I can't understand why you think this incident was because the lady was Indigenous. I can't believe you think it's the Prime Minister's fault.
Elderly people all over Australia are being neglected, people just seem to forget about older people. For the last 15 years I have been assisting some elderly (non Indigenous) people that live in pension flats. I work full time elsewhere and I volunteer time to help care for these people. No-one really cares about them, they are old, lonely and frail. I found one of the ladies on the floor of her flat one day after she had fallen in the night, she had been there all night. One of them had a fall one day at the shopping centre, nobody helped her, she is now to afraid to leave her home, and now never leaves.
I think all Australians should care more for our elderly people, and if every person helped just one eldery person it would make their world and our world a better place.

"What is the government doing to address the appalling racist attitude that more and more Australians are exhibiting towards Indigenous Australians?"

What are Indigenous Australians doing that generate this attitude of indifference?

More BS from the black Australia industry. One more piece of self indulgent rubbish. If this piece had of been about Australia’s indifference to our fellow humans, I would be right there with you Stephen. But it is a disgrace to make it about race. I am appalled at the growing number of black Australians vilifying our people, our Governments, our culture and our way of life.

Yes we should have a nation were people can willingly stop and help their fellow citizen, but this continuous assault and insult of Australia and it non black peoples just serves to make me more cautious and guarded about dealing with black Australians.

Stop making everything about you. Do what I do, work hard, pay tax and respect your elders. That way Aunty Delmae would never have been left there in the first place.

Hi Stephen

I personally feel regret for this incident. However, I think it is assuming too much when you blame it solely on racism. I have had a personal experience of physical threat by an aggressive addict whom I approached in Smith Street Collingwood when I thought they were ill. So, I may be lacking in compassion and I may be overly cautious but, for me at least, my actions would now be just the same for a non-indigenous person.

I also have problems with your plea for "the billions of dollars that Indigenous Australians are crying out for". There are some prior issues before we start handing out money.

Firstly, I know from personal knowledge that millions have been wasted by indigenous organisations themselves through nepotism, self-aggrandisement, straight out defalcation or just plain bad management etc. Would you accept the need for a focus on real personal and organisational accountability for outcomes? I would certainly not vote to spend more money knowing, for example, how one ATSIC commissioner's power base was able to cover up massive wastage through flash accounting over recent years - millions gone and nothing to show for it beyond some bankrupt companies.

Given that we are having a debate in OLO this month about healthcare where billions are also needed - not least for indigenous health - what are we going to cut from the Federal Budget to produce that money? Or, if we genuinely can't give an urban-level or even a decent level of healthcare to remote communities (indigenous or not) which we don't seem able to do, would you/should we encourage indigenous communities to leave the bush and settle where we might be able to provide the services they need?

Regards

Kevin

Stephen,

I have worked with indigenous Australians for over twenty years and over that time have come to expect this culture of blame.
It seems whenever something does not go your way it is automatically related to racism and stereotypes something that I find to be a cop out.
There are no easy answers to the problems facing indigenous Australia but what has become apparent is that aboriginal Australia is in no way capable of handling its own affairs in regard to the distribution of money. As already mentioned in this forum aboriginal politics is rife with nepotism and greed (I HAVE SEEN THIS FIRST HAND NUMEROUS TIMES) something that goes against the idealistic view of aboriginal Australia held by so many.
Instead of constantly referring to themes of racism and so called red neck Australians how about talking about aboriginal Australia taking some responsibility for themselves ensuring a positive future. These are themes that have been talked about by Pearsen and Mundine, two men with foresight not blinded by futile idealism, the kind of men who can work towards a positive outcome for all Australians, because that is what we all are isnt it?

No mind readers here so we'll never know what went through the minds of the passers by at the time. Maybe Stephen is correct and everybody who went past was racist and uncaring and let the womans skin tone combine with some stereotyping drive an assumption that she was yet another drunk aboriginal.

On the other hand maybe the failure to aid was a reflection of the numbers of people who use public places as their homes. Some are there by their own clear choice and others by choices which are not easily within their control.

I don't know how many they see around the Uni generally but as a city worker I'm used to the sight, sounds and smells of people who mostly live in public places. Some are quite harmless, other are agressive and I generally leave them all alone unless I have a reason to interact with them - sellers of the big issue are often creative and entertaining.

It's not unusual to see someone asleep on a bench seat surrounded by their stuff, walking by does not signify callousness or racism (those drunken white so and so's) rather a recognition that people living like that are a part of life and that most probably do not welcome inteference.

