Here's a few links that may set the record straight:

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/aboriginal-scientific-achievements-recognised-at-last-20140423-zqxz9.html

http://theculturetrip.com/pacific/australia/articles/11-ways-indigenous-australian-culture-still-influences-society/

http://www.sbs.com.au/topics/culture/article-2016/12/07/heres-truth-about-free-ride-some-australians-think-indigenous-people-get

cont'd ...

My apologies for the typo.

Here's the link again:

http://www.sbs.com.au/topics/culture/article/2016/12/07/heres-truth-about-free-ride-some-australians-think-indigenous-peoples-get

I've just realised why we are continually bombarded with fanciful and untrue comments along with all the posturing.
It's because this Forum is called OLO, or to be more precise, 'On Line OPINION'.
Thank God I can now finally accept all the comments made on OLO, because they are merely opinions.
This means the comments must not be factual but merely opinions, otherwise you are not following the prescribed format.
I must appologise for commenting with factually based comments.
I do not understand the concept of 'opinion'.
Just so you can all judge for yourselves, the definition of 'opinion' is as follows;

A VIEW OR JUDGEMENT FORMED ABOUT SOMETHING, NOT NECESSARILY BASED ON FACT OR KNOWLEDGE.

HAH!
Now will those of you carrying on like know-it-all experts please stop and take stock.
Seeing as how I have been talking facts, and others keep coming up with links and other sources as facts when they are clearly opinions, I will take the trophy and the victory on all counts.
So basically you can shove your links, they mean nothing, they are not based on facts, but merely opinions, and as opinions are not fact then fact will always win over fiction or fantasy, especially when the authors are trying to make a pre-concieved point, in all these links.
It has always concerned me that surveys and material announcing something new has a bias rationale and lean, favoring the authors point he's attempting to make.
So it appears that I too must join the land of the dreamers and fantasists and come down a few clicks to be able to comment on OLO.

Dear Foxy,

I just saw a car here in SA with the plate "FOXY", Toyota Corolla, very zippy. What are you doing over here, and why didn't you drop in ?

I'm sceptical about your comment: " .... ineffective programs that lack co-ordination because they're designed for the Indigenous - not with them." I'm not so sure: I think Indigenous people have a lot of input into policies, but (my god, this sounds arrogant) they may not have much understanding of their own problems, AND are almost bound to see problems in simplistic terms of more funding. In other words, I don't think that Indigenous people alone can understand and resolve their own problems. They don't seem to have done so after forty or fifty years. Solutions may need expertise, not just being there.

I recall a council decision up on the 'community' where we had lived, eight thousand acres, unlimited water licence: a small problem with the 100 acres of grapes, so the council decided to rip them all out (eight thousand acres minus one hundred = 7,900 acres available). So much of their economic base was destroyed in one lazy, dumb-arse decision - why was it not possible to have BOTH grapes (and Lucerne, stone fruit, citrus, sheep, wheat) AND some other crop (as it turned out, almonds) ? Why not do it all ?

Actually it was ideal country for pecans, pistachios, peanuts, as well as almonds (and maybe macadamia too), as well as god-knows what-else to soak up the eight thousand acres - say three hundred acres each of dozens of crops ? Blockies in the area grew apricots, peaches, plums, citrus, and now avocados and olives.

Up to 1973, when communities got self-government, the responsible government department here in SA built up the economic bases of Aboriginal communities. So the inheritance from the government had fizzled away by about 1982, with continuing enormous funding allocations to desperately keep things going. All to no avail: by 2010, nothing left. Not one almond tree. Not a grape, not an orange, not a sheep or ear of

[TBC]

[continued]

wheat. Nothing.

Did the community council have any input into decisions about all that ? Of course. All the input. All the decisions. Governments had little or nothing to do with any of it, although they seemed to desperately try to keep things going financially, with millions and millions of dollars to prop up enterprises, eventually for nothing.

So tell me about 'community consultation'. The people can, after all, bugger themselves up without much outside help. Running any major enterprise needs expertise, and almost by definition, Aboriginal people in the rural areas don't have such expertise. And surely government departments knew that from the word go ? Although it's easy to be wise after the event.

One problem at that community was that nobody who worked for the council could be elected to the council: so only old people, usually old grandmothers. Who thereby had decision-making powers over areas they knew nothing about, while the workers themselves had no such rights. I recall one old council lady saying, about a Canberra housing allocation of $ 120,000, 'That's about $ 1200, isn't it ?'

So 'self-determination' must have been a sort of joke, giving comparatively enormous power to people who had not the slightest ability to handle it, and no expertise at all in fields that were vital for their communities. When will people realise that you need a wide range of high-level skills to get economic enterprises going in rural and remote areas ? Too bloody late now, the 'communities' are falling apart. So much for 'self-determination'.

Love,

Joe

Well seems to me something in this article has touched a raw nerve. Not sure what it is. I suppose differences between the sexes is a hot topic in many places though :)