Strayan has missed the point completely: nobody has proposed outlawing alcohol.

Sorry, you lost me at the point where you said drinking is a human right. Codswallop. Alcohol abuse costs the community billions of dollars a year in all sorts of ways, and it is only because the grog lobby is so powerful that drinking is not better controlled across the board. I would be very happy for measures to be taken in the non-indigenous community to restrict opening hours, ban 'alco-pops' aimed at young drinkers, make grog manufacturers and sellers far mor liable for the damage grog causes etc. And no - I am not a tee-totaller, and I quite like a drink myself, but alcohol abuse just seems to get worse and more and more people are being hurt by it.

Until Aboriginals are treated as Australian by government and not another race, there will be no use in trying to turn the system around.
When Aboriginals have the same rights, the same responsibilities, the same mandatory education they will live in another world.
While government is talking of importing skilled immigrants, Aboriginal youth is uneducated, unskilled,unoccupied and spending a boring ,uncreative life with drugs and sniffing.
There are thousands of Aboriginal young people who should have trades,the hospitals are importing nursing staff, why not train Aboriginal girls?
Why let all these lives go to tragic waste because neither the governments nor their own people will lift a finger to help these young people.

Stephen,

Of course the same Law should apply to everyone. Moreover, a Law that discriminates on race can be and should be challenged. That said, drunks and criminals are often products of their family environments. Herein, good/poor parenting skills drive outcomes. This as behaviour issue not a race issue. Drunk WASPs should be treated, the same as drunk indigenous Australia's. Behaviour and consequence, regardless of race.

Cultural sociologist, Harry Triandis, studied the assimilation of Hispanics into US culture. The first generation "tries to assimilate" and the next generation finds its roots. This model works. Alternatively, Aboriginals brought up on a diet of in-family reinforced beliefs aimed in opposition to the mainstream culture is bound to fall.

The facts are these: The Scottish Clan is an historical artifact. So, is Australian aboriginality. Most Scottish Australians realise this fact; whereas, many aboriginals do not. The living culure has gone, along with the Mayans and Romans. Poof! Hence, remedy, assimilate first, then, appreciate the richness of one's "past" heritage. But,recognise, in the contemporary sense, it, that is, the kernel cultures are gone.

The Noble Warrior, Scottish or Aboriginal, is a memory.

Mickjo wrote: "When Aboriginals have the same rights, the same responsibilities, the same mandatory education they will live in another world"

So true, 40 years after the 1967 referendum substantive (not just formal) equality eludes our best efforts.

Aboriginals have same rights, responsibilities, and opportunities.

Problem is people refuse take advantages from opportunities available to them.

Refusal from plain ignorance, plain stupidity, sometimes being mislead.

Education purported as compulsory to ensure less ignorance.

At 40years after 1967referendum substantive equality eludes us.

This largely due racists, apologists and rorters refusing treat people equally, corrupting, blocking opportunities available to Australians, busy defending their racist ideologies or filling their pockets.

Education supposedly involved mandatory attendance since 1860's.

Post66 unless your home education policy demonstrates equivalent literacy and numeracy progress to achieve acceptable standards at home, your children should attend private or public education system... oh many of those we are concerned with are...

Racists, apologists and rorters long refused enforce compulsory attendance, rather than take people to court for denying their children attend school and get educated, these "sympathetics" wandered around mumbling excuses...

Similar racists, apologists and rorters corrupted BiLingual education programs, turning them into monolingual non-english language education programs, children after years of school still neither able speak english well enough, nor literate enough, to get centrelink forms completed...

Easy to see around Alice Springs just how truly rotten is Australia's heart with "deemed acceptable" determining rights, responsibilities and living standards firstly by race, then if lucky by needs....

Government forms demand people accept racial identification as a basic requirement before considering rights, responsibilites and opportunities available to them with all to popular welfare claim is being done to help you...

Purported solutions of racially graded assistance is the problem.

Australian government, Parliament and so many of our politicians support practices such as separation of families on racial grounds, even when these families are Australian citizens.

So many (even here) accept professed claims such seperate treatment is necessary, necessary on racial grounds, so segregation is necessary... same excuses as created the stolen generation !

We really have two stolen generations pre67 and post67.

Example, from millions of dollars spent on Aboriginal Housing, why not include giving secure titles to these people they supposedly are constructed for... instead keep administrators employed..

Read www.alicespringsnews.com.a