"...I don't believe that people are victims now if they ever were: they have made, and are making, their own choices. What you see is of their own creation. Their future is up to them on the whole."

I agree, but I respectfully urge you to remember that your perspective here is very broad - clearly a great deal more so than that of Mr. Haig, and others of a like mind.

So when for example we consider the actions of certain Aboriginal persons - whether the result falls upon themselves, family members, or upon their communities - as demonstrating,

say, no workable knowledge of cause and consequence, some commentators may be inclined to say: poor buggers, they don't know any different; or, they have never had a chance; or,

everything is stacked against them, and so on and so on. I think that such comments are totally unhelpful and ignore the fundamentals at play here.

We all remember the old saying: "Where there's a will, there's a way". What if that applies to what Mr. Haig refers to as: "Aboriginal despair and hopelessness."

We can argue - ad infinitum - over what may be the underlying causes of this "...despair and hopelessness.", but it seems that approach gets us no further to any workable solution to Aboriginal disadvantage. Likewise, throwing more money at the problem, even with the best of intentions, appears not to be the answer - though it may assuage the conscious of some.

[Continued further]

[Continued]

What if the "answer" (in so far as there is one) lies with Aboriginal people themselves?

Again, we can argue - ad infinitum - over why some Aboriginal people appear unwilling to help themselves - clearly they are not stupid, so what factors are at play here?

I note that Mr. Haig in his introduction refers with some contempt to those individuals and organizations who apparently have: "(a) fixed belief that Aboriginals cannot handle money."

What if "grog" is substituted for money in the above reference?

Would he be likewise contemptuous of those who suggested this?

Pilgrim, Having lived in the NT in years past, and visited fairly recently, I have personally observed that that many aboriginals can handle neither grog nor money, nor work either.

As an example of the first, just a short stroll around the street in Alice Springs will show you that.

For the second, one just has to visit the Alice Springs casino where the majority of the players are aboriginals, not tourists.

For the last, one has to visit the much lauded Wave Hill cattle station, where owing to the difficulty of getting aboriginal stockmen, most of the employees are white.

QED.

David

David, having lived all across Australia I have personally observed that great numbers of non-Aboriginal people cannot handle money, grog and play the pokies instead of looking for a job.

If you had a point to make you failed dismally.

And by the way it is offensive to use 'aboriginals' and the correct terms are Aboriginal people or Aborigines (and note with a capital A). Thanks for exposing your ignorance.

Hi Pilgrim,

Your point about " .... no workable knowledge of cause and consequence .... " is probably very close to the mark but needs to be teased out: is it likely that people with an ethic or cosmology (or epistemology ?) that relies on magic, on spells and ceremonies, on the secret wisdom of the elders (I haven't heard that term for a while, thank God), that they will tend not to try to look for causes, and be pretty casual about the effects of actions ?

Is it possible that, if people believed that, even when they put a lot of effort into hunting or foraging, any results were at the behest of some secret incantation of an elder ? That, effectively, everything dropped, and still drops, out of the sky ? Or not in the old days, of course, during droughts when the power of the elders seems to wane somewhat. Ration systems would have helped to counter the impacts of droughts, and ironically would have saved the political power of the elders from being shattered by natural events.

If people don't really understand where and why all this bounty, welfare, houses, ATMs, comes from, then they are likely to attribute at least some of it to the enormous powers of the elders: clever fellas, those elders, they know secret ceremonies to make Canberra pay out more and more. (I think one of the most powerful of those ceremonies is called 'poor bugger me').

The notion of a Cargo Cult is very relevant here: people may think that, if white fellas get free houses and cars and salaries for apparently not actually doing anything, then why can't we ? If all manner of bounty drops off trees for white fellas, then why not for us ? Poor buggers us.

White fellas doing nothing ? Yes, since after all, you rarely ever see anybody actually working on TV. And when someone goes to see a person in Centrelink, say, that person is sitting there doing nothing - except attending to them. Well, that's not real work.

[TBC]

[continued]

Or take health: hygiene, diet and exercise may do wonders for Indigenous health. But just in the last couple of days, there have been news stories about diabetes, trachoma and middle-ear infection. All entirely preventable, all to do with care for children, hygiene, diet and exercise. But again, people think that a nurse can give them a pill and it's all fixed. Anyway, the old fellas know better. They can pull stones out of your body. Clever fellas.

About otitis media, middle-ear infection, infection in the nasal passages, the Eustachian tubes and inner, middle and outer ear, mainly from the build-up of mucus: when my late wife ran an Aboriginal pre-school, she made sure from the outset that the kids' noses were always clean, unblocked every morning. She got into trouble with her supervisor who said that it was natural for Aboriginal kids to have runny noses. She politely ignored her supervisor.

