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The Forum > Article Comments > Aboriginal assimilation: the Hub of the matter > Comments

Aboriginal assimilation: the Hub of the matter : Comments

By John Tomlinson, published 29/5/2009

Rudd is just the last of the colonisers who have waged a relentless race war against the Indigenous owners of this country.

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One could describe this as a rhetorical article, i.e. one that requires no response.

A tanty rant with no solutions, and one wonders if it is just to tweak the noses of anyone who doesn't comply with politically correct aboriginal industry thinking, so as to provide fodder for smug racist accusations.

I'll not bother with these again, opinions are not sought nor is discussion encouraged.
Posted by odo, Friday, 29 May 2009 11:13:53 AM
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The more constructive approach is that non-indigenous assimilation into indigenous decision-making through constitutional reform providing for law enacted by agreement between a women's legislature [a reformed Senate] and a men's legislature [a reformed House of Representatives] interpreted in courts of women's and men's jurisdiction, is the hub of the matter.
Posted by whistler, Friday, 29 May 2009 11:15:55 AM
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Strangely, the author thinks that the dirty, dangerous and horribly degrading conditions in which women are struggling to exist and raise children are completely unworthy of mention. They might not exist for the author but they do exist for the Hon Jenny Macklin who has met with women and is taking action as requested by them.

'Several weeks ago, Ms Macklin met Aboriginal women in Hoppy's Camp, one of the worst camps. She said she saw about 50 people living under a shelter with no walls.

"They were living in filthy conditions. One parent raised with me the enormous problems with cockroaches. They were waking up in the morning with cockroaches all over the children.

"The conditions in these camps are horrific, I can't put it any more plainly," she said.'

http://www.theage.com.au/national/macklin-cites-camp-horrors-20090524-bji5.html

Through my touring over the years with a four wheel drive club I have seen first hand the terrible conditions in some self managed communities. The question remains, if it is all because of misdirected government effort, why do some other communities get it right and are safe, clean and positive places for women to have and nurture their children? The women are right, not all communities can solve their own problems and so often the causes of their strife are living with them.

There is white-anting of government initiatives, of Brough before and of Macklin now and the author needs to recognise that and focus on what prevents change in some communities and take to task those who have a vested interest in things remaining the same.
Posted by Cornflower, Friday, 29 May 2009 11:45:15 AM
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I too wish that aborigines had never been ‘interfered’ with. That way, we might not have had the constant problems we have now. Of course, unlike John Tomlison’s brand of non-interference, there would be none of the handouts, pandering, and useless attempts at trying to help aborigines; none of the hypocrisy that involves ‘self-determination’ - but with truck loads of money given out when aborigines constantly fail at self-determination.

I would also like to know how aborigines got to have $500 million stolen from them by Queensland authorities. Half a billion dollars is a fair swag.

It’s hard to see how “assimilation has been forced on people throughout Australia, including the Northern Territory”. The Macquarie Dictionary defines ‘assimilation’ with regard to people as: “the process whereby individuals or groups of differing ethnic heritage, as migrant groups, or minority groups, acquire the basic attitudes, habits and mode of life of another all-embracing national culture.”

Tomlison doesn’t use the word “acculturate” which means to cause assimilation and, certainly since the time of Nugget Coombe’s, the exact opposite of assimilation has been the fashion, particularly with Labor governments: back to ‘noble savages’ roaming free – all the romantic stuff, with the added ‘safety net’ of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money to prop up an illusion when the wheels fell off, as they did.

“Acquire” (assimilation) is the key word; and how many aborigines have acquired the mores and habits of the national culture? It is hard to tell, because those who have voluntarily assimilated over the past 200 years or so don’t stand out. They live their lives like the rest of us, and don’t appear on TV, living among scores of dogs and squalor that is shameful in a country like Australia. The do-gooding whites have set them up to stay like that: uneducated, dirty and poor because of the bad bits of European culture they have taken to – booze, drugs, child abuse, you name it, they do it. And, they get paid to stay that way.

Continued...
Posted by Leigh, Friday, 29 May 2009 12:26:00 PM
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...continued

It is strange to see John Tomlinson now bashing a Labor Government for ‘intervening’ – continuing something the Howard Government started. What about the children these ‘noble savages’ are neglecting? I would like to see Macklin make an effort to exempt aboriginal people who are working and being good parents; I would also like to see white parents who neglect their children because of their own bad habits, have their income garnisheed, too. But, like it or not, there are more neglected, illiterate and abused children in what are euphemistically called ‘outstations’ and ‘communities’ than there are in wider society.

