Mercurius, good questions and points, however i think you'll discover that Jackson does not understand his own subjectivity, let alone Aboriginal /white dichotomies. Good luck, miracles can happen..i hope

Communicat and Country Gal, regarding Commonwealth powers, again I say: please read the article.

You will find it's not "my view" or "my claim". It's there in the article, all quite clearly argued and justified in five short paragraphs.

In particular, paragraphs 3-8 explain why and how the Commonwealth has power to act within the states on this issue.

If you can't be bothered to read and understand as far as the first one-third of the article, then don't blame me if you miss the point of it.

Country Gal - the "biggest words" I used were five-syllables - 'contaminated' and 'contemporary'. I notice you used some five-syllable words too - 'constitutional' and 'determination'. So I guess we're even.

Another "big word" I used was 'dichotomous thinking'. It means 'black and white thinking'. So what I was suggesting is that 'black and white thinking' will not solve this problem. Ironic, isn't it?

The posts by the left on this thread are illuminating.

Ever since the progressives derailed the Aboriginal relationship with the community, and instituted the downfall of the black communities, they have had a reliable source of victims.

From the days of the aboriginal stockmen, paid low money to allow for the supplies given by the employers to their families, inveigled by the unions into gaining an award which made them unemployable, to the limiting of the education of aboriginals to useless topics, like their own outdated language and culture, the left have locked them into victim status.

They have formed the base of the aboriginal industry, blackmailing the government into wasting billions on welfare and other means of worsening their plight.

Howard is now acting to stop this travesty. We now have a myriad of suggestions from the left on how to bog the process down, and make it ineffective.

Involve the State governments, who will remove all traction from any initiative, anything to prevent the removal of this weapon of the left.

It is great to watch this ranting, knowing that it will have no effect on the Howard Government’s initiative, and despite all the bleeding heart’s efforts, the Aboriginal community will receive some genuine and lasting assistance.

A national emergency requires a national response. But the way to deal with an emergency is not with adhoc short term measures. Emergency managers talk about four phases:

1. Mitigation
2. Preparedness
3. Response
4. Recovery
See: http://www.tomw.net.au/technology/it/emergency.shtml

The current situation in NT seems to be about the third step: "Response". What seems to be missing are the other three. The measures currently being used; with the army, police and seconded public servants, can only be a short term measure. This will not be effective in the long term, would be prohibitively expensive and would start to cause more harm than good.

One way to address the problems nationally would be for governments to think nationally about the services they deliver and how they involve the community in those decisions. A remote community can be easily forgotten and then be seen as a "problem" when the effects of that neglect become apparent.

One way for communities to not be forgotten would be to put to use the infrastructure which governments are putting in place for online access. This can be used both for the community to more easily inform government and for the government to check up on the citizen: http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2007/06/internet-to-empower-indigenous.html

How much this becomes the "nanny state" is open to debate. But at least that way the same services and opportunities can be provided across Australia. At the same time the community can use the same system to monitor government's delivery of services. Just as the government can check if children are attending school, the parents can check how much of the nationally allocated funding for schools actually was delivered in their community.

Communities could use a similar approach to the Google maps based projects designed to highlight human rights abuses in Africa.

Leo Lane,

So how do explain this same history you speak of whereby most of the states were controlled by conservative governments? Qld under Bjelke Petersen for example!

Are you suggesting the lefty intelligentsia were also in charge of the economic, legal, and policy machinery?

If the left can be 'blamed' for anything its their repeated call for a much more humane treatment of my people. Are you suggesting this was wrong? Your reference to unions advocating for my father to be paid an award wage instead of 1 third of that which was paid to his white co-worker is revealing of what you think Aboriginal people deserve.

I think it best if you read some history rather than borrow the ill conceived BS that you appear to be parroting.

Yes I know it makes you feel clever, but its not clever at all.

Think for yourself rather than employ Howard speak!

The political movement which fought for aboriginal “rights” was a creation of the left.

Among the myriad mindless and vicious mantras of this movement were “stolen generation”, “land rights”, “genocide”, “invasion”, “discrimination”.

Aboriginals were brought up believing that aboriginal children were stolen, that their land was stolen, that white people discriminated against them, that their country had been invaded by white people. We have seen the result of this negative conditioning, and we have seen that the progressives are unrepentant, for having administered it,

Black communities were conditioned to believe that white people wished to deprive them of their culture, which they were told was speaking an aboriginal language, and traditional aboriginal skills. They were not given the opportunity to gain a basic education, simply a sham education leaving some without the ability to speak English. What a giant step backwards.

What chance do they have of making their way in civilization? They are conditioned to see it as a threat, not as an opportunity.

These people, caught in a stone age backwater of evolution, had a wonderful opportunity to embrace civilization. Many of them did, and referred to themselves as the “saved generation”, until howled down and intimidated by the activists. These activists live off the victim industry created on the backs of people whose lives were ruined by progressive "help".

How many cases of saved children were there, whose lives were ruined by their activist relatives tracking them down and inculcating the negative emotional poison generated by the left wing?

The wrong headed left gained tremendously in influence by the actions of the Whitlam government which entrenched these vipers in tertiary educational institutions, where they are paid by the taxpayer, while working against the community.

The stolen generation myth, on its own, has facilitated countless cases of child abuse.

How about a “sorry” from the creators and facilitators of this vicious myth? And some support for the positive initiative of the Government?