But again, no perception of cause and effect. Runny noses. Middle-ear infection. Deafness. What has one to do with the other ? Grog and/or Coke, and white bread and junk foods, and nobody except kids moving above 1 kph. Diabetes. Who would have thought ?

So the epistemology goes.

Cheers,

Joe

Whitefella Joe has spoken...thus it must be true what he say!

Minotaur, if you need to argue about semantics, you are the one with a very poor argument. My observations were confined to many aboriginals. I would agree with your comments about some white fellas.

I think you will find that Joe speaks from a very wide range of experience and his observations should not be written off with flippant comments.

David

Hmm, let's look at use of language there in David's response, in particular the use of 'many aboriginals (sic)' and 'some white fellas'. The inference is clear...more Aboriginal people have problems than white fellas. Evidence for that? Virtually nil. Anecdotal evidence from personal observation is worthless.

Same applies to Joe, who seems to want to present as an authority (as many old whitefellas do, despite no real understanding of the issues) on Aboriginal people but is simply providing absolutely nothing of substance. Such comments only deserve flippant dismissal.

Hi Minotaur,

I agree: just like any body else, I should provide evidence if I assert something.

For example, if I suggest that there is no particular problem with Indigenous Deaths in custody, I should be able to back that up. How ? By pointing out that, back in the days of the Royal Commission 25 years ago, 23 % of all people in custody were Indigenous, while only 22 % of all deaths in custody were of Indigenous people. Roughly what one would expect.

Or if I suggest that, in the early days, missionaries didn't want anybody speaking their languages. How to prove that ? Well, by pointing out that, everywhere that I know of (you may know different), missionaries were the first to learn and write down Aboriginal languages, and from the outset, taught in those languages, until groups became so mixed that teaching in any one language was simply not practical.

What's another one ? People being driven off their land. Hard to prove. But how to prove that it DIDN'T happen - at least officially ? Well, it was illegal in all States, for a start. At least in South Australia, the Protector provided rations for up to seventy depots all over the State, wherever people were (many ration-keepers were pastoralists, by the way). He advised police to 'try to keep people in their own districts'. He provided boats and fishing gear for people to stay on waterways, even up on Cooper's Creek.

Massacres ? If anybody could provide proof, perhaps bones with bullet holes or sabre cuts, and not bashed-in skulls or spear-points found inside rib-cages - they might help. Have any ever been found yet ? Find it and I'll believe :)

Stories ? Back them up with evidence, since we're not bloody three-year-olds.

Stolen Generation ? I could cite evidence of broken families, mothers dead, fathers dead, father gone off on the grog, family destitution, etc. and the fact that the majority of kids taken into care, at least before 1960, were usually back home within a year.

Good luck, Minotaur !

Joe

Ahh, Joe, all you have pretty much given is unsubstantiated story apart from the stats about Aboriginal deaths in custody (and notably you made no mention of the over-representation of Aboriginal people in jail or custody).

Give some substance Joe otherwise you have nothing and I don't waste my time dancing with shadows.

Minotaur you are making a fool of yourself. All the usual don't point out what is in front of my nose because I will not see it business.
Do not try the racist card either because go back one hundred plus years ago and most Europeans were at the stage of a lot of Aboriginal people are today.
We need to start slapping down idiots like you and demand responsible parenting and responsible behaviour from everyone. I personally will vote against whatever is put up on aboriginal recognition as I believe we should all be considered Australian. First start no grog, ciggies or gambling from welfare payments.

Hi Minotaur,

Yes, I'm sorry" " .... notably you made no mention of the over-representation of Aboriginal people in jail or custody .... "

Out of the multitude of issues, I suppose I should have mentioned that one: from the evidence, it's obvious that the over-representation of Indigenous people in custody is because there is an over-representation of Indigenous people who commit offenses.

I've sat in court a few times to follow a case and I have to say that, if anything, people got off pretty easy: kids with a string of offenses who have never been detained; one case, of murder, the accused were pretty cocky about it: a girl had been raped and strangled by a group of blokes, then taken 'pillion' by a couple of blokes on a motor bike and dumped up the country. Their loyal followers, mostly relations, in the gallery laughed at every joke that the prisoners cracked, they really enjoyed it all.

A good friend confided to me once that he had done a couple of years for manslaughter, when he had really murdered the guy, in a pub brawl. Up in the community where we lived, flash cars would rock up occasionally, driven up from Adelaide, taken for a spin through the bush before being pushed off a cliff into the river. Great fun, nothing serious.

So I have a question for you, Minotaur: why do Indigenous people commit so many offenses ? My answer would be: because they can. What's yours ?