The 30,000 people supposedly “necessary community services to hundreds of communities in the Northern Territory and elsewhere in regional Australia” clearly have not done much to prevent the suffering of their charges, and they will not be a loss to the North Territory.

“The whites in Darwin, Katherine, Tennant Creek, Nhulunbuy and Alice have amply demonstrated their racist intolerance of iterant Aboriginal families in their towns”, cries Tomlinson.

Now, there is sweeping statement: the sort that these know-all, politically correct lefties are always accusing the ‘racists’ of. The wandering aborigines – the latest group to migrate to Alice Springs arrived en masse because their ‘right’ to booze and harass in public was curtailed in Port Augusta – are not popular, and neither they should be. But there is no problem with those living and working permanently in the town. Another example of the problems caused by the NON-ASSIMILATI0N of massive drinking/drug-taking, petrol sniffing aborigines.

This time last week, I bought art from an aboriginal owned and run market in Darwin. Nice people; knew more about their stock and how to give service than their white counterparts back in Adelaide. We saw no aborigines acting differently from anyone else in the city.

Self assimilation has helped many aboriginal people. Self assimilation could help the rest. If they don’t want it, they should not expect to be carried by the rest of society.
Posted by Leigh, Friday, 29 May 2009 1:37:24 PM
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A timely article John, following on the piece by researcher, Thalia, which has been attacked by the regular ill-informed 'experts'such as Leigh who is blissfully unaware the Queensland Government embezzled Aboriginal wages they held in trust funds.

Unfortunately, many people do not know the difference between
'Town Camps';'remote communities'; 'settlements' and 'outstations' or the variation in the quality of life for the inhabitants.or the history of past Government institutions such as Kahlin Compound, Bagot Aboriginal Reserve , Now Bagot Community,Retta Dixon Home,and fringe camps One Mile Dam,the 13 Mile & the development of Larrakia clan from the genesis of Kulaluk.

You're certainly swimming against the tide trying to tell it as it is given the extent that Aboriginal bashing is alive and well amongst Aussie rednecks.
Posted by maracas1, Friday, 29 May 2009 1:59:16 PM
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Dr Tomlison is not an academic but an advocate. It's a shame that so much of our national debate is now shaped by single issue nutters like him. They are skewing debate and shifting our society in ways we don't need.
Posted by dane, Friday, 29 May 2009 2:04:42 PM
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What is the problem?

Is there too much interference? or

Is the interference underfunded?
Posted by Shadow Minister, Friday, 29 May 2009 3:49:58 PM
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hey Leigh, you've completely missed the point.
it's the white fellas who are assimilating into Aborigine culture.
more power women!
and you can't stop that ... ha!
Posted by whistler, Friday, 29 May 2009 6:10:09 PM
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I read the entire article by John Tomlinson.

The situation described sounds totally without
hope.

And that's my basic criticism. It's always
easier to point out what's been done that
was wrong - but how about presenting a
balance and offering some solutions as to
what can be done next. Or is that in
the "too hard basket?"

Heaven help the Aboriginal people -
because it appears no one else can.
Posted by Foxy, Friday, 29 May 2009 8:38:51 PM
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"Assimilation has been forced on Aboriginal people throughout Australia, including the Northern Territory. The process is allegedly employed to assist Indigenous people to accommodate to the demands of White Australians and thereby ready themselves for life in the mainstream. Even at its most benign level, assimilation separates the Aboriginal person from their culture, kin and belief systems.."

The world has become too small a place to permit an entire race of people to be stuck in a vast, protected, taxpayer-funded anthropological musuem so that they can attempt to perpetuate a Stone Age-like way of life that has long vanished every else on the globe.

"Rudd is just the last of the colonisers who have waged a relentless race war for 220 years against the Indigenous owners of this country."

Get real. If "the colonisers" had really sought to wage a race war against the Aboriginals, there would be no need to write shrill articles about the perils of "Aboriginal assimilation", owing to a lack of Aboriginals.
Posted by Efranke, Saturday, 30 May 2009 6:44:32 AM
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‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions.’

