Words are easy, especially when at least 40 delegates from communities forced to endure the intervention & their supporters from across the country converge on Canberra the day before the apology to criticise this current wrong, what better way to deflect the issue & steal the thunder than to announce two weeks before that event, that you're gonna come out and apologise for past wrongs.
This hypocrisy leaves a bittersweet taste and I won't be holding my breath for action on constitutional or UN recognition, especially when it means the so called emergency response would receive the negative attention they are trying so hard to avoid...

Words are easy, words are cheap. None more demonstrated than this article. No mention of the total failure of State Governments to address issues of child abuse simply because it is not pc and seen as discriminating. No mention of the millions spent on housing only to be wrecked thus creating shortages (this is to culturally sensitive to talk about). No mentioning the itinerant nature of many indigenous making it very difficult to provide education and services no matter how much you spend. Any honest person knows Mr Rudd's apology might have been sincere but no more than Mr Downers tears or Mr Brough's genuine concern for children.

This article puts all the emphasis for change on more cash but fails to acknowledge real problems. The teaching of work ethics would be a lot smarter way than throwing money at fake jobs that few are likely to turn up to. I am sure if the author ever got a real job she would not be employing people who don't turn up for work whether white or black. Ask those who have tried many times over to give Indigenous people work and stop this victim rhetoric which only compounds the issues. We need men like Noel Pearson who have the guts to tackle real issues rather than fantasize over the 'white trash' mentality.

Howard did apologise, he expressed "regret" .. no it was not the "S" word you crave so dearly .. as if it has made any difference at all, words are cheap and both Howard and Russ know that, you appear to be desperately hoping Rudd's words translate into something, anything .. otherwise he'd be just like Howard wouldn't he?

The expression "get over it" comes to mind when dealing with this subject, and until you do and move on - no one will benefit at all, unless the purpose of this is to set up for yet more handouts?

"Perhaps it is too soon to expect tangible, practical outcomes from the government's apology. But we must be careful that one "S" word - "sorry" - does not simply become another - a symbol."

what is the difference between John Howard and the present incumbent or the lodge?

Howard had the dignity and character to recognise the truth, that words are only words and whilst he 'regretted' events of the past, he felt under no obligation, moral or legal, to say sorry for them.

Unlike the populist swill humper who resides in the lodge today and who lacks the dignity and courage to tell the truth.

And now we see saying "Sorry" was only the entree to a dinner of government sponsored subsistence and extension of the cargo cult mentality of perpetual and unrestrained welfare.

All this conservative talk of welfare dependancy & throwing money at people gets me 'cause I actually live & work with communities & people you assume you know something about, what.. you read a couple of articles in the OZ & you're all black belt commentators on everything black, for instance... all this talk about throwing money around, most of the NT intervention funding (which comes from Aboriginal royalties, not Aussie tax payers) is directed to government controlled Centrelink (which flew in hundreds of white southerners) without bugger all cultural considerations & was implimented by Pearson (a Cape York, QLD fella), he's such a hero he can dictate to the government what they should do in someone elses jurisdiction, fair enough we may not have heard much from anyone else but it helps to get broader views from across all Aboriginal nations, not just a couple of uppity conservatives, the only credit I will give is there is action but any action should be appropriate and effective, not just doing something for the sake of it. PS, I wonder how many were against the apology because of the presumed tidal wave of compensation claims that would follow, how many have there been, huh?

Pretty good article. She hit the nail on the head re changes in policy re Aboriginals. For the past 50 years it has seemed like mad people were running Aboriginal affairs. One minute it's all peace and love and the next minute the blacks are after land!

I'm a black belt commentator and I'm with Pearson. ATSIC turned in to a farce. Feather nesting. Sucking off the black tit.

Whitey is good at symbolism. Remember Midnight Oil at the Sydney Olympics?

Forget state governments. They're part of the problem.

