Dee

I am sorry, but I thought that people could recognise irony and sarcasm when they saw it.

I have worked with enough Aboriginal people to recognise that many have climbed out of terrible conditions where they should never have been in the first place. I suggest that you look at:

http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/hansart.nsf/V3Key/LA20050322024

to learn a little about the late Judge Robert Bellear, Australia's only Aboriginal Judge. It is a shame that there have not been more Aboriginals with the education and experience to be appointed to that position or higher.

I can assure you that Bob Bellear was not 'soft' on the Aboriginal offenders who came before him.

I tell you that I have felt fear at the prospect of walking through Redfern.

A story: An Aboriginal colleague told me about a niece of hers, from La Perouse who went to visit a friend in Redfern. This girl was gang raped by a group of Aboriginals. The police said that they had been told not to get involved in crime within the Aboriginal community (early 1990s). The girl and her family went to the ALS to try to get justice, and was told that the ALS would only deal with Aboriginals charged with a crime, and that was to assist the accused. They would not help the victim.

The girl’s father finished up tracking each rapist down and administering a beating to each. He should not have had to. This was not justice.

Aboriginals are the victims of crime by other Aboriginals just as much as white Australians are. Domestic violence is rife in Aboriginal communities, and the ALS will only help the perpetrator rather than the victim, due to the idea of ‘conflicting interests’, which is why ALS services specifically targeted for women have been set up.

Your husband was the victim of the sort of violence that Aboriginal women are subjected to every day. Aboriginal culture is inherently violent against females, but you will never hear an Aboriginal male admit to that, instead they will say that whoever says it is racist.

Dee:

I have spent 10 years in the neighbourhood also and yes, I too grow weary of the violence, gang fights, robbery and stick ups, racial taunts (white c**t) and all the rest. I have been bashed, my friends have all been held up with knives. I have seen packs of men hold up shops with spears. We like to swap stories about the excuses the burglars give when confronted. A sort of local pastime. Invariably it is "I am looking for Steve, he was going to sell me some speed". Best keep the observation that they entered through the third floor window to yourself.

I had a flatmate who went up to the station to catch a train with her child. Silly girl was "asking for it" by carrying a flimsy stringy handbag. Of course she got it forcibly wrenched from he while pushing the stroller, just having been to the bank. As is typical in these situations the victim feels like an idiot and she broke down. At this point an aboriginal woman took pity on her and went off into the block before returning with the discarded bag, no cash but still with cards and licenses. She then peeled a $50 note out of her purse and said she had been paid that day and to take it, she was sick of all the scumbags giving aborigines like her a bad name.

Sad that in a decade this is the only positive story I can think of in this regard.

It is very important to distinguish between Aboriginal leaders and spokespeople who demand our attention because there is a serious crisis and other Aboriginal people who are living the worst of the crisis - such as bag-snatchers, paint sniffers and a whole range of well publicised crimes of violence.. These people have lost all respect for people, not just white people but their own families and indeed themselves - these people, mainly young but not exclusively, are the living proof that things need to change urgently, not just for the benefit of Aboriginal people but so that we all can walk down the street and be safe.
The bag snatchers and white bashers, and black family bashers are proof that the prison system does not work. Aboriginal people have been shouting this for years, and putting up solid alternatives within customary law. But the white law has dismissed this and insists it knows best. Every aboriginal person who spends time in gaol is not being "rehabilitated" - not healed in any way, they are being made harder and more hateful because that is the system that gaol socialises you into - and gives you all the contacts you need to be your own crime wave when you are let out in the community.

The reason such anti-social activity festers in Aboriginal communities is because white power such as prison has been the only strategy to tackle it.
An example. Some time ago when petrol sniffing got out of hand in Mt. Isa, some elders rounded up the young men who had taken up the habit, put them in a 4w.d. and took them out bush, against their will, to straighten up and learn some things. They had to stop that because they were facing charges of kidnapping.

The best way to stop violence from Aboriginal people would be to support Aboriginal crime prevention and correction strategies which, If funded properly would save the tax payer million$ from the police and prison budget and make the community safer too.

I have grown up on an aboriginal mission in a country town, am part Koori, then went to uni and lived 200 metres from redfern station and the block, some of my best mates are Koori and i have lived alongside and with them all my life.

My white skin has meant i have not met the same cultural disadvantages many face, and i have had the advantage/disadvantage of hearing both sides of the fence from a more neutral position (some people being unaware i was part Koori) than most.

Whilst everyone makes their own choices (i came from the same nest as many who have not embraced life and have been disadvantaged) it comes down to environment, role models and focus. Without at least 1 of those 3 the kids usually are in for a torrid time in life, as they do not know any other way.

The end of the day, white people and the Australian Nation did this to a peoples who were largely untouched for 100,000 years.

We are to blame. Nobody, not one politician realy wants to get their hands dirty with it and go out and live it for a few weeks and get a first hand understanding of issues and problems.

Whilst most of you posters with little real understanding try to tell the world why the Indigenous Austrlalians have all these problems, it is easy to make assumptions and this is part of the problem. No one wants to fix this issue, grab it by the scruff of the neck and actually begin to plan and fix things.

We as Australians got these people to this point, now lets work hard to rectify the problem. This does not mean hand outs either, you teach people how to hunt, not where to go for food. We need to do this as a society, there are not millions of Peoples you can work community by community and eventually begin to provide light at the end of the tunnel. My above theory of the Native Title levy is also part of this solution.

Sorry Hamlet - I have heard so many people say similar things ('collecting rent') etc. and mean it, that I took you at your word. Sometimes its hard to detect irony. Another infuriating thing was that my husband was attacked within metres of the so-called police station. Ironically, about 5 years ago, my husband saw an old man being mugged by four aboriginals, within full view of security guards on Redfern station and he was the only one to help.

Child sexual abuse is also rife in Aboriginal communities, but nobody wants to admit that either. As well as very young girls being 'promised' to old men, like the case recently in the NT where the man was given a slap-on-the-wrist sentence for kidnapping and raping his 14 year old 'bride' when she showed reluctance.

I wonder if Aboriginals would really wish to return to this way of life.

realist,
Aborginals have had piles of extras, you know we have tried to help them, it hasnt worked, really all thats left is for them now to adapt to modern life.