Stephen, I agree with you, the ideas you put forward would surely improve things. But how can you go about it. As you state, power tends to change people for the worse when there is money involved

From my understanding, aren't the cultural elders of your mob humble people who have an undertstanding of life and give guidance to the people. How can you harness that in these present times, for the best benefit

Could it be that your mob may have to seriously think of returning to some of your original life style a more natural one (diet)and provide an example for those that live in normal society. It appears to me that the vaste majority of problems indigenous people face, are related to the diet and addictive aspects of modern life.

I beleive it could be done without losing the technological benefits of the modern society.

I really beleive that your race is much to far advanced to be conned into commiting suicide with a bad approach to life. After what has been done to you in the past, I am sure you've all woken up to the trick they are still pulling on you.

After all they lied 200 years ago about how your lives would be enhanced with religion and a crap diet, they haven't changed you know, the reality of your peoples situation shows that.

Could it be that if you all started to take a lateral approach to your future, it would benefit all in this country with a great example of how we all should live in natural harmony and still advance.

After all the "noble savage" myths have dried out and faded away like morning mist, there is no escaping the simple certainty that no culture, anywhere on earth, has achieved a state of economic, social and political sustainability without either developing or borrowing a concept of property rights over land.

It needn't apply to all land, but the capacity to exclusively possess, improve, trade, and, yes, risk losing, an identifiable piece of land is the building block of capital formation. For only then can the value of improvements and future surpluses be incorporated into the price of land. Every Australian with a mortgage understands that this is the fundamental nature of the game.

And the burden falls on anyone seeking an absolute exclusion of this concept from Blackfella land to demonstrate how and where, in the past century or two, this absolute exclusion has improved the lot of the community concerned.

Gee, Warren Mundine and Noel Pearson are rednecks too? It seems to be getting very fashionable and is attracting some real talent.

Stephen Hagan's opinion piece was typical of the loony left's lessaize faire attitudes to aboriginal welfare. If aboriginal society is dysfunctional, then it is all the white fellas fault. Therefore, the white fella should cough up even more money implementing social programs to alleviate it.

Got news for ya Stephan. The Stone Age is over and nobody can go back. The sooner that aboriginal people assimilate into modern society the better. If their children will not go to school and behave themselves when they are there, then the kids should be "stolen" from their dysfunctional parents and put into care.

Definition of a Redneck: A white person regarded as having a provincial, conservative, often bigoted attitude.

The arrogance of 'redneck' in assuming that whatever culture or civilisation he represents is somehow the grouping that we all, including us as First Nations people, should aspire is laughable. After more than two hundred years, I can tell you now that the majority of my people openly and consistently CHOOSE to remain Indigenous with pride and defiance. Merely labelling our culture and beliefs as 'stoneage' is blatently ignorant and strongly smells of that crap called 'racial supremacy'. Your racial supremacy is that same sort that enacted the violent and forced removal of many in my family and community. We pay for the past experiments and 'good intentions' inflicted upon us with every day. What whites believed then and many (such as yourself) still believe today is that black babies couldnot possibly benefit from being raised by their own parents. 'Redneck' get off your conservative white arse and face up to the fact that we will not be conquered. This land always was and always will be Aboriginal land. The wealth, arrogance and condescention with which you write comes from your own past generations of thieves, brutes and liars. I think you need to resolve the past injustices your lot have inflicted upon us and move on. We know and accept that you and your people will not get back on your boats and sail back home. However, it is time that people such as yourself learn about us and the stories we can tell about you. After all, we're experts about your people, we deal with you far more than you deal with us on a daily basis. Deepest sympathies to you redneck. You just don't get it and probably never will. We are just not afraid of you and your kind!!

If your definition of a “redneck” is a person who holds “provincial, conservative or bigoted attitudes”, what does that say about you Warridah, when you wrote that white people, are “thieves, brutes and liars? I love it when my opponents are unable to fathom the fundamental contradictions in their own thinking.

I see that you consider aboriginal people as “your people”. That seems to indicate that you are just as racist as I am. Perhaps a bit more than me? I am at least prepared to accept aboriginal people as “my people.”

The best thing that can be said about the concept of aboriginal self determination is that it was a worthy experiment that self evidently failed. The policies of more enlightened governments in the past had been one of “assimilation” and that can now be seen to have been the correct course. Aboriginal communities living in self imposed isolationist apartheid states have become so dysfunctional that their plight can no longer be ignored by responsible governments. Their condition of these communities mirrors the same sad conditions in every other society in the world which was foolish enough to allow their native people to continue living under their dead Stone Age cultures.

Immigration department officials have stated that almost a million people a year apply for the right to immigrate to this country. Most of these migrants see this country as a land of boundless opportunity and personal freedom. Aboriginal activists have done a great disservice to the aboriginal people by convincing them that this country does not offer the same to all. If you demand the right to live under aboriginal culture, then get used to the petrol sniffing, rampant substance abuse, domestic violence, thievery, and raped children that are social blights now endemic in aboriginal communities.

If that is what you want, I would consider that attitude “provincial, conservative and bigoted.”

Redneck, you just don't know how wrong you are, but even more tragic, is that I sense you really don't appear to care how wrong you are.

[After deliberation -this is my preferred response to your last post instead of one that I began to write that outlines your -incorrect assumptions-factual errors- and a friendly suggestion that you do some research and review.