I've been dedicated to the Indigenous Cause for fifty years, and I'll go to my grave still committed. But I'll never go along with bullsh!t or lies or scams. Pass it on.

Cheers,

Joe

Hi Minotaur,
If you want some enlightenment, go and sit in the Alice Springs court on a Monday morning.

David

JBowyer thanks for that...ad hominem attacks are the bastion of the intellectually bereft. It is always pleasing to know straight away the base level one is dealing with.

If anyone is bereft Minotaur then it is you. As evidenced by the other slap downs you got. Think before you answer next time.

Hi Minotaur,

I certainly don't want to waste your time, but what level of evidence do you want ? Statistics ? Court transcripts ? Anecdotes ? Or just excuses and 'I been framed !' ?

Is there any particular aspect that you want to discuss, or would you rather nobody raises any of them ? Some of us are trying to understand why 'Aboriginal empowerment' is so difficult to bring about, even in 'communities' where there is barely a white fella within cooee.

Why no vegetable gardens ? Why no orchards ? Why no actual work activity at all, except the driving hither and thither in Toyotas, 'caring for country', i.de. setting fire to the bush ? Most of us are puzzled how a 'community' can ever be empowered if nobody ever empowers themselves to do the most elementary jobs ? What does 'empowerment' mean if not putting effort into anything ?

But it is always pleasing to know straight away the base level one is dealing with.

Cheers,

Joe

Seriously Joe, the more you write the less you actually say. Again you bulk out your comment with personal observations and anecdotal evidence – both are meaningless. You also have the simplified statement ‘it's obvious that the over-representation of Indigenous people in custody is because there is an over-representation of Indigenous people who commit offenses.’ Your reasoning for ‘why do Indigenous people commit so many offenses? My [Joe’s] answer would be: because they can.’

No evidence of research and not a skerrick of logical argument. If you don’t understand some of the underlying causal factors that contribute to high offending rates among Aboriginal people, especially males between 16 – 24, then your claim about ‘being dedicated to the Indigenous Cause…’ is a load of unadulterated BS. A simple google search of ‘causal factors Aboriginal crime’ will bring up a plethora of researched and credible reports into why crime rates among Aboriginal people are so high. Heck, I’m feeling generous so here’s some identified reasons for you:
Socio-economic disadvantage and poverty
Substance abuse
High levels of unemployment
Poor educational attainment
Lack of appropriate housing and overcrowding
Racism – institutional and personal
Exposure to domestic violence
Poor health outcomes
Inadequate police training and resources
Ongoing ‘tribal’ feuds

There are of course more but space is a premium. No doubt you’ll come back with some glib comment backed by no research but then again I’d expect that from a person who denies massacres occurred and doesn’t believe that Aboriginal people were forced off their lands. Oh, and now displays a complete ignorance of Aboriginal land management practices (burning). At least JBowyer says nothing in a very short space, unlike you Joe who takes half a page to say nothing.

Hi Minotaur,

Now we're getting somewhere :)

Which of the factors that you list are reversible (I'd suggest, all of them) and/or self-inflicted, or inflicted on young people and children by parental neglect, and which factors are unique to Indigenous people (I'd suggest, almost none) ?

Indigenous women are commencing university studies at about the same rate as NON-Indigenous men, or a little better. Do they have more opportunities than Indigenous men ? Well, not if a percentage of them are pregnant, or looking after children or other relations. In other words, they are more disadvantaged than men, so why aren't men participating in education (and work) more than women ?

By the way, I didn't say that there weren't any massacres, simply that it didn't seem as if any had been proven to have occurred, and that evidence should be present at any massacre site, even now. Seek and you may well find. Evidence needs actual investigation: if it's there, it will be found. The Myall Creek Massacre clearly happened, and nine white fellas were hanged over it.

As for being driven off their land, people may have moved off their land over time, to ration depots, to work, to the towns and cities, to Missions, but the law has always allowed - from the outset - Aboriginal people to live etc. on their lands, on pastoral leases. A clause in all pastoral leases added 'as if this lease had not been made.' It still does. But if people don't go foraging, then they're not using a right which has always been there. But how long do people have to be away from their land before the next generation has forgotten where it is, and how to make use of it ? Twenty years ? Forty years ?

Yes, call it what you like, dedicated, committed, obsessed, fascinated, but I'll keep at it. I have great faith in the tens of thousands of graduates to do the right thing, into the future, as their numbers grow rapidly.

Cheers,

Joe

Do have some researched figures to back up your assertion that ‘Indigenous women are commencing university studies at about the same rate as NON-Indigenous men, or a little better.’? Regardless, Indigenous students represent around just 1.4% of domestic students and even worse just 1.1% of Research Higher Degrees.

