I along with others say, well said, Verdante. Don't know how old you are, but sounds like you grew up when Aboriginals as in our Dalwallinu district got a bad name because though they were okay to work with sheep or cattle, did not fit in well with the seasonal rush and tear of the ever more modernising wheat farms, especially doing an all night shift on a tractor.

So sadly, what has happened is that most Aboriginals have left our district, habitating closer to towns, most of them unemployed.

Also reckon that the situation has certainly got worse for them since they have had access to alcohol, drowning their sorrows in drink especially so through being unemployed and on the dole.

A big worry is that this new corporate culture we are living in now, is breeding many young successful people, including our own grandkids, who are treating our Aborigines with even less respect than we ever did.

Maybe it is owing to the dole and the easy access to booze, that makes our natives appear even more downtrodden.

Of course, if one gets over-concerned about it, one has to bear the weight of being known as a bleeding heart or a looney- leftie.

Yet having gained Honours in my old age studying similar problems in Sri-Lanka, it makes one feel kind of special in his old age, to having sort of become part, I hope, of an Avant Guarde

VK3AUU,

I do look forward to your neaderthal type comments, they give me chuckle. Keep draggin those knuckles. :

FrankGol, chainsmoker. Fair enough. I'd add one more issue that hasn't been addressed, that of the problems of getting child abuse cases to the courts, and through the courts.

By definition an emergency requires extraordinary action to handle the danger present.Howards plan provides that at least. I'd suggest that provided the worst excesses (at least) of drugs and alcohol, and of abuse can be stopped then current services will be more effective.

Additional follow up with full consultation is then essential. Given the polls maybe its Rudd we should be putting the heat on for solutions.

CJ Morgan. Naive maybe, but neither a racist or a fool. (Deserved the flogging you gave me on the other thread. Apologies for being a smartarse).

Don't GetUp.
ShutUp.

Brett Solomon needs to catch up with a few key facts.

1. Federal Police are being sent into Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory to restore law and order. Norforce troops are only there to provide logistical support to the police, doctors and public servants.

2. The Federal Police are now training in NT laws and cultural sensitivities in Darwin.

3. The plan doesn't involve compulsory invasive medical examinations of children under 16, and never did. In fact, since the intervention of Tony Abbott, the plan no longer involves any compulsion in relation to health issues.

4. The professionals who will be doing health screening will not be untrained in cultural issues.

5. The screenings will not be unrealistic if they lead the Feds to take more steps to address staffing shortfalls and resource the chronically under-funded NT health infrastructure.

6. The banning of alcohol is not unrealistic, because most of the many NT communities where alcohol has been banned for the last 25 years or so and which have a reasonable level of policing, are much safer and more livable places than those where alcohol is permitted or is banned but insufficiently policed.

7. Banning alcohol etc does not suggest "this child abuse is perpetrated entirely by Aboriginal men."

8. Quarantining 50 per cent of welfare payments may not help reduce the level of sexual abuse of the children in these communities, but it will certainly assist in reducing the high levels of severe neglect and failure to thrive.

9. In reality, these are complex issues that demand a comprehensive response like that being undertaken by the Commonwealth.

10. The reasons at the heart of the substance abuse, addiction, violence and social dysfunction must be addressed. The sweeping reforms to policing, welfare, alcohol regulation and infrastructure development will assist in improving education, health and housing.

11.Rehabilitation programs for those affected are being expanded.

12. One key reform is that inexperienced idealists like the GetUp mob led by Brett Solomon will have to start grappling more firmly with realities

No worries, palimpsest. Perhaps I should have said that anybody who's taken in by this stunt is either racist, foolish or naive :)

However, the fact remains that after 11 years of arguably the most anti-Aboriginal Australian government in decades, it literally sends the troops into Aboriginal communities in a nakedly cynical and sensationalised political ploy, in the last couple of months before it has to call an election. And it's becoming increasingly clear that it just won't work - even in the short term.

I suspect future historians will not treat Howard kindly on this issue - along with the Tampa, 'Children Overboard' etc. I notice that nobody's talking about "practical reconciliation" lately...

Those naive individuals who so enthusiastically got with Howard's "Shock and Awe" program in its brief moment of initial glory must now be just a little disquieted by the quiet but inexorable intrusion of reality into the rhetoric - not to mention the on the ground practicalities. They need to get real about the welfare and rights of Aboriginal people, by supporting the proper provision of services to their communities, by a government that takes abundantly available good advice rather than engaging in tawdry political stunts like the current circus.

Dan Fitzpatrick appears to be in fairyland. Is he some kind of spin doctor for the Howard Aboriginal Putsch?