It's sad that we have not found better ways of helping those who would like to be helped but to claim that it must be racism because one indiginous person was not aided when she needed aid is drawing a long bow and runs the same risk as "The boy who cried wolf".

R0bert

Stephen, it may well be that the colour of Delmah's skin may have proffered an excuse for some to ignore her plight. I would like to think not but the human condition comes complete with more than its fair share of unpalatable faults.

I think that Delmah's situation probably has as much to do with complacency than ignorance. The community is no longer an instrument that seems to have the power to discipline the socially unacceptable or to act as defacto parents, teachers and protectors. The community no longer considers discipline and justice to be a part of their whole. Justice and morality is now a separate identity and dictates political economy rather than restoring social fabric by reflecting community in a holistic sense.

What has that to do with the essence of the article? Perhaps a long bow but many people now just "don't want to become involved." Too much trouble, too much angst, too much adversarial day to day living.
It is difficult not to feel Delmah's fear at being vulnerable, especially at being Aboriginal and defenceless.

It is a sad indictment on our society but colour is becoming less of an issue, I think, because people are becoming less caring of just about everyone but themselves.

I've a lot of sympathy for the aboriginals and their welfare - however this piece seems all over the place.

First up - I feel strongly that people should provide assistance to anybody who has clearly collapsed.

Secondly, I think it ok for them to leave others (who appear to be sleeping) at peace. It's a tough call, but I see homeless people (mostly white) all the time. I'm sure they need sleep like the rest of us.

But back to the key issue - what is the point of this article really? The rest of it is unrelated...

And to be totally honest - if you want aboriginals to have a truly traditional life, and you are against washing of kids faces, how can you expect others to pay for followup medical costs. Eye care. Skin care.

And what is this about air-conditioners?

I'm happy to help aboriginals - but not if you expect to sit in traditional environments while selected luxury conveniences are trucked out.

In the emerging modern nanny state, the nanny does not just seek to ensure that all her children are fed and clothed (and yes, it may even insist they wash their faces), it seems to demand full control of all interaction between those charges. Most are now starting to believe that unless there is a specific directive from her to compel them to do anything in particular, doing so undirected, risks her ire.

Yes, there is some sadness in this story, but being a Nannyist while at the same time relying on individual compassion from all other children, is as incompatible as it is unrealistic.

The indigenous culture is at its deepest core different and eschews the accumulative and deferral way of the white culture. They are different, and clearly despite the billions of dollars, concessions and favours thrown their way, choose to remain different. The white culture has tried but the blaming and externalisation of their problem remains.

Should we remain sorry for a culture that even abuses their own children to such a degree that at Hall's Creek, there is movement to in fact promote a 'stolen generation'?

Where special grades of petrol have to be used to reduce sniffing?

Where shops in their own communities have to be managed by whites?

Yes it is sad the lady lay neglected. The problem, the odds for someone lying so, sadly dont favour illness. The odds are for possible abuse of any good Samaritan instead as I have experienced.

Too long the issue of their estrangement has been transferred to the whites, but isn’t it time they finally took responsibility for themselves?

Isnt time they acknowledged the poor old ill lady was a victim of her own culture. A culture that is different and we should stop trying to compare them to the whites?

I do have compassion on this lady left for dead and I do feel for her ,but it is not an indigenous issue as it would also happen to white people as well,you can blame it on the so many drunk Aboriginals in our society ,stealing in broad daylight,demanding money all the time thinking this will fix it .

I have been to and with these people and been to their communities as a Christian who loves them , my wife and I.

BUT ,they will not help themselves even trashing homes and leaving them like in Hall's Creek, to livein the bush they have been taught hygiene for the past 150 years at least, and still don't know how to handle it .Sad,who can they blame? They can't handle money either (most)

All they ask for is money ,money ,money and most just fill in their days drinking and gambling we have seen it.
Money is not the issue ,it is teaching them a new culture as their old one has to do with giving another Aboriginal anything that they ask for, and can just take anything they see in another persons home or pocket.

If they bring 20 other visitors to your home you HAVE to put them up and give them everything they want or take. True or not?
Please forgive the ignorant people for thinking you were drunk.

I pray that you will get completely healed in The Name of Jesus Christ.

I don't know what makes me feel sicker - the original tragic story of callous indifference or the kick 'em while they're down rat pack who have responded so far to Stephn Hagan's article. Where is our compassion? Where is our sensitivity? Where is our decency?