It does not matter the words or the promises of bucket loads of money - nothing will change until something is done by Rudd and his political mates to change the way the bureaucracy views the urgency and lets loose the leashes that are currently holding back anything constructive at the local level.
Over 12 months ago Jenny Macklin said "The amount of money being wasted on bureaucracy is increasing under the Howard Government,"Ms
Macklin said. ``Yet many indigenous people's circumstances seem to be going backwards. It's just not right.''
It was not right then and it is not right now but it is Macklin presiding over the debacle that is a public service intent on micromanaging every project that comes up for funding and wanting to ensure it is slowed down to a snail's pace because that is the only speed it (the bureaucracy) knows.
It matters not which media one watches or reads, how close they are to the ground in Aboriginal disadvantage, or how many years experience they have had - the fact is the public service is choking itself on the myriad of guidleines, contracts, deeds and red tape associated with ATSI affairs.
"Sorry" will mean nothing while this situation prevails and it is about time that the Rudd Govt did what it said it was going to do back on 6 June 2007 in the article referred to above (oh yes in the Oz too) and that was:"Labor...promised an overhaul of indigenous affairs administration to combine various grant programs and thereby remove unnecessary duplication of tasks."
Let's see it.
Rollom

So you're wondering whether it all going to amount to anything Georgina?

Has Kevin Rudd actually DONE anything about anything other than make motherhood statements and vague promises timed to arrive around the next election?. In this area he's AGREED in principle to support a program someone else will pay for. How brave!

Forthright statements saying all the appropriate things while actually avoiding the difficult decisions is characteristic of the Rudd Government. After all they can't solve the plastic bags issue, so why would you expect they will tackle the Aboriginal problem?

I'm just stunned that so many people actually continue to expect he will deliver when he has never delivered anything but a speech.

At least Howard was honest enough not to pretend.

Dear Georgina
"The apology has the power to renegotiate the relationship between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. It has the potential to create a new threshold of inclusiveness in imagining Australia's national community" Clear as mud.
"The 1967 referendum, which conferred citizenship rights upon Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders peoples, was viewed as promising to deliver equality for the nation's indigenous population." Wrong. The result of changing two sections of the Constitution was to "give the Commonwealth power to make laws for Aboriginal people (which until this time resided with the States) and to make it possible to include Aboriginal people in the census, which in effect, made them count as Australian citizens for the first time. (Under Section 127, this was not possible.)" They were already citizens. What is this equality thing?
"An oscillation between a national identity inclusive of indigenous peoples, and one where a more anxious and sectional "we" dominates the national psyche."
"It is the disjuncture between rhetoric and reality which is an omnipresent danger." What rhetoric are you worried about? You are laying in on pretty thick yourself.
"Similarly, the unprecedented Mabo land rights decision had the potential to right past wrongs and deliver social justice."
The Mabo decision concerned the indigenous inhabitants of Murray Is(Mer);a non-European occupied island in the Torres Strait. Eddie couldn't understand why he couldn't own the land on which he and his ancestors had lived for centuries. Deliver social justice? What are you blabbering about? There is still no freehold land on Mer.
"But the signs of progress are promising. Over the last six months, the federal government has instigated a number of initiatives in the areas of health, education, employment and housing, to improve the social and economic conditions of indigenous Australians."
Promising to who? You and the rest of the naive innocents with little grasp of what goes on outside the shetered walls of academia.

Our indigenous people, like everyone else need to be needed. They must genuinely feel needed in the jobs we train them in and offer. We need them in all our professions and trades.

The only indigenous people I have worked or studied with in the legal profession have been "attractive" by European standards-fair, slim. Will employers employ the dark, a la Mme Ramotswe traditionally built woman?

I have lived in Melbourne all my life and have hardly ever encountered people of indigenous background. The dark, traditionally built ones I saw in the criminal courts as defendants not lawyers.

These people did not fit the image of the sexy, modern lawyer as portrayed in television programs.

So Mr Rudd train our indigenous friends and give them employment -teach their peers to work with them and socialise with them regardless of looks.

Snow Flake,

At the last Census, more than nineteen thousand Indigenous people counted themselves as university graduates. This more or less matches Education department stats. By the end of this year, some 23,000 will have graduated, with another 1400-1500 each year.

Of those, some eight hundred are lawyers, six thousand teachers, three thousand health professionals, perhaps a hundred conservation managers, twenty vets, a dozen architects, a hundred doctors, etc.

And they did it themselves - they do not need Mr Rudd to 'do it for them'.

By 2020, there could easily be fifty thousand indigenous university graduates across the country, mostly in the cities where they came from. Very few will be wife-beaters or child-abusers, their health will be more or less on a par with other Australians', they will not be getting into trouble with the police, they will not have any more addictions than the average Australian, they will live reasonably long lives. In short, there will not be a 'gap' between Indigenous graduates and other Australians. The 'gap' is lifestyle-generated, and it has nothing to do with Indigenous people per se.

Joe

Col, Johnny didn't stay at the Lodge, he squatted in Kiribilli House, costing taxpayers an extra $18.4 million.