"In time, this population intermarried with other working people, overwhelmingly non-Indigenous, leading to a massive upsurge in the Indigenous birth-rate from the late 80s onwards: birth-group numbers rose from about 7,000 to 11,000."

Perhaps the time has come to redefine what you mean by "indigenous". Under the present system, the progeny of a union between an indigenous person and a non-indigenous person can make a claim to be one or the other, but the financial advantages of being indigenous makes this the best choice when it comes to paying for ones education. At the present rate of increase in the numbers of people claiming to be indigenous, all Australians will be indigenous by the end of this century.

David

I certainly appreciate the article by Joe Lane as it can be enlightening to those who care to become enlightened. However I must respond to the comments by VK3AUU who chose another path. I work in the ITAS (Indigenous Tutorial Assistance Scheme) as a Learning Advisor/Tutor and my students are certainly FROM Indigenous backgrounds, APPEAR Indigenous who are also intelligent and capable people. I work with students who often feel as if they don't belong at a university percieved by them to be populated solely by non-indigenous students. My primary task is to assist these students to become independent learners (thus putting myself out of work) who are confident and who study very effectively as both internal and external learners. My work is enormously rewarding as I am not used in any way as a crutch. Indeed, my role is one of empowerment; to assist the student in recognising that they really are doing the work themselves and to slowly take a back seat then ultimately watch briefly from a distance as they undertake their learning journey on what they have come to see as a level playing field.

VK3AUU, what makes you think Indigenous Australians need to justify themselves to you?

It is clear in the current definitions that there are strict guidllines who is Indigenous - and that they must be recognised by Indigenous Australians, etc. Even this disenfranchises some people who are Indigenous.

VK3AUU, I suggest that perhaps rather than Indigenous Australians having to justify who they are, the other mob - non-Indigenous people - should have to justify who they are and why they expect the handouts they get.

Your comments are just another manifestation of the underlying racist attitudes expressed by so many non-Indigenous Australians.

That is assuming that you are an Australian citizen.

It is good to see a positive article on Indigenous Affairs. Education is a commonly overlooked solution to many social problems.

I'd like to share my own experience of the last 5 years of study at universities in Perth and Melbourne. As I came from a low income family living outside of a major city, I looked into getting a scholarship as my tertiary entrance score was quite high. I found that while there were many 'niche' scholarships for various minority groups, but as a Caucasian male Australian, I was not eligible for the majority of them. At the time I felt a bit hard done by, almost like I had been subjected to a form of discrimination. I should also be noted that at Universities such at Monash Uni, the non-indigenous classification the author uses describes Asians, Indians and Caucasians in order of student population. We are all minorities in some sense.

It was also quite interesting (and amusing) when I saw how many scholarship offers and invitations to support programs, that my girlfriend received after accidentally ticking a box saying she was Aboriginal at some point in her application to uni. (It was amusing as due to her 'scottish' completion she often got weird looks from uni administration staff.)

If programs that the author discusses appear to be effective, then it seems that a system of inequality is being used to solve a problem caused by another inequality. In this sense this is what the NT intervention is doing with quarantine rather than scholarships.

"In time, this population intermarried with other working people, overwhelmingly non-Indigenous, leading to a massive upsurge in the Indigenous birth-rate"
I thought I could take this article seriously until I read that. The offspring from non-indigenous and indigenous parents are indigenous?
My wife is a Torres Strait Islander. I am of English/Irish/Scot/German descent. Our two adult children are Australians with indigenous and non-indigenous ancestors. So our children are classified as Indigenous? Why?

Blairbar. That is exactly my point. If you have any indigenous ancestry, you may also be classified as indigenous according to our laws. Actually, all our ancestors came from Africa, so no one can truly claim to be indigenous.

I get the impression from the article that some of the degree courses being offered may have also been dumbed down a bit as well. If this is the case, employers looking for well qualified graduates may be disappointed in the outcomes. Can someone tell us whether this is so? Having said that, it appears that in many courses undertaken by the wider community, the bar has also been lowered so that a pass is obtained by all but a few of the really poor students. I hope this doesn't apply to engineering students, otherwise our bridges and buildings may not be up to it.

David

When I was the chairman of the Abscol policy committee in 1964 I personally knew the only two indigenous university graduates. So real progress has been made and it should be trumpeted from the hills to get the message to Aborigines that "you can do it". However, how often to we see good news about Aborigines in the media.

For example, I lived on Groote Eylandt for years. The locals are an interesting and enterprising people with a long history of positive acheivements. Yet the only news we ever see about Groote are negative stories about the jailing rate - Hardly the stuff to inspire a young person to strive for a better life.

The other message Aborigines receive all the time is that only somone else has the power to solve their problems. The reality is that they and only they have the power to solve the underlying problems affecting their health and happiness. The media should be giving space tos tories about communities suceeeding, not those claiming that problems would go away if someone from outside the community provided yet more help.

blairbar and David (VK3AUU),
I suggest you learn some history. It is not that long ago when Indigenous Australians were categorised by percentage of 'blood' with official policies aiming to breed out the colour and breed a 'servant class'. This was probably in your lifetime.

