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.