It was only a few years ago when a visiting whitefella from the country collapsed on the footpath of a major Brisbane roadway at about 9.30am. And it took him 3 hours to die with the hideous pain of a coronary, as people drove by, walked over him and looked the other way.

This is not a race issue, it is an urban issue. It rarely happens in a country town and once, in what some call the 'bad old days', it rarely happened in Brisbane. There is something about the anonymity of metropolitan life that enables the mind to screen out any inconvenient moral obligation or confronting image.

This anonymity allows people to say to themselves, "I can step over this dieing person and no-one will know that I did it". This capacity to compartmentalise events in their day means they can act with extraordinary indifference with no cost to themselves. It is the essence of the urban notion of 'privacy'. A notion that has little meaning, and even less value, in a country town or remote community.

And the breathtaking irony of it all is that the metrononymous can then dismiss conservative country voters as having a lack of 'social conscience', some sort of moral deficit, for failing to vote for policies of welfare largesse.

And lets not be deluded here, Auntie Delmai was outside a university, where the voting patterns would be very similar to the readership of this web forum. That is, more than 25% green, 55% ALP and only about 15% conservative.

And they have the gall to lecture farmers on sustainability and intergenerational equity.

"Metrononymous"? no, it is 'metronymous' Perseus. It's a hazard to use big words to promote oneself as being erudite but in reality a mask.

Anything again Perseus to promote a schism between the non-caring urbanites and the mendicant minority in the bush. No, this posting is about a poor lady that suffered because society is conditioned to the outcome of alcoholism etc that makes many of her communities and places like Hall's Creek uncomfortable places to be. Have a talk to the rural community that you champion.

This is a very sad story but only a reflection of a conditioned urbanite community tired of the expressions of a race of people who cannot integrate well into the white community which has bent over backwards to help, support and give dignity to.

That lady is simply a victim of conditioned indifference.

I think that the folk passing by the sick lady have been de-sensitised. In the "new" Australian culture we are no longer fellow travellers but indifferent rationalists.

For instance: Homelessness is accepted as being a part of our culture. Some of the people who walked on by are probably racist but more likely the majority are classist or some condition (beaten) that a neo-logists haven't invented yet.

In my own experience, whilst working night shift, I have pulled up on the way home on a number of occasions to help seemingly unconscious folk. Three occasions come to mind. First, late at night I noticed an apparently unconscious person on the side of the road. I pulled over to help. When I gave the fellow a light shake to rouse him he jumped up, took a swing at me and ran off screaming. He ran full bore down the road and straight across a highway - and was just about cleaned up by a Kenworth. Gee. I am Rancid but not that rancid.

Second, another time I pulled over to see if an old mate was okay. He was at the wheel of his old EJ Holden which was parked in the middle of a dirt road that led to our farm. He was as drunk as a punk and we got him and his car off the road so he could sleep it off without the milk truck cleaning him up in the morning.

Third, just recently, a young lad had overdone it. On my early morning walk I noticed this very big person laying in his own vomit on the footpath. I very tentatively touched his cheek (he looked dead as his cheeks were pale as) and he was cold. I was worried that I would get the crap beat out of me. My point is that years ago that thought would not have entered my mind. Nevertheless, he, a Catholic, seemed surprised that the "evil" people on the corner gave a damn. Anyway he was fine and now we are not 666 just 66.6 of evilness. (Incarnations)
continued

Finally, as a teenager, I (yes superior Rancitas) passed out from dehydration on a median strip. A Salvo picked me up and took me home and got me on my feet. I was treated as one of their family for a few days until they located my folks. That assistance was a great example at an impressionable age.

I would like to see a survey of the rationalisations that went through the minds of people who regard an elderly lady lying on the footpath as an acceptable situation. That's right - I forgot, in our "new" culture there is no excuse for people "like that" not "pulling themselves up by the bootstraps". Bit hard when you have a blood clot blocked an artery.

George Orwell said: "If you can feel that staying human is worthwhile, even when it can't have any result whatever, you've beaten them."

Fight, fight you'll never win. (Reflections)

I was told recently by a freind on the phone many miles away that theyhad seen a man (white) while on their morning walk laying undera sprinkler at the beach at 7am who looked dead or unconcious.
I asked did they check him out and get help,they said,"No,didn't think of it."

Our society is not racist, just hard ,when you think of it anyway all animals and birds are racist too,just watch them only accept their own kind and defend their territory .

Getting back to Hall's Creek in WA we were there some years back and there was 400 Aboriginal Christians out of a town of 800,they were beautiful people as we sand worship songs together to God .