The odd thing was, although people were classed by skin colour there was never a point when people with Indigenous heritage were ever able to achieve 'whiteness' - always not quite white.

So why would you think that all of a sudden just because you say so, people should not be 'allowed' to be Indigenous unless they have a certain quanutm of blood.

blairbar, your children are indigenous. Do you think they do not share the experiences of so many other Indigenous people, racism, simply because you are 'white'?

Put simply, it is none of your business.

This is great, a big good on you to the Aboriginal people.

"just because you say so, people should not be 'allowed' to be Indigenous unless they have a certain quanutm of blood."
Dear Aka, where did I say anything of the sort? You are saying that a child with any Indigenous genes should be classified as Indigenous. I am quite relaxed about how my children, and other children with shared indigenous and non-indigenous genes classify themselves. Yes it is their business, not yours or mine.

Thank you for all of these comments: it's fascinating where discussion goes on a topic like this. I'll try to respond:

VK3AUU and Blairbar - yes, it is up to people how they classify themselves, not you or me or any government body. Indigenous people have had a gutful of that. (Thank you, Aka) My late wife had to leave school in the mid-sixties, as the eldest of ten kids, and work as an unpaid servant on a sheep station. Luckily, she escaped and went to the city. She wasn't particularly dark, but by definition at the time, she was Aboriginal, and that's how it stayed. It would never have even occurred to her to think of herself as anything else, and that's also how our kids consider themselves. Yes, it's their business alone.

Just Dulcie (You're too modest!) - you're spot-on ! That has been the point about student support programs - to prepare (until universities refused to fund this, except for piddly two-week courses)and then provide social and collegial support for Indigenous students in all sorts of courses, most certainly not just in narrowly Indigenous-focussed courses, and to be mentors and colleagues, equals, clarifying and facilitating.

More below.....

rmg1859@yahoo.com.au

Joe

Stezza - of course you have a point. But Indigenous student support attempts to redress long-term and fundamental political inequalities that white working-class people (such as you and me) have never copped. I'm a Bankstown boy, but I always knew that university study was a possibility for me, or at least teachers' college or nursing school. That's still getting through to Indigenous people, after generations of completely rubbish education, if any at all, and constant messages that they either couldn't (through genetic incapability) or shouldn't (nowadays also from the so-called Left raising the boogeyman of assimilation) ever attempt to get above a certain level. Give people a break, at least for a generation or two, to catch up on what they have been denied.

John D - thank you, yes, there are currently close to 24,000 graduates and this will exceed 25,000 by the end of the year - one in every ten adults aged 20-59, one in every seven women. Enrolments and graduations are at re cord levels. Indigenous women are participating at unis at a better rate than non-Indigenous men. Non-Indigenous men. Yes, what people can do should be trumpeted to the skies, instead of the down-in-the-mouth doom-and-gloom stuff from the elites and in the pathetic Bradley Review.

What Indigenous people are going to achieve in the next decade in tertiary education will amaze even the most sceptical. And of course, it's not for nothing - people move into professional careers, provide role models for other Indigenous people, intermarry if they wish (yes, in a hundred years, our descendants will have Indigenous ancestry, as well as Vietnamese, Afghan, Sudanese ancestry - won't it be a fascinating world ?).

So there are solutions (of course they will be very difficult to implement, but they are there) to most if not all problems. But Indigenous people are certainly on the way to implementing them.

rmg1859@yahoo.com.au

Joe Lane

Aka says “I suggest that perhaps rather than Indigenous Australians having to justify who they are, the other mob - non-Indigenous people - should have to justify who they are and why they expect the handouts they get”

That’s a fair example of someone who attempts to diffuse racism buy being racist- and they say ‘reverse racism’ (admittedly a stupid term, for racism is racism) is a myth.

The following has also been stated a couple of times in various forms “what makes you think Indigenous Australians need to justify themselves to you?”

Well, as long as ‘Indigenous Australians’ are being offered more welfare (i.e. more tax money) than other members of the Australian Community and as long as they are being offered special consideration for acceptance into educational facilities over other members of the Australian Community) then yes, blunt as it is, they should have to justify who that are.

The question is, how do we go about doing this in a reasonable way?

Regardless of these questions it great that these results are coming through and hopefully this means that we are getting closer to a time where we can all acknowledge that Australia is not fundamentally racist but (cliché alert) a genuine land of opportunity for all who are willing to work hard.

I'm surprised that in response to this good news, all that people can do is bicker about the definitions of "indigenous". How about welcoming this news and hoping to hear more and more such stories in the future?

