Everybody is winging about Howard ; what can he or Trickie Kev do about Feral Aboriginals ; Sadly the answer is the same as it has allways been ......nothing ; Howard can at least do what the state Govt's did'nt do that is restore Law and Order .

There are many more Feral Whites in Australia ; The full force of the Law applies to them ; The Crime is the failure of the State Govt's to apply the law .
How is it that Keating , Hawlk and Howard are being ostracised and accused of sitting on their hands ?

All these people sent $ millions towards the Aboriginal Problem (?) what happened , who benifitted , the Sydney Black Mafia and the Bureaucrats ? The fact is $millions are not the answer either , makes no difference if you are Black or White the road out of Poverty is work ; If Howard can restore civility , Education and Health , Opportunity will follow .

If the Aboriginals wanted work, there is plenty of it available in the West Australian mining industry. Why is it that white Australians who want to make a quid are prepared to leave home and go a couple of thousand kilometres to get a job and the rest of the lazy b's both black and white are prepared to stay at home and expect money to be put in their hands. I did it when I was young, nothing has changed. Poverty is a state of mind and until that is changed nothing else will.

David

There appears to be many people playing the blame game. It's not anyone's fault. Two very different and incompatible cultures clashed, and the most "advanced" culture dominated to the detriment of the local one.

In just a handful of generations we've tried to transform a nomadic tribal society, into a modern, settled down and civilized set of communities. That's quite a lofty social engineering goal and it's not surprising that things haven't quite gone according to plan.

One of the key issues that I haven't seen addressed is the economics of these aboriginal communities (which is interesting given the supposedly superior economic qualifications of the Howard government). We want these people to have all the goods and services of modern life, which involves pouring significant resources into these communities. But there's nothing coming back out. We want to blame them for being lazy, but there's a complete lack of opportunities for them to get involved. Theres no mines, no factories, no farms, not even any tourists. No jobs. Unlike the small "white" Australian towns, there's a complete lack of fundamental industry to support a local economy.

It's well known the impact that high unemployment has on a community. Lack of self worth, lack of hope for a future and all the other psychological issues that lead to the substance abuse, the violence and the other problems we see plaguing these communities. Ultimately it may be unsustainable for these people to live on their land in the way acceptable to modern Australia.

If we want to make progress, we need to address the root causes, and not just attempted band-aid solutions for the symptoms.

I don't agree that it is "nobody's fault". The consistent refusal of the Howard government to apologise for the scandal of the Stolen Generations is, I think, closely related to this new phase of storm-trooper attitude. Howard, back in 2004, declared that he was not interested in "symbolic issues" and he wanted to focus on practical solutions.

He then succeeded in practically eliminating Aboriginal issues from the mainstream media and withdrawing support and funding from remote Aboriginal communities. The press is now, again, interested because Howard has labelled it a "crises" and all we see are images of drunk Aboriginal men and children with runny noses. These are the pictures I have been shown of Aborigines since I was a kid and do nothing to eliminate the fundamental racism of Joe Public. Symbols are so powerful in influencing how people view one another - images of children behind barbed wire helped change governement refugee policy. How is it that Howard cannot see that his re-writing of Australian history, his consistent refusal to acknowledge the wrongs of the past, is not fundamentally related to the parternalism that continues to dominate Aboriginal affairs? As pointed out, Aboriginal people are not "ours" to manipulate at will. Ask how White Australia would feel if the government claimed the right to walk into our houses and anally and vaginally examine our children for evidence of abuse?

The Howard policy is basically saying, once again, that Aboriginal people aren't capable of looking after themselves and must be "saved" by the White man. I used to believe that history could never repeat itself. Now I know I was wrong.

All interesting, and great to read so much debate. Howard's inaction, and that of all Australians, politicians and the rest of us, is wrong, and I doubt that his current strategy will do anything but win Howards votes from rednecks.
Can I be just a wee bit picky? The word is 'whinging,' not winging!

It wasn't until all this business blew up that I learned our Troops have been going into Aboriginal communities for years, building and cleaning up, helping the Aboriginals in many ways. Nor had I had ever heard of Norforce .
But our Australian troops and police go to other countries to do what they can to assist people. Why not our people too? Why the moan from the left who have done the worst to set Aboriginal affairs so far back?
Good for Howard, good for our troops, good for all who will try to drag the Aboriginals into the daylight.