Throssell asks why indigenes are better off in New Zealand, USA and Canada. Could it be that the indigenes of those countries are more willing and able to take responsibility for themselves?

Another possible reason why Australia's First Peoples do not share the same life chances as the First Peoples of New Zealand, Canada and the United States is the fact that the political environment at 'settlement' in Australia vis-a-vis New Zealand, Canada and the United States was qualitatively different. That is, when the British were attempting to 'settle' New Zealand, the pride of their fleet was repelled time and again by the Ngati Porou on the east side of New Zealand. Accustomed to warfare, the Maori proved a formidable foe, and for pragmatic purposes, the British treatied.

In Canada, the British faced considerable resistance from the Indigenous locals, coupled with armed rivalry with the French for Canada's considerable natural resources. Thus, the British treatied with Canada's Indigenous population in order to ensure defeat against the French.

In the United States, with a well-documented history of prolonged frontier violence, treaty was inevitable in order to guarantee the safety, security and long-term viability of the British fledgling colonies.

In Australia, where the First Peoples were less organised along political lines and where their communities were widespread across this great continent, mounting a united front against an enemy many could barely even conceive of was practically impossible. Coupled with the fact that the British had no other colonial rivalry to contend with made a treaty with Indigenous Australians, from the British perspective, pragmatically unnecessary.

Continued...

In this context, the importance of treaty is that it provided a legally recognised framework for the articulation of Indigenous rights under the imported British rule of law. As history has noted, Indigenous Australians had no such 'protection' under the rule of law until they were considered citizens of this country, which did not happen until 1967. The trickle down of rights in the forty years since has been shown, whether through the Royal Commission into Black Deaths in Custody, or the Bringing Them Home Report, to be slow and sporadic at best, and at worst non-existent for many Indigenous Australians who must still endure the cultural legacy of centuries old stereotypes, prejudices and discriminatory application of laws.

The fact that Indigenous Australians still do not share the same life chances as non-Indigenous Australians is not a fact that requires endless debate. It requires political will and an overwhelming desire on the part of all Australians, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, to change it. What remains to be seen is whether White Australia truly has left behind its artificially assumed air of racial superiority, in order to achieve real and meaningful change for those Indigenous Australians who so desperately need it. Undeniably, those who require help must also desire for change - perhaps White Australia needs to take its foot off the collective throat of Indigenous Australia in order for them to feel there is indeed something worth living for.

Ignorant Australians go around claiming Indigenous Australians had no such 'protection' under the rule of law until 1967.

Ignorant Australians just as ignorantly claim Aboriginal Australians or Aborigines only were considered as citizens in 1967.

Certainly is a long history of people striving to deny Aboriginals rights, but this was done "to protect" them under the laws, all that changes are the flavours and the rhetoric publicly uttered..

Health and the state of our nations Mental Health is more than "bipolar".

As you said, One can only imagine how one would experience “anomie”, “a sense of alienation and purposelessness caused by a breakdown in the culture, which, it is argued, can lead to suicide.”

Our society has gone backwards be it the ways we negate the plight of indigenous people in our own country, migrants minorities from other countries, or our selves.

We have silos everywhere governed by an administration based on a puppet show made up of spin.

We have dispossession, ignorance and prejudice through government, health ministries and services. It is a MacArthurisation gone wild. (ie: "Pacifism and its bedfellow?)

As the UN reported; it has placed a specific obligation on the Australian government to “refrain from interfering … with the enjoyment of the right to health … and adopt appropriate … measures towards the full realisation of the right to health”.

Let me repeat this: “adopt appropriate … measures towards the full realisation of the right to health”.

Australia fails to value the full meaning of health. It pacifies a cultural approach as it pacifies its own policies on inclusiveness.

This is backed by the many Tribunals and Courts who have little power to address health topic’s such as a consumers vs. carer status over “health treatment”. A complete imbalance over consumer self-determination and empowerment.

Million’s of dollars are spent on patronising rhetoric, making bad of good knowledge based policies through this sick imperial practice.

Dispossession is a key word.

How can we address the historical issues of our indigenous peoples when our ears are deaf to idea of “life-quality”.

Alma Ata as an agreed 1978 UN Declaration in Australia, must be a central election issue. It seems to be in conflict over “Sharing Service Provisions” Descriptor 1 + 3. Health for All vs. Affordability.

Affordability belongs to a DEMAND.

It is based on a community value, the value we place on good health.

As Australians, we need to attend to this value wholesale.

If not for yourselves, for the people of Cape York.

http://www.miacat.com/

Oh Dear,
So much anger and self importance! Bottom line is that the Dominant Society has caused many of the problems modern Aboriginals face and provided very few, if any solutions.

Certainly it is time for Indigenous Communities to help themselves, but considering how far they have come in 200 years, when it took the English 2000 years to move from totally unsatisfactory slaves for the Greeks households to what they are today, they deserve a pat on the back (not a condescending one!)

If you read some of the available data on the stolen generation and segregation/assimilation theories, it really isn’t difficult to understand the dysfunctional impact on the last two generations and at least the next generation of Indigenous families.

No solutions yet here, but certainly mindful of the enormity of it all.

Journeyon