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The Forum > Article Comments > The future for Australia’s Aboriginal people > Comments

The future for Australia’s Aboriginal people : Comments

By Don Aitkin, published 12/10/2017

My trip to the Kimberley has rekindled my interest in looking at what might be the case in 2067 with respect to our Aboriginal people.

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Loudmouth, I'm not letting this go until YOU understand what I am saying because I have no idea what you are referring to. I make no suggestion of vetting people. My comments are based purely on blood line and geography. What this means is that a person, has certain criteria that classifies their 'Nationality'. Even you must concede that if your parents are of mixed backgrounds, you cannot just choose to be whoever you want to be. You are bound by your blood line and not where you are born. So I'll say it again. If BOTH your parents are of a particular race, then irrespective of WHERE you are born, you are the same race as your parents. If on the other hand your parents are of mixed background, eg; one is aboriginal, the other, anything but aboriginal, then guess what? You are not aboriginal, but if your born in Australia you definitely are Australian. This is mainly for political purposes anyway, such as your passport. This document refers to your status according to a political doctrine and not who you are. I hope this has cleared up any mis-conceptions you may have had on this topic.
Posted by ALTRAV, Wednesday, 18 October 2017 11:46:17 AM
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Alt Rav,

Good luck with persuading anybody about all that. Or do you have something a bit more 'directive' in mind, once you're crowned king ?

Back to your cave :)

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Thursday, 19 October 2017 10:36:48 AM
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Joe, might I respectfully suggest that the time has come for some reasoned debate in parliament, on the subject of who is able to claim the privileges of being classified as an "Aboriginal" The situation which applies at present is nothing short of farcical.

David
Posted by VK3AUU, Thursday, 19 October 2017 10:21:30 PM
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David,

IF you mean that, if someone claims some benefit ordinarily reserved for Indigenous people (we can argue about the morality of that), then they should have to furnish some evidence of an Indigenous background, then yes, I agree. There are a lot of whitefellas out there making false claims, it seems.

Yes, at some point, a line will have to be drawn: if someone seems to have no obvious Indigenous links, if they can't say who their Indigenous parent is, or make what is obviously a spurious claim about ancestry, then of course they should be questioned further. If people have had a pretty comfortable upbringing, away from any Indigenous people, and are indistinguishable from non-Indigenous people, then their claims should be tested.

Yes, I know of many people who have tried it on. One became a senior Indigenous Education Policy Adviser in Canberra (he was actually Austrian-Italian). Another became head of an important Indigenous Education body here in SA. Others make claims, perhaps more innocently, because their spouse is Indigenous. Others pluck a surname out of the Indigenous song-book and claim some link, although there may seem to be no actual link: people know of each other, after all, so they may also know who is NOT 'one of their mob'. Others just make the most outrageous claims, and are passed by some Indigenous body as Indigenous, regardless. Others claim to be from inter-state, and therefore - they think - untraceable, usually (in SA, at least) from WA or Tasmania, a long way away.

Anyway, back to topic: what is the future ? I'm depressed to suspect that remote populations may not have one, except through sheer attrition, out of there. And maybe urban populations' future is simply to merge in with the rest of Australians, inter-marry, and get on with life. I think 'community' is dead, and maybe was still-born, and self-determination has been disastrous, given that it never seems to have worked, more or less. 'Southern' people became bi-cultural 150-200 years ago, moving on from what was essentially an irrelevant way of life into modern society
Posted by Loudmouth, Friday, 20 October 2017 1:52:25 PM
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Just published:

2016 Census data is now out about Indigenous graduate numbers. In the 2011 Census, there were around 29,000. In 2016, a total of 48,708. Somehow that's almost four thousand each year, double the Ed. Department's counting. Vastly more than I expected, probably kicked up by the high re-identification factor. If we add in last year's graduates, and this year's, say 4,000+ each year, then by the end of this year: 57-58,000. By the end of 2020, maybe 70-72,000 graduates.

The Ed. Dept data counts university-recorded graduations, the Census counts self-reporting graduates. Just over half of all 2016 Census graduates had PG or bachelor-level qualifications.

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Monday, 23 October 2017 10:32:22 AM
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