The most active, vocal and tolerated racists in Australia are those interventionists, like the author, who keep on proposing race-based laws.

Their moral vanity does not allow them to see the connection between these race-based interventions and the planned chaos and injustice that they care causing. They keep on thinking that *their* particular race-based intervention will fix or improve things.

It never occurs to them that the problem is not the genetic inheritance of the Aborigional people – as bald an insult as is possible – but the fact of race-based policies themselves.

It never occurs to them to stop trying to forcibly engineer a particular social result, and simply to respect people’s individual rights to freedom and responsibility.

From Cook’s original (unlawful) claim of ownership, to Phillip’s plans for a punitive expedition, to the governmental toleration of massacres, to reserves, to missions, to a bit of eugenics by way of forced removals of children, to the current spectacle of the so-called “communities” – corrupt and dysfunctional artefacts of the welfare state – the common thread is the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of race-based laws – and the conceited racist perpetrators just can’t seem to get it!

Race-based laws and policies are bad in practice because they are fundamentally bad in principle. They don’t work because they can’t work. They are immoral, divisive and dysfunctional. They should be abolished, notwithstanding the self-interested cries of the comfortable vested interests of the officially privileged racists, and their record of utter failure. People have rights to services because they are human beings, and because they have needs, not because of their biological race which is irrelevant and I challenge anyone to prove otherwise.
Posted by Wing Ah Ling, Saturday, 30 May 2009 10:51:19 AM
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I don't mean to Humourise a pathetic and bent situation but; just imagine going to Brunswick and telling the Greeks that they must attend a HUB at Malmsbury to discus assimilation adding their Pension will be cut in half if they don't HUB Up !

I moved to the East Coast back when the great Charles Perkins was starting out ; he was an angry young man then .
He was advocating a fair go for his people , people were listening .
I remember meeting a bloke who got into an heated encounter in my presence with a woman who I correctly identified as of Aboriginal decent , I remarked that he had pressed the wrong buttons there , to which he replied , all Mothers are the bloody same aren't they ; He saw my surprise he explained you need to be real careful around here my circumstance is common although many don't 'live it' others will take offense and can take account for themselves .
The vast majority of white Oz didn't know anything about our dark skinned people then and apparently they don't now either .
Posted by ShazBaz001, Saturday, 30 May 2009 1:05:44 PM
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Cont'd

How could you find a better advocate than Noel Pearson ?

If the Minister for lost souls wrote me a letter demanding I attend a Dig at Dalesford to address my heritage and where I am obliged to live I would reply with two words "Copulate Off" and would forgo any offers . Lets all hope our dark brothers will do the same .

Chairman Rudd the ultimate Public Servant has simply drawn a 100 Km circle on a map in the center is the most attractive place to live , it has water , beautiful Ghost Gums and elevated flat areas for Condo's , this is where his Public Servants will live , there will be one spoke for each indigenous tribe , one Donkey with a 2 keg Saddle back will be supplied for each spoke ,declines will be dug for natural living quarters in the hillsides so Four Corners can't photograph any goings on or living conditions all this for 160 million a year , problem solved , too easy oh and Medics er the new Amateur Doc's , nurses with the gift of the gab and anti anyone else rhetoric will be located half way out consecutive spokes
A Fly Inn 19 story's, will be built so Oz and Foreign visitors can look out from the top of the Hub and see Ruddism happening .
If they hurry the old and elevated Raspberry himself could open it as long as he promises reflections about Speer a no no .
Posted by ShazBaz001, Saturday, 30 May 2009 1:13:21 PM
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ShazBaz001

That was an entertaining read and you have the gift of the gab. Noel Pearson is associated with communities that are well run and where the people take pride in themselves. These communities are safe for women and children and for the public servants (not a shameful, self-interested lot as one might infer from your reply) who need to deliver much needed services. Government money seems to used for its intended purpose and there is some accountability for it.

What prevents other communities from doing the same? What can women do to ensure they always have a safe, hygienic and rewarding environment in which they can go about their lives in safety, make their own informed fertility choices and raise their off-spring?

Reading what you wrote I was almost lulled into forgetting the years (decades!) of Australian National Audit Office reports detailing the never-ending lack of accountably and the annual loss of millions of dollars of taxpayers money through theft, fraud, wastage, destruction of assets and so on.