Hi Mattofact,

You have a point: yes, occasionally there are non-Indigenous people who try to take advantage of support for Indigenous students by claiming to be Indigenous, but it's not hard to pick them - when you ask an Indigenous person where they are from and who they are related to, you get answers, usually quite enthusiastic, within seconds. When you ask a ring-in, they will hum and ha, and mumble about their mother being stolen generation etc., and anyway she came from some place far away. Here in SA, a mother from WA or Tasmania was usually favoured when I was working in support programs. I used to send them a 'family tree' form and never heard from them again. Yes, some of these people slip through in more slack programs and some have even gone on to high positions, even as Indigenous policy advisers. Some take another tack and threaten to take a support program to court if they insist on asking about their Indigenous status. That's usually a good giveaway.

2008 enrolment data come out in a week or two, and graduation data in a month, so if anybody is interested, get in touch with me on: rmg1859@yahoo.com.au I'm confident that they will show new records.

Joe

Dear Benny Tea
"I'm surprised that in response to this good news, all that people can do is bicker about the definitions of "indigenous". How about welcoming this news and hoping to hear more and more such stories in the future"
I rejoice at good news from anybody who travels down the path to enlightenment and knowledge. But it was the author who stated "In time, this population intermarried with other working people, overwhelmingly non-Indigenous, leading to a massive upsurge in the Indigenous birth-rate from the late 80s onwards: birth-group numbers rose from about 7,000 to 11,000". So to me the question was: why classify a child of indigenous and non indigenous as indigenous when their genes are are mixture of indigenous and non indigenous parents?

Loudmouth. Another problem you may have in distinguishing the dinky die from the imposter, is the influx of black African migrants we have had in the past few years. A lot of them are as black as the ace of spades, so you might give them a pass without even thinking about it. Most of them seem to pretty good people, a pity about the countries they come from.

David

Well I'd like to chip in. Someone said that the courses might be "dumbed down" and something about engineering etc.

For the past few years in one of my work roles I have shared an office with a colleague who is Indigenous and completing his degree in health studies.

I'm a veteran of a couple of degrees and post-graduate study as well. A few times I've seen some of his work books and assignments - and I tell you it would knock your socks off. I formed the opinion long ago that if anything the course plan demonstrated an over self-consciousness - requiring much more of the students than comparable courses undertaken by non-Indigenous students. An endless string of really hard assignments; hard marking; requirements to meet deadlines and to attend University residentials that are a long way away - while holding a full-time job in a busy professional environment as well - at modest pay, I might add.

I thought it was overkill. Now reading some of opinions here, I suppose that the coursework has been designed in anticipation of the harsh and unwarranted judgements that I'm reading.

Btw: When speaking of population numbers, it's reasonable to consider people Indigenous if that is part of their heritage. It just means that they are entitled to claim that status if they choose to; whereas anyone who is non-Aboriginal, obviously, isn't entitled to do the same (except under very special conditions)

Sorry Blairbar, it's not all about you - how people with Indigenous ancestry define themselves is up to them, not you or me. Non-Indigenous people controlling and defining Indigenous people is not as common as it used to be. In any case, I don't know anybody who defines themselves by fractions - many people of course might claim si8multaneous heritages, but I don't know that people really calculate it all mathematically. I'm half Irish and half Scottish, and I have no trouble being both at once.

VK3AUU, I don't think that there will ever be the slightest problem on those grounds. The family tree test would immediately distinguish genuine from ring-in, as well as accent, etc., and frankly I think that Africans would have too much integrity to try it. How light or dark as person is, is not much of a guide anyway: generations of racist policies in the past ensured that there were many, many light-skinned people who were classified as Indigenous, usually raised by their Indigenous mothers, and they have returned the favour by sticking to the Indigenous 'side'.

Btw, non-Indigenous people who marry Indigenous people, in my experience, are often more gung-ho and committed than many Indigenous people to what used to be called the Aboriginal cause: inter-marriage is a bit like religious conversion, and usually, once you are committed, it's for life. The children of those marriages thus often have two very committed parents.

rmg1859@yahoo.com.au

Joe

"Sorry Blairbar, it's not all about you - how people with Indigenous ancestry define themselves is up to them, not you or me".
Dear Joe
This is what I posted:"I am quite relaxed about how my children, and other children with shared indigenous and non-indigenous genes classify themselves. Yes it is their business, not yours or mine."
What is your problem?

What a refreshing and positive article. Shows that the younger generation of mixed race indigenous Australians are making considerable inroads into an integrated society.
Whatever your racial or cultural background, this is a country of opportunity and diverse choice. One can choose to wallow in the past or take advantage of the present and plan for the future.

It does amuse me somewhat when I hear someone refer to themselves as "indigenous" when they are whiter than me or have a parent who belongs to another racial minority eg Asian. I know one such person with a mixed race (aboriginal & caucasian) mum and chinese dad who looks Asian but claims 'aboriginality'. Have cousin married to man whose genetics are about 1/16th but who it seems can still qualify. I guess it gets them some perks - makes up for what their predecessors missed out on and has helped in their general success in life. Is there any 'cut-off' point where one cannot possibly be deemed 'indigenous'?

Meantime let's hear more of the success stories. There are plenty out there .....