There has been many miracles in Hall's Creek, even the dead raised to life many time sin the name of Jesus

How pathetic that many of the posts assume that Aboriginal people are inherently incapable of managing money. Chris Skate and old Bondy (I forgot onetel, sorry) did a far better job of fleecing folk. Why, when one looks at the great rip-offs, isnt't there an assumption that white Australians are incapable of managing money etc.
As for the level of christianity expressed by some, I wouldn't like to be you when you finally go to meet your maker

It is interesting that some question if the persons Aboriginality was a factor in her suffering being ignored and assistance denied. Perhaps from the point of view of a Passer by, Aboriginality is one of many factors that may contribute to blind eyes being turned.
However it seems to me that this occurs over and over again to Aboriginal people, to a greater degree than to migrant Australians. For example, at time of writing the nation is mobilising to support the housing crisis in cyclone torn Nth. Qld. Yet a severe and ongonig housing crisis on Palm Island has been ignored totally for decades.
http://www.kalkadoon.org/index.php/palm-island-housing-report/
or the migrant drivers who get let off light for running down Aboriginal people in Townsville http://www.sunday.ninemsn.com.au/sunday/cover_stories/article_1938.asp
or generations of Aboriginal wages being stolen by the Qld. govt. which has (recently, not "way back then") offered 2-4000 dollars compensation.
Ignoring the needs of Aboriginal people, whether it is first aid, housing, justice in court or worker's rights, unfortunately is the modern psychological equivalent of King George the 3rd's declaration of Terra Nullius
. Black-fellas? what black-fellas? I dont see any black-fellas
J.T.

I would suppose, if our Elite positioned and phony cohorts that fill and present a less professional approach to a task they are paid with public moneys to actually achieve at least some thing, instead of the pretentious elitist achieving nothing and even compounding the problem to perpetuate more Looted funding to amerce themselves with their own depravity.
But then again, when someone who is a professional and does know what the answer is, only becomes a victim to demoralization and persecution by the phonies, as no one is permitted to impact on their Looting Ideologies. It is a sick world we live in, but for sure – not for long.
http://www.cambridge.org/journals/journal_catalogue.asp?mnemonic=IPG

Hall's Creek was defended

See http://www.kimberleyecho.com/archive/2006/20060316/story01.html.

The Halls Creek article clearly shows the desperate state of Aboriginal people and the inappropriate government programs up until now - another example of Aboriginal will being ignored over time. I'm afraid it does not indicate that the community was protected, as the title of the previous post suggests. It shows a desparate plea for protection after years of being ignored. There are many examples of Aboriginal strategies to deal with issues. It is important to realise that in Aboriginal society "removing" children from a dangerous parent means the child goes to relations within the family and tribal network - as is part of culture, something very different than being put in an orphanage or a non-related foster home.
It is important that non-Aboriginal people do not misrepresent Aboriginal will and culture, even if it contradicts "do-gooders" as being an endorsement of any white programs or ideologies.

This reminds me of the petrol bouser for washing hands, wherever that was. It was interesting that the "do-gooders" universally condemned this program but the locals themselves embraced it. The Bouser was not a trick that the government used to get the communinty to force the children to wash their hands. the handwashing was a trick to get a petrol Bouser out of the government after years of asking with no results because they wouldn't listen.

from, this do-gooder, it is sheer racism to assume that a community needs a bribe or authoritarianism such as a petrol bouser or removing children to institute a community health program for their children. Current programs fail, including child welfare and health, not because Aboriginal people don't care about their children.but because they are designed and imposed by the white bureacracy, in white cultural paradigms (often with black staff though) and they succeed in little other than paying wages for staff. Meanwhile the clients on the ground desperatly continue to search for solutions by themselves.

p.s one more thing about managing money as discussed earlier. r.e Bondy and Skase - not to mention the Australian Wheat Board.
I cant reference this as I forgot where I read it, so I challenge anyone to correct me, but the incidence of misappropriation of funds in Aboriginal organisations is exactly the same as the incicidence of misapropriation in the mainstram public service. I haven't heard a comparison with employee rip-offs in the private sector but that would be interesting too.

There has been recently a massive rip-off in the defence department uncovered. The government should abolish the army the same way they did ATSIC.