It is not the long-suffering whitey taxpayer who has diverted billions of dollars away from the approved purposes, it was people who were and are in positions of trust and were certified as being of ATSI descent or empathic to their cause (Canberra has been into affirmative action for thirty plus years). So if you want to root out those who are responsible for the present parlous state of some communities you should know where to look first. It is the same mob who constantly demand more buckets of money without strings or accountability. The victim industry is a good fodder for some.

The lid has been lifted on the awful, avoidable abuses of women and children that is usual in some communities and the taxpayer simply isn't copping excuses or diversions any more. Basic accountability and getting value for money for government funds would result in huge improvements, not more BS about black politics from activists, advocates and lawyers.
Posted by Cornflower, Saturday, 30 May 2009 2:42:36 PM
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I wonder how the Aborigines would of gone under Dutch or Japanese occupation. Not to good me think.
Posted by runner, Saturday, 30 May 2009 7:38:20 PM
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"Aboriginal assimilation..."

Good grief. Does it get any less loaded from there?...
Posted by StG, Saturday, 30 May 2009 8:45:59 PM
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wonder how the Dutch or Japanese occupation would of gone under Aborigine assimilation?
work in progress.
Posted by whistler, Saturday, 30 May 2009 11:19:13 PM
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having travelled in many outback towns in NT recently it is clear that we all have a lot of work to do to try and live together
Posted by aro, Sunday, 31 May 2009 10:27:00 AM
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By the end of last year, nearly 24,000 Indigenous people had graduated from universities across Australia. Twenty four thousand. Currently, around ten thousand Indigenous people are studying at universities. Commencements and enrolments are at record levels. In the last full year of figures, 2007, 1495 Indigenous people graduated from universities. That's four a day, on average. Twenty six Indigenous people completed Ph.Ds, that's one a fortnight. In 2007, with just over three thousand in the median age-group of Indigenous women, 1068 Indigenous women graduated from universities, the equivalent of about 30 % of the median age-group.

Most Indigenous people have agency in their own lives, as much as anybody else in Australia. They choose to study, they choose to work to graduate. They choose 'assimilation' = equal rights, it isn't forced on them as if they were mere passive lumps. They are liberated to that extent from the new feudalism of the Indigenous industry, and hopefully, will never come under its control.

As for the poor b*ggers up in the isolated settlements, utterly uneducated (Professor Dodson suggests that 30 % of the Indigenous population is illiterate - and where do you think they might be ?), with a very poor command of the Australian lingua franca, very few skills, distant from learning and employment, afflicted with addictions of all kinds, in relatively poor health (the 'Gap' is different for remote and urban Indigenous people, and for welfare-oriented and work-oriented Indigenous people) - can any of them make the massive leap into the outside world, or is it already too late ? I don't know.

For more than forty years, I was a dedicated self-determinationist, but it is clear to me that it has totally failed, resulting only in the proliferation of parasite organisations, compradors, sucking money from both governments and their own people. How to liberate those poor b*ggers from their control ? I don't know.

Joe Lane
Posted by Loudmouth, Sunday, 31 May 2009 10:38:14 AM
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simple.
liberate Australian governance from racist and discriminatory decision-making with reform of the Constitution to provide for a women's legislature.
Posted by whistler, Sunday, 31 May 2009 12:07:41 PM
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Hi Whistler, long time no hear,
Yeah, and as well as men's and women's legislatures, why not right-handed and left-handed legislatures, older people's and younger people's legislatures, and fat and thin people's legislatures, in each of our eight states and territories. I'm speaking of course as an old, fat, South Australian, male left-hander, sick and tired of the discrimination against my OFSAMLH people.

That should fragment democracy fantastically, with 64 different and uncommunicating legislatures, and make it impossible for people to come together to discuss issues in common forums (like OLO) so that we will never again hear any talk about 'equal rights' - what a bourgeois concept !

Yeah, right.

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Sunday, 31 May 2009 12:30:01 PM
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The period to which John refers was not assimilationist, but gloried in the title Self Determination'. And from 1975 to 1995 funding was massive.

The beginning of the end for Aboriginal development was the imposition of local government on a people who already possessed saturation consensus protocols. With councils, the community's power was concentrated into a few instantly corrupted hands.

