Maybe your respected Aboriginal elders could apply to the various Commissioners of ASIC and other Aboriginal organisations that have literally thrown hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars away on cronyism, shonky deals, mismanagement, gambling, paying personal bills with CDEP money etc etc.

I worked out once that we could pay every Aboriginal man, woman and child in Australia $100,000 each as a quit claim and we would break even within 10 years by eliminating all indigenous State and Federal programs.

Aboriginal families would have more than enough money to establish themselves in a style that relatively few Australians can even now aspire to. If they chose to remain in rural and remote areas then, like the white farmers and others who also live in those regions, they would either have to accept a lower level of healthcare or invest their funds to buy their own future services.

And, of course, if any of them still believe that people such as those mentioned in the first paragraph are at all trustworthy, why they could give them their money to invest and manage.

Kevin

What a pathetic whinge, many boomer's don't have super, their own home or money.

Whats indigenous, my families been here nearly 200 years, transported against their will, so whats that make me. I'm Tasmanian with some aboriginal heritage, but I'm me first, thats the difference. If you rely on your genetics to get you through life, I pity you. There's few boomer's I know who inherited anything from their families, they struggled, before decent working conditions, pay and welfare support.

As Kevin says, aboriginals are a product of their refusal to take responsibility for their lives. When will these people stand up for themselves and take control, as many aboriginal descendants do and enjoy life. Whinge and moan all you like, but this is the 21st century and if you don't get on the train with everyone else, you'll get run over.

Sure it took a long time to bring aboriginals into society and not treat them as misfits, primitive and unintelligent. But it was the people of this country who forced the government to recognise and give equality to descendants of those here before Europeans. We're not responsible for their plight in this day, its aboriginal leaders who are to blame. Those aboriginals that've grown fat on money destined to promote good living standards for their people, are to blame, not the Australian people. Where's their example and assistance, why aren't they out there telling their people to grow up. Nah their at home with their fat guts and money in their pockets

Stephen, you've done well on your own initiative. Whats different between the irresponsible Europeans who constantly cry for more welfare handouts, yet refuse to take responsibly for their lives and the aboriginals who do the same by abusing their bodies and their children. Surely thousands of years of good environmental living along with nutritional knowledge of today, would be a bonus towards good living standards. Sadly if you continue to live in the past, thats where you end up.

A big dose of sterio typing mixed with sour grapes and a touch of green eye.
Most of us are a blend of all those things mentioned in the article, anyone who has worked hard and saved all their lives are entitled to everything they have.
To sit and complain that life has passed you by is to acknowledge the fact that you didn't put in anything because it was too hard to be bothered.
Many of the older generations had it hard too,the great depression then the war made sure of that but most simply got on with it.
Very few people in this life are born lucky, most have to strive to make their luck.

Government policies have stacked the deck against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.

Have you not heard of the oppression of Australia's Indigenous peoples, how they were removed (alive or dead) from their land, their children taken to turn them into a not white but not Aboriginal servant class. Or haven't you heard of the policy to breed out the colour and the policies that outlawed culture, language and kinship.

Tell me have you heard of the wages witheld from Indigenous people and siphoned off by governments to pay for public infrastructure like hospitals in capital cities.

These wages were also used to pay for Indigenous people's incarceration on so called missions. So while non-Indigenous folk did it tough through things like the deprecion, Indigenous people were not citizens, had no vote and no rights even over where they lived, who they married and so forth.

If you haven't heard of these events, why not? They are a matter of public record.

Finally if the dept of defence, or the AWB were black organisations they would have been closed down.

aka, the "Aboriginal Industry" has played that old record so often , it is worn out. Believe me, many white people had it hard too but a good remedy is getting off one's backside and taking some responsibility for one's life. The best place to start is to make sure every child ,black and white,has an education and is taught the elements of responsibility. Get rid of the 'victim' mentality, the world is neither interested nor impressed. This is the best country in the world to have a go! Sitting and moaning is no place to begin.
The world will simply leave you behind if you make no effort.And that is the lesson all children must learn.

Maybe Stephen Hagan didn't use enough evidence to make his case compelling enough to kevin, the alchemist, or mickijo - although as Aka points out, he shouldn't really have to as it is all public record.

While human resilience to enormous calamity is remarkable, I believe that it is much more difficult to resist, recover from, or account for, the relentless “small catastrophes”, both historical and contemporary, that occur every day, every week, every year, and relentlessly impinge on indigenous attitudes and behaviours. Underpinning the effects of a history of violence, neglect, and dislocation, are the day-to-day realities of embedded racism and marginalisation that we in the wider community don’t notice or experience – or if we see it, we don’t believe that we participate in it personally, or as a community, or as a nation.

True, many non-indigenous people suffer adversity - but in Australia, nobody has or had the relentlessness of adversity that is the indigenous experience of the last two centuries.

And I will not deny the inequities that have been visited upon indigenous people by some of their own, but this demonstrates as much about problems with our systemic "money will fix it all" approach to very human conditions as it does about behaviours that range from ignorant to criminal (hey, indigenous people are human too - as Aka says, if we use the same yardstick, defence and AWB would be closed down - as would many other agencies, none of them having the "poor excuse" of systemic generational deprivation as justification (note that I believe that accountability is essential - but we need to be clear at the start what is expected, and how it will be measured, then stick to our rules. We have not done that with most indigenous programmes, initiatives, or whatever the latest term is).

I am not an indigenous person, or a knee-jerk bleeding heart. I grew up in central western NSW, not far from where a convict ancestor settled in the 1830s. I now work with indigenous and non-indigenous families in southwestern Western Australia.