Why is it that Aboriginals are so much complaining about the lack of services when non-Aboriginals likewise suffer the same?
When I resided in a small town of about 100 people, and my car was of the road I had to walk to the local school as there was no public transport and to go to the nearest public hospital 70 kilometres away without public transport it was that a hospital 200 kilometres away but with public transport was the alternative to attend to. And to use this one had to stay overnight in a hotel because there was no transport back, etc.
Ample of Australians, non-Aboriginals, are struggling financially and otherwise and do not get $650,000.00 houses build for them. That is why so many non-Aboriginal Australians are upset because rather then discrimination against Aboriginals it is the reverse now.
As I stated previously we did better to consider all people equal and stop this nonsense about special funding. All people should be entitled to the same level of health services, education, etc!
South Australia had a Governor of Aboriginal descent and as such it is nonsense to argue that because of culture, etc, Aboriginals cannot achieve the position in society as non-Aboriginals are! This Aboriginalising should be stopped and Aboriginals must accept they have to play a part in society and not demand everything turns about them. People like Pauline Hanson did express their views because it is coming across that Aboriginals want to be above others, not equal. They want their own court system and every excuse not to be subjected to the same laws as other Australians and it is well overdue they accept they must work hand-in-hand with all Australians!

Yea and Amen

David

Gerrit,

I agree with you: as Peter Sutton wrote recently, after forty years of dedicated work with Indigenous people around Australia, perhaps it is time that people are assisted on the basis of need, not race or ethnicity. I would add that that assistance should have a component to facilitate or enable those in need to get out of their situation, either through employment or education leading to employment. Genuine education, not rubbish, and fair dinkum jobs, not phony CDEP-type jobs, 'home duties' or cutting one's own lawn.

It has crossed my mind that Indigenous people in remote northern communities are becoming a sort of rentier class, flogging off the use of their land (for cattle, mineral exploitation, oil and gas, etc.) and never having to work for a living - and thereby trapping themselves (and the next generation) in ghastly shi*tholes: if they left for the towns, they would not get welfare payments so easily, nor the scraps of royalties that fall off the table of the Big Men. So they remain ragged-trousered rentiers.

Meanwhile, in the towns and cities, Indigenous people without land or prospects of getting any, are beavering away in large numbers. Nearly 25,000 have graduated from universities. Their children are far more likely to complete secondary education - and to 'complete' it literate and numerate - and go on and make productive lives for themselves.

Yes: provide services for people in need of them, regardless of race or ethnicity. Sounds good to me.

Joe

Joe, it just shows what communication can achieve with the postings.
I never knew about Aboriginals until I arrived in Australia and since, by self-education, learned how terrible they suffered. In my view, the apology by the Federal Government was useless because the Federal Government had no constitutional position to apologise for the States or for the Parliament, which legislated when it gained legislative powers.As I made clear at the time, children where not just removed from Aboriginals but also of others and so to apologise just to Aboriginals was the wrong thing to do.
I stood against Jenny Mackling the now Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, and I can assure you had I been elected then the Aboriginals would have been much better off. All we get is the nonsense buy political parties.
Constitutionally the Commonwealth cannot legislate to specific Aboriginals, as such either all Aboriginals loose their rights, regardless if they are doctors, lawyers, etc living in cities or none. That is what s.51(xxvi) stands for (See also Hindmarch Bridge High-Court-of-Australia decision). Keep in mind its MABO decision was ill-conceived and caused much resentment (and cost) to farmers, etc.
Ironic is that Kevin Rudd apologise for the “stolen children” but not for the murdering of so many Aboriginals since the British set foot on New Holland (Australia).
Aboriginals who were robbed of their rights and used as slaves still have no recourse for this as to have compensation for that. To me the whole land-right issue was a deceptive way to circumvent the real issues. Land-rights because of claimed religious values only then to sell it off or to have it being mined shows that the cultural issue was not the real issue by many. Ignore the loudmouth Aboriginals who have their own agenda and lets have a proper complete investigation how Aboriginals were wronged and then seek to address it appropriately so that we finally address the real issues and not merely line the pockets of some Aboriginals who couldn’t care less about their fellow Aboriginals.

Why do Aboriginals have a responsibility to live like white people?

It is true that thier ability to live traditionally is virtually gone now that white people control, occupy and have environmentally impoverished most of the country. They are now unable to fulfil thier sacred, traditional obligations to the land. Clearly, from many of the comments here they are also unable to get much respect from the occupiers.
However, with all the problems our culture has wreaked on the planet, placing the future of the Earths capacity to sustain humankind in question (see for example, Millenium Ecosystem Assessment Board, 2005, http://www.milleniumassessment.org/documents/document.429.aspx.pdf)perhaps it is to thier(and everyone elses) benefit to retain thier own culture and traditional knowledge.
Why would Aboriginal people have any responsibility to white people?
Australia is number 4 in the UNDP 2008 Human Development Indices, (the overcrowded United Kingdom is number 21 but I imagine it would be much worse there if our white ancestors had never left). Australias early economy was built mainly on pastoralism, which relied on Aboriginal-slave labour as well as thier land. This money then funded the mining, (usually without the dispossed traditional owners consent)which began in earnest in the 1960's. The "Stolen Generation" began in 1869 and continued until as late as 1965, some families suffered as many as four generations without parents Creative Spirits, http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/politics). These children were usually trained as domestic servants and other cheap labour for white peoples benefit. Aboriginal Corporations are still doing the same work for far less pay than Centerlink or Job Networks(Dan Kean, http://epress.anu.edu.au/caepr_series/no_20/mobile_devices/ch20s03.html).
We could gain so much more from Aboriginal Australia, however, if we treated them with the respect they need to reach thier potentials. For example, after over 40,000yrs of caring for this land sucessfully, dont you think they might have something to offer the imperative project for sustainability?
"Sorry" was long overdue, now how about "Thankyou Day"?

The nonsense appears to be argued that Aboriginals should not have to adapt to the white-man (white people) way of life. Well, why then is the white man’s services such as health, education, social security so much an issue?

Aboriginals who have moved to cities may have gotten jobs that suited them not because they live like white men but because they adopted their living style to suit themselves and are doing very well, thank you.

Why is it that Aboriginals want royalties of mining if it is white-man’s kind of system? Did the Aboriginals have such a thing as royalties prior to the white man’s arrival?

Is it just that Aboriginals want, so to say, the best of both worlds?

I grew up in The Netherlands where there are also many different languages used but in the end the principle language is Dutch and all students must learn this regardless if their own dialect, etc, is differently then Dutch.

I view the same should be with Aboriginals, as while no one is saying they cannot maintain their own native language they must accept that if they want to good of society then they must conform to it also and accept English as a main language.

If Aboriginals desire to live their lives as Aboriginals then forget the $650,000 kind of housing, education, health, etc all to the white mans standards. Forget about social security of the white-man.

However, if Aboriginals desire to participate with having the fruits of society such as social security, health, education, etc, then they must conform also to society’s rules regardless that they may otherwise, where there is no conflict, have their Aboriginal traditional life styles. The same as any other race/religion would be faced to accept this societies rules.

You have to make up your mind that either you, so to say, sit under a tree and live your Aboriginal life-style or you join society and live to the rules of society and have its benefits while still able to maintain Aboriginals culture and traditions provided it doesn’t clash with societies rules.