I agree with you King Canute. The army is obviously incapable of managing it money and should be closed down with the power given to a few politically selected people. The army should then have to enter into shared responsibility arrangements to negotiate its funding. The wheat board on the other hand is interesting as these are skilled people who can shift blame and get away with daylight robbery.
One thing I have often noted is that SOME of the non-Indigenous people I have known who worked in remote Indigenous communities return with an amazing amount of money. Unfortunately these people I have had the misfortune to meet are not pleasant and are very nasty about Indigenous people. Many unscrupulous non-Indigenous people make a fortune out of the 'Aboriginal industry'.

We were in Hall's Creek in 1992 with a Christian group to help indigenous people in NT first then went to HC stayed with Christians who had lived for years in HC who loved the local 800 indigenoue locals.
What we saw was the 400 who were Christians had cleaned up their lives and gave testimony that before Christianity they were social drop outs and drunks who did not care about normal life,same in the NT communities
One indigenous man who was old and deaf told us that their local witchdoctor put a curse on him (vey loving) and made him deaf the past 26 years we prayed for him laid hands and he got his hearing back FROMA LOVING GOD.
We saw nice empty homeswest houses everywhere as local pastor told us the the indigenous folks move out because they didn't know how to manage thier money like paying rent,utilities,and the like also lacked hygiene knowledge,so moved back to bush houses.

The indigenous people in Corroborree units at Katherine were bored and gambled all day outside the gates as well as alcohol free communities had drunks laying all over just outside the gates to communities then.
We went to a communty close by where they IP were all drunk at 8am and no kids or animals were looked after it looke dlike a battle groung and filthy.

The sexual things that go on are ignored as reported in news ,kids are molested from tots and this was verified 35 years ago by an old non Christian prospector who told us that he would see old aboriginal men doing sexual things to little boys and girls in communities and was told that they were getting broken in for sex when adult hood came.
I was not a Christian then either as he told others this story and he was an honest man.
Let's hope it has all changed for the better as it sound slike that by above comments.

Hey let's get back on track. The previous post wants to go back to 1992 and use this to push a line on christianity while another pushes the line of indifferent urbanites (Perseus) compared to suffering rural community. The issue is a lady that lay on the ground with a supposedly indifferent (white) community walking past her.

I say the lady was a victim of her own community given the outcomes already experienced by some Samaritans (me included). I frankly have little doubt that this would not have occurred if she was white or Asian, and that it will continue to happen as long as the indigenous people of this country fail to take charge of their lives and stop the the victimisation and attempts to transfer responsibility away from themselves.

Let's acknowledge the indigenous of Australia are inherently "different" and, based on all evidence to date, will remain so. I use the word in quotes carefully so as not to attract comments about being racist. They are simply different and we see many expressions, including on the footpaths.

In the book of genesis god said to Adam and Eve "you may eat of any fruit of the garden except the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil" This is how god made his perfect creation. Original sin, when Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, they became aware and ashamed of their own nakedness. The christian church since the Roman Epmorer constantine has preached nothing but the knowledge of good and evil. Then they told Aboriginal peple to be ashamed of their naked ness and made them wear clothes. Then they put them into institutions and raped them.
It is important to make a distinction between Aboriginal culture which has strict sexual laws, but different to the church of rome and its factional splits, and the psychological damage caused to the whole Aboriginal society as a result of institutionalised sexual assaults in orphanages, missions and white stations.

It is interesting that today's christians are not more open minded about sexuality. The law that god gave to Moses, and excerpt of which is the ten commandmants gives strict laws to stop a man favouring one wife over anonther, to restrict bitchiness between multiple wives and to protect the rights of concubines if they are discriminated against by either husband or wife.. Also king solomon, according to the bible saw the wonder of gods beauty in the breast's of pubescent girls. Solomon also had 60 wives and 80 concubines.
Dont get me wrong. An absence of sexual hang ups is not the same as child sexual assault. My point is paedophilia and rape in Aboriginal communities is a direct result of them being forcefully exposed to the ideoplogy and sexual activity of adherants of the knowledge of good and evil - sin itself, according to the bible anyway. Aboriginal culture is that of the garden of eden and the nakedness of adam and eve.

Incidentally, Mary the mother of Jesus was a child bride. If you interfere with Aboriginal mariage laws you might stop a new messiah for God's people in this holy land from being born

Taking it a little off the thread, but here is a Web site with some references to Aboriginal (Australia) Sacred Texts and beliefs. Interesting read if any is interested.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/aus/index.htm

Even the "taliban" of christianity (King Canute) have to offer an explanation based on dogma of the past - this is 2006!

Australia has a problem and it is growing in population terms without much sign of solution.

How many more ladies will have to lie on the streets before we acknowledge that we have failed to integrate and that they acknowledge their victim status argument is cliched.