Welfare generally was the coup de grace to Aboriginal hope; coupled with CDEP, which immediately killed off Aboriginal enterprise initiatives. This situation was witnessed on ABC radio archives in an interview with Dhulumburrk Gaykamangu of Ramingining in 1983; apparently no one was listening.

The critical and pivotal goal of communities and clans becoming economically self-sufficient was destroyed. It is a myth that there was/is no employment potential. Prospects are massive.

By 1975, all NT Aboriginal children were being educated to year eight level and rising, but this cheerful state of affairs went into sudden screeching reverse when new policy stated that all people who identified as Aboriginal were deemed to be as Aboriginal as people for whom English was a third, fourth or even seventh language.
This is when hopelessly urban monolingual part Aborigines whose only qualification was a pale brown skin took over 'Aboriginal development'.

Next spectre of doom came in the form of school teachers, protected by ALP Governments as their sole sources of political power and propaganda in the six bush electorates. These immature dreamers introduced the myopic and disastrous bilingual education programme.

Finally, the critical ambition of community self-sufficiency and consequential population retention was ultimately abandoned when the then Department of Community Development excised all references to buffalo and enterprise development from the NT Aboriginal Urban Drift Draft Paper.

What all of this proved to me was that there should be no expert or secret decisions, and that all government decisions must be guided by informed electoral consensus.

Tony Ryan
Posted by Tony Ryan oziz4oz, Sunday, 31 May 2009 1:11:09 PM
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Loudmouth

I was for self-determination as most young tertiary educated people were - it was the one and only 'fix' taught in secondary and tertiary education. It still is and that is a problem.

It is dangerous for our democracy and freedom that political correctness has such a strangle hold in education. Some departments of university humanities faculties are monocultures, where opposing opinion is ruthlessly put down and the current order is reinforced through appointing the clones as tutors and lecturers. Ex-PM John Howard was right when he said that universities were teaching a black armband view of aboriginal history. He could have added that they contribute by reinforcing the victim culture.

Your observation that most Indigenous people have agency in their own lives. That is not assisted where there is an industry that makes a good living out of encouraging learned helplessness. For example, mush of the serious indigenous health problems could be wiped out overnight if basic hygiene was taught to and applied by young mothers. It comes down to using soap and water. Even a daily face wash with clean water and soap will prevent most of the eye disease that is prevalent.

http://rehydrate.org/hygiene/index.html

It is an outrage that in some communities children are not taught English and are illiterate and disadvantaged. The ideologues who are responsible for this will never be held to account, but at least the opening up of communities through the glare of publicity should one day (maybe?!) see most indigenous children taught English for their own and their parents' good.

There have been many studies of indigenous issues, however there has never been a proper study of what PREVENTS indigenous people from enjoying similar health, education and quality of life as the general community. Because of the systemic nature of the corruption that exists, such an examination will never occur. Systemic corruption is inevitable where large sums of money are available from the public purse and the management controls are either ineffectual or non-existent. Therein lies a major part of the solution.
Posted by Cornflower, Sunday, 31 May 2009 2:15:44 PM
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This problem started with Wik and Mabo. In another post there is a rant against Racist Judges legislating from the bench. This legitimate complaint laid on behalf of Aboriginal Australians, by the academic, arises from a wrong decision by the High Court made in 1992. In spite of plentiful evidence of adverse possession, that would have given the native Australians the same rights, as white people to hold land in Fee Simple, the High Court opened a real can of worms, and overturned a principle of law that had stood since 1066. This principle of law is reflected in S 36 and 37 of the Imperial Acts Application Act 1969 ( NSW) and stated simply is this. Almighty God owns all the land in the world. Her Majesty Elizabeth the Second is trustee on his behalf, and remains so.

If a majority of the bench in 1992 were Christians and any good as lawyers, they would have known this and followed Dawson J, and decided on different grounds. In Wik and Thayore, a case that followed Mabo, Dawson called the rest of the bench in Mabo, silly, but said he was bound by the majority, to decide Wik and Thayore the way he did.

