Rainier “Now that the permit system is abolished you should have no problems entering any community in the Northern Territory.

PS. I hope you're not a paedophile are you”

From the behaviour of some male members of the communities in the NT, one might be excused for thinking pedophilia was a community membership requirement.

Rainier “For the record, I blame Col Rouge for attracting the intellectually challenged to OLO”

Well rainier, when all is said and done, what you are saying is I attract people.

You on the other hand, have the personality and attitude which repels them.

I guess, compared to me, you have a lot to learn still about people but I have been saying that all along, every time I read one of your self-serving edicts.

John,

I have come to believe we need a huge monument to acknowledge those Aboriginal People that died from the destructive affects, in it's many forms, of the invasion of soldiers , convicts and settlers from 1788 onwards in Australia .

This symbolic monument may help Aboriginal People in their ongoing suffering and ideally can be created and erected during this present parliament.

Perhaps an Aboriginal flagged monument on the same scale of the flagged sculpture over Parliament House in Canberra could be put on a hill close to Canberra .

I think public subscription would be sucessfull for a National project like this .

One in each state and territory would also be something to aim for.

there are some people who were born on this land and have distant relatives from south east asia,i was born here ,and have distant relatives from europe ,are we both indigenous of this land ,those of us who are born here ?

Passy,

I apologise for my leave of absence from the forum, but to pick up where I left off, I see that the UN did decide to re define the term genocide to include acts that can kill the cultural identity of a people.

This would for the French include the invasion of American culture via Hollywood and other trivialisations.

Your later comments on the abuse of the aboriginals by the state based on the reduced life expectancy omits several other contributing factors.

Isolated communities (of all races) generally have lower life expectancy, due to the logistical difficulty in supplying services to the remote communities. This is compounded by the cultural differences that make many non aboriginal service providers feel out of place.

Thus to a large extent the difference in life expectancy is a consequence of maintaining their cultural identity. The same is experienced in the remote parts of Canada and Alaska where the issues of the stolen generation never occurred.

The current life expectancy of aboriginal people is still nearly double that of their early ancestors.

Boudjika asks who is indigenous? The Australian Bureau of Statistics website says:

WHAT IS THE MEANING OF INDIGENOUS?

In Australia the term Indigenous is used to refer to both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Therefore, officially Australia has two groups of Indigenous people. The information on this page largely comprises extracts from The Little Red, Yellow & Black and Green and Blue and White Book - a short guide to Indigenous Australia. These are indicated in quotation marks.

Aboriginal
"Aboriginal people are those whose traditional cultures and lands lie on the mainland and most of the islands, including Tasmania (in the south) and Fraser Island, Palm Island, Mornington Island, Groote Eylandt, Bathurst and Melville Islands (in the north).

"The modern Commonwealth definition of an Aboriginal person is social more than racial, in keeping with the change in Australian attitudes away from racialistic thinking about other peoples. An Aboriginal person is defined as a person who:
is a descendant of an Indigenous inhabitant of Australia,
identifies as an Aboriginal,
and is recognised as Aboriginal by members of the community in which she or he lives.

"Prior to European settlement there were many languages used by Australia's inhabitants. Each of these languages had its own word for 'person'. After 1770 words for 'person', such as Yolngu, Yapa, Koori, Murri, etc were used to refer to Aboriginal people only, excluding the newcomers. Many of these words are used today by English speakers to refer to Indigenous people from particular regions.

"The word 'Aborigine' is derived from the Latin term 'ab origine' which means 'from the beginning'. Some attempts have been made to find an Indigenous (non-English) generic term, acceptable to all Indigenous people, to replace 'Aborigine'. However there is no single word which is accepted by all Aboriginal peoples."

Democritus discusses life expectancy. It is true that life expectancy declines as one moves away from major population centres. However both the US and Canada have been able to reduce the gap in life expectancy in the last decade or so. If they can, why don't we?

my point is if you are born and live at a certain location ,there fore you are indigenous of that area ,are you not? ,simple question?if it isnt for some people too bad ,i was born here on australian soil ,i live on australian soil ,therefore that makes me indigenous of australia ,not aboriginal ,but indigenous i too was created from the dust of this land ,if some people cannot accept that reasoning ,thats not my problem :)