Joe, as an Aboriginal person who is buying my own home I can tell I do not get a reduced interest rate for being Aboriginal...or anything else. And none of my Aboriginal friends who are buying a house get reduced rates either.

And for the last 6 years I've been teaching in a year long preparation program for Aboriginal students. And having been to many conferences and universities I know they are run in the majority of universities too.

Hi Minotaur,

Sorry, I got that wrong. Is there maybe an income test ?

I'm glad that there are preparation programs somewhere. They seemed to have been dropped here in SA. Perhaps this is why the growth in participation here has been almost the slowest of any State.

Which is ironic of course, because it used to be in the forefront of preparing 'Special Entry' students - at least the Uni of SA was, until the Support Unit was white-anted, sabotaged and destroyed back in 2005. Yes, indeed, the world is full of utter bastards.

Good luck with your students in this coming year. And Merry Christmas !

Cheers,

Joe

Hi Minotaur,

Earlier you asked me why I hadn't made a study of historical conditions in Tasmania. Probably one reason is that I'm not there, I don't have access to any documents from there and I don't like to comment on things I know nothing about. I'll leave that up to others.

Perhaps there is some half-witted old fart like me in Tasmania, who would be willing to spend a few years buried in the Tasmanian Archives. It would be exhausting but extremely rewarding, I can assure you. Perhaps when you've got some leave accruing ?

As far as I'm concerned, I've done South Australia and it's up to others on the spot to do something similar in their own States. If I won X-Lotto and my eyes held up, I'd like to give Queensland a go.

As for preparation programs: yes, we ran a year-long Bridging Course to get people into Conservation and Park Management (Parks and Wildlife): it ran from 1990 to 2002, under Henry Mancini. Probably most SA graduates in this field came through that program, I was very proud of it and its students. Such programs have to be very specific, we found.

Cheers,

Joe