It a while fella lives on a block of land without paying rent, in New South Wales for 30 years, he gets the freehold. If he lives on alienated land already granted for only twelve years, without paying rent he gets the freehold if it is not owned by the Crown. In 1903, the Parliament of the Commonwealth by s 64 Judiciary Act 1903 made all State and Federal Governments equal citizens of Australia, and these Judges should have applied that to Mabo Island, and granted freehold. If they had stuck to the law, instead of thinking they are greater than Almighty God, and making New Law so many problems would be solved.

Because many lawyers are brain dead, they think the State is Almighty God. This applies equally to the Commonwealth. The Mabo and Wik and Thayore decisions were just, just wrongly decided. TBC
Posted by Peter the Believer, Sunday, 31 May 2009 2:48:53 PM
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Kevin Rudd said Sorry to Australia’s original inhabitants. So he should have. However he should fix the underlying problem, and that is the failure of Australians to extend Christian justice, to all inhabitants.

It came about largely because there were large numbers of Roman Catholic Australians, migrated here, to take up and use land, to farm, graze and raise their families on. Most of these before World War II came from Irish and Scottish stock. Thousands of Roman Catholic Scots were turned off their small holdings by the Protestant Clearances in the Highlands of Scotland, and similar numbers in Ireland became tenants in their own land. Until 1828, Roman Catholics had no rights in the United Kingdom. They were just like the Aboriginal Australians were regarded here until 1967. They saw nothing wrong with treating Aboriginal Australians, like they had been treated.

If KR is fair dinkum about the Aboriginal Problem, he should abolish the racist S 39 Federal Court of Australia Act 1976 and Order 46 Rule 7A Federal Court Rules and let the course of justice in respect of the Judicial Power of the Commonwealth take its natural course. That was supposed to extend the protection of the courts to all Australians from when s 43 Crimes Act 1914 ( Cth) was enacted. Today all Federal Departments dealing with Aboriginals, including Centrelink, ignore that Statutory command.

If the lawyers for Eddie Mabo, were real lawyers, they would have known that on Constitutional grounds, the Federal Court of Australia had jurisdiction to order them a collective Freehold Title. That is by s 39B Judiciary Act 1903. It has jurisdiction to order the outstations a Freehold title too. If an Outstation had Freehold title, all the benefits of land ownership would flow. It could do deals, that would see real prosperity return to the land. They may eventually be assimilated, but they would come as equals, not as chattels to be dealt with as if they are slaves, by a paternalistic and domineering government. Freehold title never came with mineral rights. Those were separate, and stayed with the Crown
Posted by Peter the Believer, Sunday, 31 May 2009 3:20:43 PM
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Hearing you Loudmouth.

While European settlement devastated Aboriginal ways of life ("Ways" since tribes were numerous, widely scattered, spoke multiple languages, had differing tribal/spiritual beliefs) which BTW were most primitive of all cultures encountered by 17th and 18th century 'invaders', today the Aboriginal himself is his own worst enemy. Next - the bureaucrats, activists and do-gooders who have grown fat or famous off the "Aboriginal Industry"

No aborigine wants a "traditional" lifestyle without whitey comforts and even under "untainted" conditions, some tribal practices would be completely unacceptable to even the most ardent leftie fruit loop.

So the answer is ..... Education, training, real opportunities for sustainable jobs and industries particularly those incorporating existing skills/knowledge to build confidence and self-esteem and provide sufficient income for individuals and communities. People may need to move in and out, communities relocate even. Since when did Aboriginal culture involve permanent settlement anyway?? Children need to have the benefit of basic whitey education and be able to speak English. Tourism, Art, pastoral and mining industries are areas where success has led to major improvements for some communities. There needs to be more and it needs to be enforced for the sake of the most vulnerable - babies, children and teenagers.

Barriers to positive outcomes can include community culture (not all communities are controlled by wise benelovent old gentlemen), substance abuse, lack of discipline or direction, poor infrastructure and resources, poor levels of education, sub-average intelligence (before you scream "racist" consider what decades of alcohol abuse with foetal alcohol syndrome and neglected children with little white or black education has done for the communal IQ) and remote/inhospitable location.

Fortunately most "aboriginals" (and by that I include those who may be no more than 1/16, look completely European but claim to be indigenous) I know well are integrated into Australian society and doing well. Some still enjoy some of the best of their cultural traditions, others live 'white'. Whatever - as long as they can have good lives, rear healthy kids, move forward.

