The author says that Aboriginal violence must be sorted out by Aboriginal people. I take it that he rejects the Aboriginal industry constructed by 'whitey'. Why then does 'whitey' feature in his 10-point rescue plan? Is the author not patronising in his rescue mission?

Gavin said "indeed it will be the death of Aboriginal culture if not questioned by the Australian people as a whole."

This begs the question "So?". Cultures have come and gone, as surely as Western Culture has come, and will enevitably go.

Graham says that "any solutions to Aboriginal problems must come from Aboriginal people" yet contradicts this by saying that "adequate funds should be made available over a period of at least 10 years to allow these solutions to be implemented".

Time to stop flogging the dead horse and let those cultures that have succumbed to Darwinian natural selection and let them rest in peace.

The author says that "White Australia has continued to believe those journalists who lie about the supposed fortunes that have been and are being spent by governments on Aboriginal health and well-being".

Well, I worked in ATSIC for several years, at a time when its budget was $1.3 billion per annum. That is around $3,000 every year for each Indigenous man, woman and child in Australia.

Some lie.

Gavin Mooney opens by saying, in essence, that few indigenous Australians have tried to elevate themselves from their past, and that we white Australians are not interested. Agreed.

He then pulls out the old one about treating (investigating by the media) the symptoms, not the cause; but he rejects the invocation of “Coombes-driven socialism” which is the very cause of the problems now becoming more widely discussed.

There was probably no evil intent in the apartheid-like separate development idea dreamed up by Coombes, and instigated by Gough Whitlam. But it was just a dream that has turned into a nightmare. The idea that a small group of people could live in isolation in the 20th century and beyond was doomed to failure, as “experts” are only now coming to realise and admit. Joe Blow always knew it. White Australians, years ago, said, “What’s the point in even thinking about it?”, and lost interest.

Mr. Mooney also rejects the idea of treating everyone, black and white, the same. He claims it is unequal and not fair.

Perhaps he would care to explain why it is that ONLY aboriginal Australians who have assimilated and been treated the same as everyone else have prospered and been able to share in the benefits available in wider society? These people are getting a “fair go” because they wanted it and went looking. They didn’t want to live in isolated camps, trying to replicate some old white man’s vision of the Noble Savage.

Gavin tries to convince us that there is no place in aboriginal culture for the violence against women and children occurring in isolated camps. Has he tried convincing the aboriginal perpetrators of violence and sexual abuse of this? Has he considered that the isolation and idleness of these camps might have something to do with the obvious violence and child abuse?

Like the Coombe/Whitlam dream, Gavin’s plan would fail. Indigenous Australians must assimilate (with help) and camps must be closed down so that aborigines can be individuals like the rest of us, and not held back by stone-age culture.

Another from the failed idea of Aboriginal self policing. This is exactly what has led to the present day outing of the terrible things done to Aboriginals by Aboriginals.
The only way to give women and children the protection they so desperately need is to bring them under the shelter of the same law that shelters the rest of us.
To keep them in isolation only ensures that the defenceless ones will go on being so abused and the cycle will go on and on.
Time to bring the Aboriginals into this modern age and it is only by education, education that will eventually do that very thing.

Gavin is to be congratulated for continuing to fight the uphill battle against the racism and ignorance of our dominant society. This has now been significantly worsened by today's amendments to the federal legislation concerning native title. These have detracted from the communal nature of traditional Aboriginal land ownership that is so intricately bound up with the laws and customs of non-dispossessed communities. It is a pity that the distinctions between the two different types of communities and of land tenures (their communal and our individual) is not understood - resulting in inappropriate payments of federal welfare to individual Aborigines instead of to each community as a whole. One consequence of this misapprehension has been Noel Pearson's "welfare trap"; to which we can add the abolition of ATSIC, and refusals to ban leaded petrol and alcohol. And now we seek to punish the victims rather than the perpetrators of these abuses. Nowadays, the word used to describe these policies of 'assimilate or die a cultural death' is ethnocide. barbh.