Graham Ring says: "[Aboriginal Affairs Minister] Brough can expect to be abused in Areyonga, blasted in Beswick and castigated in Camooweal. They'll jeer in Jigalong, frown in Framlingham, and heckle in Hermannsburg." I don't disagree with the implication that a hot reception is thoroughly justified, but I think Graham doesn't go far enough.

If we want to see real changes then we need to see Howard and the whole of Government (not just Prefect Brough) booed in Brisbane, insulted in Ipswich, hissed in Hobart, condemned in Kew, pilloried in Parramatta, lambasted in Leongatha, harassed in Hindmarsh and shunned in Subiaco.

If Brough is being “monstered” by aborigines, it is because he is the first Minister with the guts to tell them the way it is.

If what “local aboriginal man Vincent Forrester” is “reported to have said” (Ring is not even sure about that), how many people was he actually representing with his stupid and offensive remarks? That Brough was “taken aback by the warmth of the welcome”, would appear to indicate that there was only one ratbag who thought that way.

Has Ring stopped to compare Brough’s supposed “denigrating” of remote communities with the pig-ignorant, white-hating nonsense hurled at Brough by Forrester.

That is, if Forrester really said the things reported to Ring by who knows how many second, third and fourth hand sources. Was there really a “hostile reception” at all?

Ring claims to be a friend indigenous people. If he is one of their friends, their enemies must be a real worry!

From a ‘maybe’ about one man, we arrive at “hostile” receptions and “backlash” and “outpouring of anger”. The hated Howard Government is making “sustained attacks” on an aboriginal community.

I think that Graham Ring’s regular outbursts come under the editor’s definition of “flaming”. Ring is certainly not a person I would rely on for the truth or impartiality and accuracy in reporting.

I have decided to confine him to the same “not to be read” rubbish bin started for Greg Barnes. The lack of responses by other posters to him and the regular indigenous person who likes to talk about himself, shows that I’ve become sick and tired of the whining by and for indigenous people later than most

An excellent article, timely and correct.
Australia's indigenous people have demonstrated their ability to survive at no cost to the planet, and should be lauded and encouraged to continue. What is needed is skills training so that all maintenance, infrastructure repairs and construction, all bureaucracy and other requirements of living in 2006, can be performed by locals. There is no case for these jobs to be performed by aliens who collect all the dollars allocated to Indigenous welfare, then pack up and go, leaving the community as incapable of coping with 21st Century bureaucracy as before.
Paternalism must end now!

Rent-a-rubbish:

"Australia's indigenous people have demonstrated their ability to survive at no cost to the planet, and should be lauded and encouraged to continue.

Twaddle largely meaningless, everyone around today has a family history of survival all leave footprints.

Living traditional way hard when seasons dried up, death was common.. but despite this people did survive because surviving is what surviving people do, survive despite their environments.

Relations became "prisoners of flour, sugar, tea" none planned, or desired, turn around leave all to return older ways, would laugh anyone suggest same, recognising some things better, some things worse, all things changing...

Accurate:
" What is needed is skills training so that all maintenance, infrastructure repairs and construction, all bureaucracy and other requirements of living in 2006, can be performed by locals. There is no case for these jobs to be performed by aliens...

CDEP failed produce these workers, why work harder for less money ?
Training, educating, takes time... too many suggesting it is all easy... people supposedly provided past 20years of training...

"...who collect all the dollars allocated to Indigenous welfare, then pack up and go, leaving the community as incapable of coping with 21st Century bureaucracy as before.

Missionaries, misfits and mercenaries... will continute until from within communities are people educated doing these jobs, this not be until we send our youth away to learn elsewhere how real world outside actually operates.

Best we can hope for is after they gain skills and experience to do these jobs our youth agree come work two years around home.

Some may actually stay longer, but two years is enough to ask of them.

" Paternalism must end now!

Step one: look in a mirror.
Step two forget racial tags, just marketing ploys, what counts is skills, training, experience.

Many have nerve to complain they have not succeeded without mentioning they have not tried.

Get a loan to start a business when you have no secure title to the land you operate upon and live within.

See archives for Alice Springs News www.alicespringsnews.com.au

Recently one woman professional put her career and life on the line to draw attention to awful abuses of women and children that were (and are!) the norm in Aboriginal communities.

But what about the vast retinue of experts and helpers who have had their snouts in the government trough for decades? Why didn't any of them blow the whistle? What about all of the self-acknowledged experts who comment from the sidelines? Why didn't they point a finger at the deaths of women and sexual abuse of children? Could it have been the case that they were ignorant of such widespread abuses for so many deecades? Or didn't the suffering of generations of Aboriginal women and children count for anything where Aboriginal politics is concerned?

Why encourage rabblerousers to abuse the Minister, after all the Minister is there to be informed and he is a senior member of an elected government. Some might not be enthralled with his policies but it is a democracy and he has a right to be heard.

The community has demanded that government take action on the grievous abuses of human rights that have plagued some Aboriginal communities.

There is also the expectation that controls be put in place to overcome the financial mismanagement, theft and fraud that have been identified in a succession of reports of the Auditor General. Annually, such theft, fraud and mismanagement drains millions of government funds away from areas of need.

It is abundantly clear that something has to be done to protect women and children and ensure that resources are expended for the purposes they were granted.

I don't think many people would countenance giving more power and resources to the very people who have proven themselves to be untrustworthy, or worse have been abusing the vulnerable. Just who is complaining about the Minister's visit? I assume it wouldn't be the neglected children who cop a daily belting from some boozed relative.

A day of tradegy has struck a remote community.

Despite all efforts to protect and prevent, sometimes things go wrong, and we could all do just a bit more toward encouraging the FedGov to keep on trying.

The inertia of a bogged truck overcomes the gravity of the situation it is in, as it gets dragged out.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200612/s1802939.htm