I see you have backpedalled on the massacre claim after you stated, ‘If anybody could provide proof, perhaps bones with bullet holes or sabre cuts, and not bashed-in skulls or spear-points found inside rib-cages - they might help. Have any ever been found yet?’ There are many recorded massacres around Australia; Cape Grim, Kilcoy, Gippsland, Conniston and the list goes on. To try and state there’s not enough physical evidence to ‘prove’ some of them is simply a cop out and from the Windschuttle school of denial.

As is trying to downplay the forced removal from home country lands. What do you call the Frontier Wars where invading squatters and pastoralists shot and killed Aboriginal people in order to clear them from the land so their cattle and sheep could take over. Animals that killed edible fauna, wrecked waterholes and small streams with their cloven hooves, pee and poo, making life virtually impossible for any remaining Aborigines. That’s being forced from your land. In Tasmania Aborigines were hunted to near extinction by whites and those that remained in the 1830s were ‘rounded up’ and sent away to Flinders Island…in the middle of Bass Strait. That is forcible removal in the extreme.

Then there are other examples where mining companies came in and forced Aboriginal people off their lands. Often aided by the government. Example being Gove land rights case where the Federal government excised a section of Aboriginal reserve in order to allow Nabalco the mining rights to the bauxite. That forced the local Aborigines to leave that area and their sacred Green Ant Dreaming land was mined. Heck, it took until the Wik High Court decision in 1997 to finally establish under law that Aborigines had the right to practice traditions on lands under pastoral leases.

Hi Minotaur,

On your first point: in 2015, 4,789 Indigenous women, and 168,029 Non-Indigenous men, commenced university studies. The total for Indigenous women was 2.85 % that of Non-Indigenous men. Parity for 25-28-year-olds is about 2.8 %. [Parity varies for different age-groups]. So Indigenous women are commencing university at a slightly better rate than Non-Indigenous men.

No, I haven't back-pedalled over the existence of massacres, simply suggested that if they occurred, then there should be evidence of them. So I'm confident that, if they occurred, evidence will be found. Some of the places you mention may be difficult, being places where people have supposed to have been pushed into the sea: ipso facto, no evidence. But therefore no evidence of a crime, either.: it may have occurred, but there is unfortunately no evidence of it.

But if you wish to assert something, YOU must prove it, it's not up to someone else to 'disprove' what essentially can't be disproven.

One facet of a 'story', which may not be accurate (to put it politely), is that the 'story' may contain elements which are unlikely. For example, you mention Gippsland - you may mean a reported massacre where two hundred people were pushed over a cliff into the sea: two hundred ? It would have been hard in that country to find twenty people together, let alone two hundred, not to mention that they would have been two hundred who would have known their own country pretty well. How many white fellas, in unfamiliar country, would you need to push two hundred people into the sea ?

Perhaps a rule in such claims is not to make them too outlandish: be content with ten or fifteen, but don't exaggerate. And don't believe every bar-fly.

In the Protector's Letters here in SA [on my web-site: swww.firstsources.info],

[TBC]

[continued]

Hi Minotaur,

In the Protector's Letters here in SA [on my web-site: swww.firstsources.info], he recounts in detail a couple of reported massacres and his response, as Coroner. Responding to a report of thirty killed up near Burra, he heads off, and by the time he gets to Clare, the number has dropped to ten. When he gets to Burra, it has dropped further. He investigates, and finds the shallow graves of two people, a woman shot and a man killed by sabre. On another occasion, he finds one body, burnt then buried. You can find the full details on my web-site: each volume of Protector's Letters is indexed, just look under 'Massacres'.

You write about " .... the Frontier Wars where invading squatters and pastoralists shot and killed Aboriginal people in order to clear them from the land so their cattle and sheep could take over."

Very likely, but at least some evidence would be useful and I'm sure you would be confident in providing it. Pastoralists generally needed labour, at least in old-fashioned South Australia, so were prepared to set up ration depots to actually attract workers, including all their dependants. I haven't found any evidence that there was any differentiation in wages, but you may have evidence otherwise.

About wages, since you may wish to raise the issue:

* in the missionary's Journal and Letter-Books from Pt McLeay in the nineteenth century, they off-handedly remark that wages are the same for Aboriginal people and whites. In a Victorian Royal Commission around 1877, the same is recorded, with a recommendation that pay-cheques be paid directly to Mission superintendents to avoid the lot going on grog, and payment dispersed back on the Mission, after deductions for rations, stores, etc.

* during the Depression in the thirties, the SA annual Protector's reports complained about the men not leaving the settlements if wages were to be at all reduced, as they had been for everybody else: my mum was out on the streets back then, finding work at 15/- per week. I don't want to think how she survived.

[TBC]