Um no Desipis your attitude is fundamentally mindless...

Do they have the same resources Desipis?... Do you have any idea?

You have done things to aborgines Desipis... Are you smart enough to guess what?

I never blamed white children... I blamed us... Australia... Yes anyone over 18 probably ... we vote and therefore we get a say in what happens to aborigines... Didn't you realise your vote ties you to a Government and the actions of that Government...

We are at war in Iraq... I didn't go and fire a bullet but we (Australia) are at war! Think a bit before you throw the racist word around buddy... You can think can't you?

What made aboriginals living in the outback unsustainable... they have done it for between 20,000 and 60,000 years? People who say it is unsustainable are sort of a bit thick really. What you are really saying if they can't live as traditional aborigines then we had better move them on... easy to say... we've been saying it for nearly 200 years.

We Imported Aussies broke their culture... and so they are a bit lost at the moment, 200 years to be dragged screaming into industrialised world isn't long... Hopefully they don't have to become white to get your approval...

But please get past the "It's not my fault" mentality ... this problem need more intellectual thinking than that...

So next time you vote... try thinking... hey my vote means I am accepting responsibilty for my Governments actions.. That How to vote for dummies 101! You had better think about the issues!

Gee in 2008 we might just put them in the pre-amble of the constitution... Yep that'll solve the problems!

Keep thinking bright spark...lmao

Opinionated,

Why would you exclude white children from your wall of shame? Most of the real damage done to aboriginal society was perpetrated by generations long gone. So how, exactly, can anyone over the age of 18 be held responsible? Your rather simplistic analogy of Australian society’s responsibility for the war in Iraq is totally irrelevant. Australians today are responsible for their own actions, not for the actions of our forebears. And voting for the opposition doesn't make you responsible for the actions of the gov't.

This should not prevent us from acknowledging the damage and pain that has been inflicted on Aboriginal society and offering our regrets that they took place. But fundamentally this is a symbolic act which will make little difference to anyone. I am not against it, I just don’t believe it will be of much benefit. However it is typical of the hand wringing lefty to get caught up over issues of style before substance

You clearly haven’t been to any of the large number of tiny, remote aboriginal communities which are disintegrating around them. Whether Aborigines lived in a particular way for 40 000 years is totally irrelevant to solving the problems of today. Small, remote Aboriginal communities without real employment are completely unsustainable. The cost of providing the same level of health care, education, policing and all the rest of the services we take for granted in tiny outback villages cannot be met.

In any case many remote aboriginal communities and plenty of city communities too, are being torn apart by alcoholism, violence, abuse and neglect. Employment is one of the vital missing factors. The sad fact is that a traditional life is just not a possibility for most aboriginal communities even if they wanted it.

The gov’t, with help from Noel Pearson, made the correct realisation that aboriginal children are the future and their health, education and safety are as precious as every other Australian child. These elements are the basics which are required in order to give every aboriginal child access to the opportunities many white children take for granted.

PaulL:

I'm directing this to you because, although you have a rational grip on the issues, even you are wallowing in white guilt. Get over it, there is nothing to be guilty about. Your ancestors did nothing to the Aborigines except come in contact with them.

The reason the Aborigines survived in Australia for 50K+ years is simple: they had no competition. Once they were confronted with a more dynamic and inventive group of people, their lifestyle collapsed. Deep down, they know this is true, and the repression causes many problems in integrating them to modernity.

Their unnaturally long isolation made them uniquely vulnerable to endemic diseases introduced (by Macassan fishermen, then Europeans), which caused a huge die-off. This was entirely unintentional and happened in all other parts of the world - are Aborigines exempt from natural selection?

The survival of Aborigines is no mystery. The epidemics survivors were helped by humanitarian measures and then mostly intermarried with whites. The grandchildren of these interracial unions have grown up with huge resentment issues. They need mainstream jobs, which will pay for the psychotherapy they obviously need, not coddling.

Keeping fractional Aborigines completely cut off from the mainstream economy and supporting a guilt industry is poisonous to Australia. Subsidizing fake-Indigenous lawyers like Megan Davis* to spin browbeating fantasies destroys the foundations of a healthy society. Middle Australia thought that buying them off would satisfy them - it has done nothing of the sort. Their appetite for revenge is simply ravenous.

While the Australian economy is humming along, this is economically sustainable, but when a recession comes, what parent will allow his tax dollars to be drained off to a voracious group of beggars who refuse to respond to any inducement?

Maybe nothing that I've said here is news to you - all I'm saying is, it's time to start taking care of your own. They'll respond, or they won't. Their choice.

*I looked up Megan Davis' picture on the net - If she's an Aborigine, I'm Pocohontas.

Spare us the uninformed pontifications of an American racist - heaven knows we have enough of our own to deal with!

lizz-the-yank,

"Aboriginals and mainstream Australians are not equals. You are literate, they are not. You are numerate and technologically sophisticated, they are not. So how is this dialog of equals going to happen?"

There's two ways to look at this: on an individual level and on a group level. As an individual, anyone can act in a reconciliatory way toward anybody, including toward Aboriginals. And it can be done without compromising one's personal standards. It's just a case of treating them fairly and with basic good manners. It doesn't mean you have to become like them though.

What you're talking about is a dialogue at a group level, which is very hard and slow to change, of course. However, this can and will eventually change when a critical mass of individual dialogue is reached. (It should go hand-in-hand with sifting out the good from the bad in both cultures and only keeping the good).

Opinionated2,

"You have done things to aborgines Desipis... Are you smart enough to guess what?"

Really? Please tell me how I have managed to wrong an entire race of people.

"Didn't you realise your vote ties you to a Government and the actions of that Government... "

So how many aborigines has the government slaughtered, enslaved or stolen land from in the past decade?

"What you are really saying if they can't live as traditional aborigines then we had better move them on... "

Their traditional lifestyle is obviously sustainable. What is unsustainable is wanting to live that lifestyle plus have all the modern conveniences: power, running water, tv, booze, etc. If the best course of action is to integrate these isolated aboriginals with mainstream Australia, then it needs to be done in the spartial as well as financial sense. They can't live out in the middle of nowhere and expect others to fund endless services for them. At what point is does their situation become their own responsibility? I think the fishing metaphor is quite applicable: we need to stop just giving them fish and start actually teaching them how to fish for themselves.

"Hopefully they don't have to become white to get your approval..."

I certainly don't care what the colour of their skin is. What I object to is giving them government money simply because of it. Help them because they're poor. Help them because they're uneducated. Help them because they're sick. But don't help them just because they're 'aboriginal'.

"But please get past the "It's not my fault" mentality ... this problem need more intellectual thinking than that... "

This problem needs to move past the blame game and on to practical solutions.