Assimilation is the future. For those who can't or won't there is only eventual extinction.
Posted by divine_msn, Sunday, 31 May 2009 4:38:54 PM
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hi everybody

Loudmouth you're wrong.
achieve equity between women and men and equity is achieved for sub-groups comprised of women and men,
inclusive of "OFSAMLH people".

Tony Ryan, you blame Aborigines but not Australian governance?

Cornflower, Australia's sexist Constitution "PREVENTS indigenous people from enjoying similar health".

May the Ancestors bless you, Peter the Believer.
Should a woman say The Lord's Prayer at the opening of a Women's Legislature?

divine_msn
Would you support an amendment to the Constitution of Australia to include the tribal practice of a women's legislature?
Posted by whistler, Sunday, 31 May 2009 11:34:32 PM
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Poor Aborigines. So sad.
Posted by beaumonde, Monday, 1 June 2009 3:53:38 AM
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The author contradicts himself:

He claims that he wants to prevent assimilation, yet complains about aboriginals not having access to schools, hospitals and welfare-money.

The above are white impositions in the first place. If the white-people allowed the aboriginals to live freely, they would not need those trappings of white-society in the first place. Aboriginals lived in dignity without money, schools or hospitals for 10000's of years before white-man came and disrupted their lives.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Monday, 1 June 2009 5:58:20 AM
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<”I would also like to know how aborigines got to have $500 million stolen not stolen from them by church and Queensland authorities. Half a billion dollars is a fair swag.”>

Wages of aboriginals forced to work for missionaries and farmers, were paid to their supposed carers, bureaucrats, police and missionaries, who paid them flour, tea, sugar and tobacco, supposedly keeping the rest in trust. Most was stolen and the government refuses to hand over the $500 million plus, not stolen and still owed for their slave labour. They required written permits to go anywhere, buy things, get married or obtain work outside that designated by the bureaucracy.

Assimilation was forced by hunting them down, herding them into missions, forcing them to adopt European clothing, food, religion and lifestyle. The results are clear to see. Kevin Rudd is a failure in everything, except spending other peoples money on his ego. His career and beliefs represent where he is coming from and the outcome of anything he does. He promises lots, but only provides disasters, just like the rest of his ilk.

There are many aboriginal communities who've adapted their natural lifestyle to include technology and better housing. The problem is we find exploitation in all areas where people are underprivileged, no matter what their race or colour, you find this in every city and town in the world. Compacting people into enclaves for convenience is always a failure, we have to develop education, systems, services and outcomes giving people pride in their lives and not just enslaved beggars for the convenience of elitists in society.

What form of insanity drives people wanting to force everyone to live as they do, their life reality, doesn't represent positive future outcomes. So why force others into the same square hole or box.
Posted by stormbay, Monday, 1 June 2009 8:15:02 AM
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The author states: "At Wadeye, youth gangs “are based loosely on ancient divisions between the town’s twenty clans and seven language groups, but also interwoven by marriage to make them more complicated. They had kept the town in a perpetual state of hostility as historic rivalries turned to modern squabbles.”"
Hmmm, sounds like the Aboriginal equivalent of racism to me!
Posted by Bernie Masters, Monday, 1 June 2009 10:57:33 AM
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"... assimilation separates Aborigines from their Aboriginality and hence any specific claim to separate treatment on account of their prior ownership of this country. " - John Tomlinson

This is an emic perspective. The etic perspective would have six billion living on one small planet. We can divide the world into the tiniest unproductive units or we can converge and live together. Mutualism is apt to be more successful in today's world. Tribalism is unsustainable. However, that does not mean one cannot maintain an interest in one's roots.

Many Anglo Australians have a heritage of clans, especially the Scots. Incursion by the Vikings and Romans and French into England over hundreds of years changed the System. Globally, colonisation is what happens. All histories follow this familiar pattern of colonisation. In this regard, Australia was/is no different, with significant waves about every 15,000 years.

Traitionally, aboriginal Australians didn't own the Land. They were the Land. Cognatively, separation didn't exist.

