I understand maracas1, I really do. Anyone who does not agree with you is a bigoted racist yada yada.

You have no solutions, you think welfare is your right and you wonder at the reaction to the rest of Australia, why?

Do you want to live with the rest of Australia who try to get along, no, you want to be special and aloof and anyone who questions it, as above back in the loop is a bigoted racist - you don't even know what my race is, yet you assume I'm .. what, different?

We're not racist or bigoted, that's your assumption, we're just sick of whining bludgers, that's all, don't make it any more complicated than it is.

One point Jimmy: You are incorrect when you say "The NT Government says it will continue to fund outstations ... only if the homeland residents agree to stay on them 80 per cent of year."

Give credit where it's due.

The NT Govt actually says 8 months, not 80% of the year. That is, people only have to be present for 66.7% of the year to qualify for the funding. This is significant, because it allows people to spend the wet season in the main settlement without jeopardising the status of their outstation funding.

This renders less forceful the statement that "Many would like to, but won't if the services and roads are unreliable, especially during the wet season".

The roads quickly dry out after the wet, in March/April, and they can return to their outstation, & still be able to travel back and forwards to the store, clinic, school etc in the main settlement up until late December.

Isn't it about time that outstation dwellers as a whole started acting like responsible adult citizens and engaging sensibly with the economic, health and educational realities inherent in their situations (rather than just advocating for greater subsidies for their understandably naive idealistic & romantic aspirations) and addressing their own problems?

My late wife Maria was Indigenous, Ngarrindjeri from the lower Murray and Lakes, a real battler for indigenous education, (we made the first Aboriginal Flags in the early seventies) and since the Intervention, we had had a sort of game going on: we imagined that we were running a course for Indigenous community workers and one of the projects was to find the most INappropriate, crazy, expensive solution to simple problems - for example,

* Indigenous people in remote communities like those in Arnhem Land pay huge amounts if and when they buy fruit and vegetables - what to do ?

- subsidise transport costs from major centres;
- helicopter fruit and vegetables in;
- since people can't buy good cheaply, send in cheap fast-foods, crap like Coke and KFC;
- since this will create massive health problems, one way to solve the problem is to build full-time clinics, perhaps small hospital wards, and get ready to install dyalisis machines (Alice Springs has more than Sydney, I believe);
- subsidise all funeral costs, and increase foster care allowances.
- But whatever you do, don't mention the gorilla in the room: grow your own.

There are costs for anybody, Black or White, for choosing to live miles from anywhere - ask any prospector or station-worker - and one would have thought that it would be logical that there should be a distance-self-sufficiency trade-off. Am I right in assuming that Indigenous people in Arnhem Land get royalties from mining on their land ? Don't they get standard welfare payments as well ? Aren't they blissfully hunting and gathering as well in tourist paradises ? And if they grew their own fruit and veg where there was enough water, what's the problem ? Why the health problems ? Why the addiction problems ? Why the abuse and violence against women and children ?

What is wrong with this picture ?

Joe Lan

rpg, clearly you have no knowledge of Aboriginal labor history is this country. Nor it seems, are you interested in acquiring some informed knowledge. What else do you expect others to say when you display such pig headed ignorance via the stereotypes you stoically rely upon to justify everything you believe in about Aboriginal people, history and contemporary conditions?

It’s this "flat earth" mindset that overwhelms people like maracas and others. You just don’t get it and there is no way (it seems), that you will admit that you really are out of your depth in this discussion.

Like many others you don’t really know Aboriginal people at all, you just know the social myths that have passed down through your own families. Its time to pull your head out from your backside and get informed. Read some Aboriginal Labor history here: http://www.antar.org.au/issues_and_campaigns/stolenwages

Then come back and make some informed comment. Go on, do yourself a favor

Rainer, what utter rubbish, the article has nothing to do with wages being withheld, is that some pet topic of yours? Strawman argument, typical of these threads, got nothing else have you?

There's lots of Australians who have bugger all and this greedy lot want more and more and have no feeling or consideration for the rest of the community.

It's people like you with this "flat earth" mindset who want some Australians to be kept in a virtual zoo with some dead language forever going on about past injustices. Get them out of this stupid cycle of violence and grog, did you read the article? They are heading for extinction if they don't assimilate and join the rest of the world. That's a tragedy, it irritates most of Australia no end that people like you want to hold them back for the sake of a vendetta.

So you have a favorite topic of lost wages, lots of people have loss and hardship and unfair treatment in their lives, the rest of the world just gets up and has another go, but what do you do, you want to make it into a lifelong whine. Mate, get over it and move on or you'll end up bitter and twisted .. oh.

Go on, do yourself a favor, and stop looking up your backside for perspective. What a pontificating pompous twit, how on earth do you get through doorways?

It's time for you to see the big picture as the majority of Australians see it, face up to how it really is and lose the black armband.

Three responses to your sad and pathetic response.

1. The research I tried to persuade you to read referred to the history of 'stolen wages' not "lost wages" which you attempt to misconstrue in your pathetic response. Clearly you felt this literature was irrelevant and beneath you. How sad for you.
2. That you to believe you speak accurately for the political consciousness of the majority of Australians must make you delusional or a bloody sociological miracle. Alas, many would agree with me that it’s the former.
3. I apologize for asking you to remove your head from your backside. It’s obvious you were born this way and it would be cruel of me to suggest you attempt the impossible. (and i thought that hole was your mouth BUT it has a dual purpose)

All the best