Its so pathetic to hear the apologists blame the messenger . The two girls were a perfect example of the failure of leftist policy in remote and rural aboriginal communities. Most of the soft-lefters are from communities where they don’t EVER have any interaction with aboriginal people and certainly not aborigines from remote communities.

Throughout my school years I lived in a town where we had the largest aboriginal population in Australia. During this time I had many friends who identified as aboriginal. I had dinner in their homes and they at mine. When I moved to Melbourne I noted that much more lip-service was paid to the idea of countering racism than in the North. But none of these people actually had friends who were aboriginal and I am quite sure they would have run a mile before inviting one into their homes.

In Townsville the consequences of the morally corrupt policies of sit-down money were on display every day in the town centre. The cities parks were no-go areas where 24hr drinking, fighting and f#cking took place publicly and without shame. The new laws which prevented drunk aboriginal people from being jailed for a wide variety of offences including violent behaviour, made this an intractable problem. Palm Island, just off Townsville earned the notoriety of being one of the most violent places on the planet.

Rainier is deliberately missing the point, 80% of remote aboriginal kids don’t meet the lowest standards expected from year 3 students. The girls failure to be able to read the handbook for their mobile isn’t a cultural clash. They use the phone itself without problems. If you’re looking for animal analogies Rainier, you are an emu sticking its head in the sand in the vain hope that if you can’t see it, there isn’t a problem. Helen Hughes is not the problem causing aboriginal disadvantage today.

Individual - funnily enough I function quite well both in Perth and Melbourne as do most others who can read, write and speak English. 5000km from home is not the problem. Lack of literacy and numeracy is.

Paul.L,
Your post is factual & indisputable. Yes, I too perceive Rainier as refusing to pull his/her/it's head out of the sand when evidence is brought up. However, there's no hesitation when it comes to pointing the finger. I remember Rainier stating on a thread as being in education. So, if there is a problem in that field Rainier would be the appropriate person to tell how to remedy the lack of literacy in both indigenous & non-indigenous children.
re being 5000km from home & you say you function quite well in another City. By going to another city you don't leave your comfort zone. By going from the bush to a city or vice versa you leave your comfort zone. There is a difference.

Recasting the problems as if just discovered is easy, working, committing, persevering to get results is another matter altogether.

Both of you obviously have no engagement in Indigenous education, and its clear to me that this forum is as close as you have ever been to discussing education is a real context.

Stop deluding yourselves chaps!

Let me know when you'd like to get your hands dirty, I can arrange voluntary work for you both.

Until then, S.T.F.U!.

Rainier says “Recasting the problems as if just discovered is easy, working, committing, persevering to get results is another matter altogether.”

Likewise doing the same old thing and pretending that there isn’t a problem won’t make it go away. Your attempt to blame the messenger for pointing out that a problem exists is typical emu stuff and the left has been getting away with it for too long. The sad and tired attacks on Noel Pearson, who is actually prepared to expose the problem in order to get something done about it, expose the left and their lack of any real solution to this problem they have created.

We’ve all heard of that old saying rainier, “those who can, do, those who can’t, teach.” The problems afflicting aboriginal communities are not merely educational, they are societal and as such are not the exclusive domain of educators.

In any case I have grown up with teaching, both my parents taught for over 30 years, with many aboriginal students in their classes. At my high school, aborigines made up 30% of the student body. I have tutored in mathematics and physics at both University and high school level and I had many aboriginal students.

So unless you have some useful contribution to the debate beyond abusing anyone who dares to mention that a problem might exist, I would suggest that it is you who ought to sit down & S.T.F.U

Paul,

I'm Aboriginal, university graduate, from a remote community, working in education.

Walk a mile in my shoes lad.

Rainier,
I am a worker in remote communities. walk in my shoes for a week. As an academic you more likely than not wouldn't last an hour in the work I did today in the heat with 3 indigenous workers.