The ownship of land concept comes from the Sumerians. Similarly, the concept of Estate in Land is from the Feudal System. Ownership in the sense of modern jurisprudence is not allied to aboriginality. That is not to say, ingineous people's have no prior claims. However, when claims are made,it Western law not Aboriginal law, which is being citing/exercised.
Posted by Oliver, Monday, 1 June 2009 12:29:17 PM
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"... assimilation separates Aborigines from their Aboriginality and hence any specific claim to separate treatment on account of their prior ownership of this country. " - John Tomlinson

This is an emic perspective. The etic perspective would have six billion living on one small planet. We can divide the world into the tiniest unproductive units or we can converge and live together. Mutualism is apt to be more successful in today's world. Tribalism is unsustainable. However, that does not mean one cannot maintain an interest in one's roots.

Many Anglo Australians have a heritage of clans, especially the Scots. Incursion by the Vikings and Romans and French into England over hundreds of years changed the System. Globally, colonisation is what happens. All histories follow this familiar pattern of colonisation. In this regard, Australia was/is no different, with significant waves about every 15,000 years.

Traitionally, aboriginal Australians didn't own the Land. They were the Land. Cognatively, separation didn't exist.

The ownship of land concept comes from the Sumerians. Similarly, the concept of Estate in Land is from the Feudal System. Ownership in the sense of modern jurisprudence is not allied to aboriginality. That is not to say, ingineous people's have no prior claims. However, when claims are made,it Western law not Aboriginal law, which is being cited/exercised.
Posted by Oliver, Monday, 1 June 2009 12:29:44 PM
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Leigh,
You have found the right word "acculturate" along with
forced Assimilation.

And let's forget about Aboriginal culture for a while as we build a precious few sub standard homes and try to get them to learn better English and the languages of their black neighbours that they have had problems with for a long time .

Those bush people will love those cheap belly fillers , chippies and chocolates at their local Hub supermarket, all washed down with those great sports drinks [ you know, those ones they advertise at the foooty] purchased at the drive-through .

Tomlinson's last paragraph summed up white Australians' attitude perfectly - and it's RACIST .
Posted by kartiya jim, Monday, 1 June 2009 3:34:08 PM
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The claim by the writer of the article is legitimate. If KR is a truly genuine Australian, and his sorry means sorry, really sorry, he will carry through on his promise, and give a real practical and lasting solution to the problems of Aboriginal Australians. Along the way he will do a great deal of good for the rest of the country also.

To deliver a real sorry, what KR has to do is micromanage the Attorney General and have him draft legislation to disallow as un-Constitution S 39 Federal Court of Australia Act 1976 and Order 46 Rule 7A Federal Court Rules and let lawyers help these poor people. The legal system as it is now, is a disgrace to white and black Australians, because it is racist, elitist, dishonest and does not fit within the ambit of the Constitution.

S 79 Constitution mandates that the federal jurisdiction of any court shall be exerci9sed by such number of judges as Parliament prescribes. Every reader of OLO ought to be able to understand that court is un-capitalised, and must contain judges. S 39 Federal Court of Australia Act 1976 does not do either. Order 46 Rule 7A was made illegal by s 45 Trade Practices Act 1974, so that needs to be set aside too, and then all the long injustices perpetrated on Aboriginal Australians and white ones alike, since 1976, can be addressed.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is law in Australia, but cannot be enforced while Kevin says a halfa sorry. If you’re sorry, you should make it possible to get a remedy.

Look at Peter Gunnar and Lorna Cubilo, as examples of the stolen generation. In any civilized country they would have been granted compensation. Their case is here: http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/sinodisp/au/cases/cth/FCA/2000/1084.html?query=Cubillo

O’Loughlan J took seven hundred pages to refuse, what a jury would have granted in seven days. This is a Christian country, with a Christian Constitution, and as a Statute the Gospel of Matthew 7, verse 8, says: Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened
Posted by Peter the Believer, Monday, 1 June 2009 4:20:10 PM
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CornFlower ; Saturday May 30

Re. Noel Pearson ;

Sorry I think you missed my point.

Noel Pearson is one of my Hero's , my line was not disparaging .

Sorry & Cheers
Posted by ShazBaz001, Friday, 5 June 2009 5:40:44 PM
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For another perspective on the topic, -- perhaps a broader take on how white Australians [ read policy makers] percieve Aboriginal people and culture --- follow this linke to Peter Sutton's latest offering " Culture Worriers"
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25542109-25132,00.html
Posted by Rainier, Monday, 15 June 2009 5:13:54 PM
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