What a wondeful suggestion - that aboriginal children be educated in their own language. The overwhelming majority of English speakers enjoy the privilege of an education in their own language, so why shouldn't the aboriginal children enjoy the opportunity of deepening and developing their own cultural heritage. I'd like to think we all could learn at least one other language, and hopefully a third or a fourth language just like many of my Chinese, Indonesian and European friends. Let's get rid of the colonial mentality of making everyone learn English to the detriment of one's own cultural heritage. The obvious answer is that, while being educated in our mother tongue, we could all learn Esperanto as the language of choice to ensure meaningful and dignified communication.

Communicat ,

I suspect you are better off in another Century ,in another country .

The pain and anguish that will come to you from Aboriginalas seeking "self determination " and respect for their Culture will be bothering you for a long time .

We understand no one HAS to provide a walking stick for the lame or help the dissadvantaged receive Justice - MOST decent Australians prefer to .

Careful Kartiya Jim - I was merely stating what the actual situation is in a court of law.
And I think that most right minded people, including indigenous people, would be disturbed if anyone (ab)used their racial or linguistic origins in order to get away with wrongdoing. Far better to provide a trained interpreter for someone who genuinely needs it than have a lawyer with a less than perfect understanding of a language struggling to understand and perhaps misunderstanding and failing to do their legal duty.
The vast majority of Australians claiming an indigenous background are of mixed race origins, are able to use English, are aware of the law as it affects them, and will almost certainly get legal aid. There are, on the other hand, many migrants who do not have sufficient English, are not always aware of how the law differs from that in their own country and do not get legal aid. Some of them will also abuse the system if they can, others are abused by it.
Of course there are a very small number of indigenous Australians who do not speak English and fail to understand the charges brought against them. (They are also, on the whole, a very law abiding group unless alcohol etc is involved.) Rarely do they lack interpreters or legal aid and I am not aware of any cases in which an indigenous person who has needed it has been denied an interpreter. On the other hand this can and does happen to speakers of other languages.
So demanding lawyers gain what would have to be, in most cases, an imperfect understanding of an indigenous languages just in case they might need it one day seems a little strange to me.
If you find that way of thinking offensive I apologise but I know any number of concerned Australians from an indigenous background who share my view.

Communicat,
In Central Australia Some interpreters are white. English is their mother tongue but some are able to communicate in up to four languages.

I am told they are very usefull especially in sensitive cases where communication of all the relevant detail is very important.

The WA Attorney General Jim McGinty has said there was a shortage of Court Aboriginal Language interpreters that needs to be addressed .

Very few white people would appear in court without someone beside them that can understand the court and legal language that may be used to attack or defend them .

. Joe,

I agree. As a speaker of one of the few Indig languages that have a speech community of more than 200 (considered near extinction by linguists) i would prefer funds were spent on recording my and other languages. From this we can then be ready for our languages to be revived somewhere in the near future.

The other point that the author of this article fails to understand is that languages, like the lands they are from, are considered part of the propriety interests on its speakers. They are intellectual property writ large.

Language survival is much more important now than trying to teach them in schools. And not every Aboriginal child will have natural rights to learning a language. This is sensitive stuff in Aboriginal communities.

Yes by all means strengthen interpreting services, yes by all means make language learning accessible to children whose language it is, but at the end of the day the real problem within cross cultural communication rests with speakers of English, or those areas of society unwilling to acknowledge or understand those who speak one or more languages - including styles of English

In Australia, English is the language of communication, of textbooks, of the media, of power. Not knowing English effectively enough to use it means that people are disempowered, unable to get an education above a certain low level, and therefore condemned to stay either unemployed (in a rapidly technologising economy) or to seek part-time and irregular work at the lowest levels.

Indigenous children are as likely as anyone else to move around and go interstate and overseas - and certainly have the right to do so - and even in the settlements where they may be growing up, they will need to be able to communicate with outsiders, including other Indigenous people, who most likely will not speak their language. So at the earliest opportunity, Indigenous children should have access to a fully English-language education, and right through to secondary and tertiary levels, like anybody else.

There is nothing colonial about this - in many colonies, e.g. the Congo, local people were banned from learning the colonial common language, French or Portuguese for example, and only the elite (sons of kings and chiefs) were taught in the common language, to prepare them for subaltern administrative roles. In today's Australia, all children need English to survive and prosper. To deprive Indigenous children of knowledge of English, and therefore of an education which uses textbooks, is a crime which will come back to haunt us.

Joe