When is it time we gave them their world to take charge of themselves and without discrimination (meaning, they are not offered concessions, favours and subject to our laws without bias)?

I suspect unless we shift our paradigm, acknowledge their difference, there will be many more "poor old ladies".

"the "taliban" of christianity (King Canute)" I find this most offensive. I am not a christian, I'm Irish.

Christians use words from the sacred texts of ancient tribal palestinians to describe their own european-industrial-capitalist-nuclear family culture. This culture is created by mammon and the media, with a very heavy dose of sexual repression and it's inevitable consequence of sexual predation - even priests and nuns, not just gangster rappers or old men in Aboriginal communities that someone saw once. By the way, to that writer, was that old man in contact with missionaries in his formative years?
The christians are so blind that they know nothing of the spirituality and holy places of Jesus the palestinian. Yet they can prattle off doctrines about biblical interpretation until they become white in the face.
This ethno-centrism is not just christians. socialists too, while the first Australian trade unions were being formed the last of the remaining Aboriginal people were being rounded up into internment camps. The unions said nothing.
european feminism ideologically tends towards disconnection from men. This has been confused with "women's business" which is about how women and men relate to each other collectively by way of connnection, including men's and womens own exclusive places, laws and times in the extended family,. when feminist models are applied to Aboriginal domestic violence sufferers, e.g. hide the woman and cut off communication which is standard security procedure in the refuge methodology, they cause disconnection which makes cultural healing, including women's business, to stop until the woman, and the man, and everyone else are reconnected properly through community process. Ideological feminism makes domestic violence worse in Aboriginal commnities. Just like the christian's did with sexual assault.
And the greenies, protecting the untouched wilderness. Today's national parks, for example, since the traditional owners were killed or put in missions have simply become overgrown untendered gardens, sleeping infernoes waiting to ignite. Greenies talk of bush conservation but since time immemorial aboriginal people have lived in and managed the bush, not "conserved" it and restricted access.

open-mindedness, not cultural blindness. http://www.kalkadoon.org

that sounds a bit jumbled - sorry, I had to chop out chunks to fit in and it lost it's flow

the point I was getting at is that colonial psychology is not just the problem of the christians, who create their religion in their own image, it is the same as socialists, feminists and environmentalists, and the rest of migrant society.
here is an essay I wrote which may explain better,

Neo-colonialism in Australia
A non-Aboriginal perspective on neo-colonial illusion
and reconciliation with Aboriginal Australia
http://johntracey.blogspot.com/2005/12/neo-colonialism-in-australia.html

King Canute, this is about an indigenous lady. I would urge you to not to use this forum to push your christian wheelbarrow where the only link to the indigenous is that both are fading out being vestiges of different times.

No mine is definately not a christian barrow. It is an exploration of why an aboriginal woman would be left lying on the ground. I reckon it has something to do with a generalised racism. this racism is directly related to psychology, both individual and collective. That's about as far as most discussions about racism go. This is all within what some call the judeo/christian ethic. the J/C ethic however has nothing to do with the morality of Jesus and his contemporaries, and it certainly has nothing to do with Aboriginal paradigms which might identify spirituality as a more accurate word than psychology. This spirituality in essence is to allow the heart to drive the head rather than the other way around. How is this relevant to the lady on the footpath?. The japanese people who stopped probably had a lot going on in their head -lectures, assignments, family problems etc. However their hearts were moved and all that was made second priority while they assisted that lady. Everybody else had their head too full of everything else to even notice her let alone put their own daily agenda on hold long enough to help someone in need.
This is the nature of white/black relations in Australia generally and collectively.
No government indigenous programs or policies will work until they are driven by spirit - the spirit of this country, not the kind the missionaries brought.

and if I was a christian, which I am not, what would be wrong with a christian perspective or an Islamic perspective, Hindu, Buddhist or Jewish perspective on this issue being presented?

I think they are all illusions, but I wouldn't go as far as to say I won't listen to that perspective.

please clarify the appropriate ideological framework for this discussion.

A spiritual discussion in Australia, not dominated by christians, may well be what this nation needs so that all the other people on the footpath in cities around Australia, right now, white and black may also be assisted

Walking past anyone on the ground even if they were drinking how hard is it to stop and make sure they are at least breathing, but not to even bother to stop and check wow how low,SHAME on all who walked past and all who looked the other way.And we call ourselves Australian, If it were not for our elders we would not exist,grow or learn. SHAME on you Australia..This lady needed your care...AND YOU FAILED!