Do we need a Reconciliation Commission, you bet.

However we need it to reconcile most of the white working population to the fact that so much of our hard earned money goes to a bunch of noisy useless people, who want to live on settlements, mostly because there they are never expected to do any work to contribute to their support.

As always, there is some outside activists that believe they have a right to have a say, e.g. through their mixed-race children or egotist superiority?
A DNA test needs to be established that puts the self-appointed activists outside this particular tent!
Then hold a proper conference with a chair and three speakers for and three against.
With each speaker given reasonable time to support a position then if necessary mount a defence against any foreseeable rebuttal.
And with all that said and done in a calm dispassionate democratic manner, put the motion to a vote.
And as a process that all can accept as being fair and representative! Come away with a final position!
Which ideally would claim a percentage of positions in our parliaments as exclusively first Australian's!
And because they're created in the fire of heated debate, nominees able to enunciate an agreed position and establish individual inheritance lines, which as in many indigenous cultures are maternal!
And unless the various mobs speak as one people with one voice! Advocate for a bill of irrevocable rights!
Any real progress will move further away or be denied!
A nation divided against itself cannot stand!
Alan B.

[continued]

Or 'deaths in custody': do we take the current 28 % of all people in custody as the benchmark for an 'acceptable' level of Indigenous deaths in custody, i.e. 28 %, or the nation-wide proportion of those who are Indigenous, i.e. 3 % ? If the latter, we have to ask: what then should be an 'acceptable' rate if only 3 % of people in custody were Indigenous ? 3 % ? If 90 % were Indigenous, as in the Northern Territory, what then ? 3 % ? If, hypothetically, NOBODY in custody was Indigenous, what then ? 3 % ? I think I read something like this in Heller's 'Catch 22': 'I see everything twice !' Doctor holds up one finger. 'How many fingers ?' 'Two !'. Doctor holds up two fingers. 'How many now ?' 'Two !' By George, he does see everything twice.'

And while we're at it, this latest garbage about Indigenous people being treated as flora and fauna, under a 'Flora and Fauna Act'. Unbelievable rubbish. There was, I think, a Plants and Animals Act in WA (and maybe still is), and I suspect that, somewhere in that Act, mainly set up to protect endangered species of mammals, birds and fish, there are clauses about 'closed seasons' when native species were not to to be hunted or harvested or fished - with the exception that Indigenous people could do so for their own consumption. And that some half-wit has simply mis-read this Act. Oops, sorry, Linda :)

In SA's Game Act, dating from the 1890s, Aboriginal people were exempt from the 'closed season' restrictions - they could hunt and fish (and were provided with the means to do so, often for free) but only for their personal consumption. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that sounds like rights available to Indigenous people that were not extended to non-Indigenous people. More rights, not less but completely in accord with the explicit recognition, from about 1850 in SA, of Aboriginal people's land-use rights.

Critical analysis, a.k.a. deconstruction, Banjo.

Cheers,

Joe

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Dear plantagenet,

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You wrote :

« Where you say "[You] cannot comment on that." You can do better than that »

Please be assured that I am only too willing to do my best, but I need a little input from you for me to be able to try to meet your expectations.

You will recall that you made a very sweeping statement in your first post :

« Also aren't the author's racially based ideas racist? pitting Australian against Australian »

As the term “Australian” is not racist, you must be alluding to something else in the text of the article under discussion. I need to know exactly what it is you are alluding to in order to be able to comment on it.

Please advise.

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Dear ttbn,

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You wrote :

« Perhaps we have different definitions of loyalty »

I do not know why you raise the question of loyalty in our discussions. You did not say.

Nor did you say what your own definition of loyalty was. Personally, I am quite happy with the OED definition :

“the quality of being loyal” – “loyal” being defined as “giving or showing firm and constant support or allegiance to a person or institution”.

I can only presume you raise the question of loyalty in relation to the British Crown as our head of state. If so, as a third generation Australian born in this country (perhaps going back even further on my father’s side), unlike Yuyutsu, I have never been asked to swear loyalty to a foreign power such as the British Crown – even prior to 1984 when we were all British subjects. Have you ?

Hereditary monarchy is an institutionalised form of nepotism. I, personally, prefer a democratically elected head of state. I should also like to see Australia complete the tediously long process of emancipation it has undertaken for the past 120 years or so, and finally attain full adulthood.

That seems natural and healthy to me. It has nothing to do with disloyalty. I consider that we have largely paid our tribute to the British Crown over the years with all the wars we have fought, and the youth we have sacrificed, exclusively in its sole interest.

I left my family, friends and country when I was 24 years-old but remain steadfastly loyal to them. If I have to sacrifice my life for anybody one of these days, it would be for them, not for the British Crown.

What about you, ttbn ?

PS: btw, Rodney Crisp and Banjo Paterson are one and the same person.

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I struggle to believe people actually think like this clown.
How divorced from reality are you Rodney? You are neurotic.

I've lived among Aboriginals all my life. Aboriginals are divided into two stratus, the blacks, 99%, and the wannabes 1%.

Have a guess which group this neurotic crap will be controlled by?

And here comes another “dogs breakfast fest” at the expense of the universal welfare budget.