Maybe aboriginal land councils allowing private ownership of land would be a good start in helping aboriginal people. The right of the individual to own and use land is a basic requirement of empowerment that seems to have been neglected by aboriginal leaders.

I can't believe that any aboriginal person would bemoan the demise of ATSIC. The amount of waste, unaccountability & corruption in that organization would not be tolerated in any other public body. ATSIC proved that throwing money at aboriginal Australia is not going to solve any problems. It's about time that aboriginal Australia found itself some real leaders who acknowledge that the improvement of their lives requires some action from within as well as from without.

Every plan of action put forward by the Howard government, such as the "snotty nose" scheme, however silly they may be is met with derision, laughter and dismissal. Alot of them may deserve no better than this response, but at least they are more than what I've heard from aboriginal leaders (apart from broad, sweeping statements big on rhetoric and short on actual solutions). The aboriginal "problem" is social in nature, politicians can only offer political solutions. More leaders and less politicians within aboriginal Australia may be the answer.

Perhaps the Aborigines need time to evolve at their own pace.We are trying to fast track them to our hyper activity and has anyone ever asked them what they actually need or want.They are not driven like us by a competitive obsession but they do need to find ways of making a living that is less dependant upon Govt handouts which are destroying them.

I think I understand what the author is getting at.
My contribution concerns Aboriginal people who are non-traditional residents in an isolated community in the Northern Territory. Acknowledging the history theme: the historical fact is that they mostly were forced on to the communities. In the 1970's when assistance for Aborigines shifted from tea,sugar,flour and a balnket a year to cash payment, the Government and bureaucrates of the day made a huge mistake. The cash payment was introduced in response to the belief that it was racist to give money to unemployed people in the towns and cities and not Aborigines. This may well have been good thinking. The problem was that people in the towns and cities could not find suitable work to earn a living, so unemployment money was paid. In the Aboriginal communities, residents were engaged in industry: cattle work, leather work, vegetable gardnens, orchards, pigerys, fowl meat and egg production, bush tucker collection. If the Government had given the money as well as encouraging continuation of the commercial and cottage industries, today's history would, I believe, be dramatically different. Kevin Diflo

Unfortunately the idea of mainstreaming has been a) distorted in popular and political discourse, and b) demonised in the Indigenous context. There is another version of mainstreaming which, I believe, is more powerful and could lead to more equitable outcomes for Indigenous peoples. This is taken from the international development context and derived from the process of gender mainstreaming.

Put briefly, the foundation of gender mainstreaming is the acceptance of difference rather than the pretence of sameness. In that recognition of difference there is an implicit recognition of differing life experiences and consequent modes of operation, giving rise to the need for thoughtful approaches to activities which impact on both women and men. At the very least, development practice – government social policy – should be constructed so that it does not impact negatively on particular groups in society. This in turn means that government policies, programs and projects should be scrutinised with the difference in mind. The translation of this theory of development practice into the Indigenous arena is not seamless or faultless, but it does deserve consideration. This is especially so in the current vacuous state of Indigenous policy.

Awol just explain what you mean in simple language.A string of generalised verbosities will only impress lawyers and public servants.In essence you have said that all indiginenous people have different needs and should be treated accordingly.WE can say that about all humanity.We know Govt policies are stuffed because political correctness dictates that only minority groups of the soft option persuasion can influence their decisions.Indigenous policy is stuffed because we won't face the realities of our cultural and genetic differences.

The awol piece (8/1/05) is an example of one of the barriers blocking Aboriginal policy development. The condition of people living in Aboriginal communities is not only of academic interest. In fact, it is hard to understand how such comment will assist in helping Aborigines become qualified for paid work instead of Centrelink income. In our community, we have about twenty paid positions apart from CDEP places. Only four are occupied by Aboriginal people. Our community has been going since 1973. This, you would think, is enough time to have a few qualified teachers, police, nurses, retail managers to fill our available positions but not so. Why, after thirty years, is this the case?

KPD, the reason is probably because aboriginal leaders need their communities to be in a poor a state as possible in order to gain the most amount of money from government.

If aboriginal leaders had put half as much energy into truly trying to help their people as they do trying to shame white Australia and further their own finances and careers then we wouldn't be having these debates now.

bozzie, I have not detccted that community people (in this community, at least) choose to stay in the current condition to gain more money. I will, however, be on the lookout for signs of this. A major problem is that the wrong concepts are continually being discussed. For example, the term "community leader" keeps coming up. In our community, there is no prominent leader because most of the people come from other tribal areas. There are only two Traditional Owners living in our community. The non-traditional residents therefore have no authority to make lasting decisions. We are embarking on negotiations with Traditional Owners, through the Central Land Council, to resolve this issue.

SOLUTION ?
I think all of you are touching on aspects of the solution.
There will never be one if we keep on viewing them thru 'white' eyes.
What is without question needed, is a serious cultural anthropological assessment which gets to the heart of the issue. It will not be the same answer in each location or for each sub group of people. But one common thread would be present in all aboriginal groups a sense of 'cultural despair and dispossession'. "You dont count" kind of thing. How does one solve that ? I suggest as a beginning for those of us in Melbourne, a contact with real aboriginal elders, to find out what is important culturally to them. If it is acknowledgement of sacred sites, some symbolic gestures. lets do what we can to accomodate. I would not have a problem with erecting a symbolic sign on my place, and offering the casual use of a particular bit of my land specially and only for indigenous descendants of those who originally inhabited my area. As I mentioned on another topic, when I goto Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia and every street has a chinese or Arab/Muslim name and every single person looks different in color and shape and ur feeling kinda 'out' of it, and SUDDENLY u see a street named "John Wesley street" my goodness, as a Christian who originally was involved in the Methodists (founded by Wesley) u really wake up and feel more important. It doesn't take a lot of money.. that never solved anything. The aboriginal crisis is cultural and spiritual. Fix that first, (without neglecting general welfare along the way) and the rest will come a lot easier.