Good morning, thomasfromtacoma,

I see you are at your scintillating best again today.

After tiptoeing between your bursts of belligerence, I have ascertained that you have some sympathy for the plight of indigenous Australians - a point of view shared by many of us.

If you took a breath and ceased hurling invective around like confetti, you might find a little more positive feedback from fellow members.

A treaty is an agreement between two sovereigns or sovereign powers. The big problem with a treaty with Aboriginal people is that there was and is no sovereign to enter into a treaty with.

If it were done, then it would have to be done either by the Aboriginal people themselves establishing and ordaining their own sovereign, which seems highly unlikely.

Or it could be done by the government setting up an Aboriginal body that would supposedly have the sovereignty or authority to agree and to act for and on behalf of Aboriginal people. The problems and self-contradictions in this should be obvious. To start with, it presupposes the invading power having the moral legitimacy to set up a representative body for the invaded. It could not help but be politicised and inflamed. And it must assume a separate set of race-based rights both as a premise, and as an objective, otherwise why would it exist?

The subject of treaties is usually property rights as between sovereign states. But the differences between Aboriginal and European people as regards property rights were enormous enough in 1788. The situation has got more problematic since then. It is commonly said by and of Aboriginal people that they didn't own the land, the land owned them. In these circumstances, what could property rights mean? What it means is that the traditional Australian, and therefore British definitions would apply, which derive from feudal land law, and common law contracts and trusts. How could this be anything but a colonisation of Aboriginal values and people?

No sir the idea is bad in principle and would be bad in practice. By far the more ethical and practical solution is to abolish all of Australia's race-based laws and policies whatsoever, as should have been done in the first place.

the transformation europeans have undergone on Aboriginal lands is nothing short of a miracle.

from the criminal dregs of european society to co-leadership of the global community, the pox
ridden and often mentally deranged pioneers of antipodean imprisonment have come a long way,
not the least the family of Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, whose ancestor Mary Wade
received a death sentence when aged ten years at the Old Bailey in February 1800 for stealing
clothing in a public toilet, a sentence commuted to transportation for life to New South Wales.

from executing children to granting women franchise and appointment to leadership, Aboriginal
lands have favoured europeans in the extreme.

all cultures change over time, sadly those rat bitten, lice infested, diseased and deranged convicts,
the original european Australians, have all been wiped out.

the half bad and quarter bad convicts still remain, Ivan Milat and his mates in Goulburn Supermax,
Gordon Bryant, even Russell 'Mad Dog' Cox and the Dennis Fergusons of this world, the living icons
of true blue european Australians.

then there's a whole industry of not very bad at all freeloaders living in prisons across the nation
rorting the public purse with complimentary board and lodgings, all with spurious claims to the
status of original european Australian.

but the assimilation of europeans into Aboriginal community values of respect and equal rights for
women has been one of the true miracles of the modern world.

there is still work to be done, european Australians cling tenuously to their patriarchy but not for
much longer with a republic on the horizon.

a preoccupation with material culture over social welfare remains in dark corners that harbour the
convict legacy, although the return to country for Aborigines is assurred with the all but complete
assimiliation of europeans on Aboriginal lands.

Yes, statistics are still poor when it comes to Indigenous health, education and access to employment. A treaty is not the answer nor is a Bill of Rights. What will they achieve that will be anything different to the Now.

History shows us that the way out of these problems is through some level of self-determination and ability to influence outcomes in one's own community.

I have watched over many years, both Liberal and Labor Governments struggle and fail miserably when it comes to Aboriginal affairs. I remember speaking to a political staffer in the 80s who declared the job of Aboriginal Affairs Minister was drawing the short straw. Not because of any lack of care for Aboriginal people, but because it was often a no-win situation.

Governments and public servants often too scared to raise concerns over misappropriation of funds in some communities for fear of being seen as racist. Oversight of monies on Aboriginal programs was often haphazard and lacked any real teeth to fix problems. Oversight can be a problem with many government programs not only those directed at Indigenous people, but it is made more difficult by political factors.

Throwing money at the problem has not done much to help, perhaps in isolated cases it has improved conditions in some communities.

Alcohol is the biggest problem in isolated communities along with boredom and lack of employment opportunities.

I partly agree that the way out has to include assmimilation into the the broader community. However this does not mean we forget our history and the rights of the first people.

One idea might be more Indigenous MPs in both State and Federal Parliament. One possible way to achieve greater representation is to divide Aboriginal communities into smaller electorates with Indigenous candidates who can speak on behalf of their people, and by doing so perhaps better target those public monies to creating employment and a sense of self-worth.

It may seem racist and undemocratic (for non-Aboriginals), but sometimes to correct a wrong it is necessary to recognise an inequality and do something more proactive about it.

whistler,
Your punctuation wouldn't get you through a more rigorous discipline so I'm guessing a degree in the victimology field.
Probably gender studies with some indigenous disadvantage and gay discrimination electives thrown in for diversity sake.
How am I going?
I'm not sure why you've tarred Gordon Bryant with the same brush as other European-descendant, white male degenerates like Ivan Milat and his mates in Goulburn Supermax, Russell 'Mad Dog' Cox and Dennis Ferguson.
Gordon Bryant was an early champion of indigenous rights.
http://www.indigenousrights.net.au/document.asp?iID=398
Maybe his attitude was too patronising or was it just the white male connection?
But that can't be it because that would almost be racist.
Whoops, I nearly forgot one of the first rules of Victimology 101:
Only white males can be racist.
Or perchance did you mean Martin Bryant, of Port Arthur massacre fame, now living at taxpayer expense in Risdon, when he should have been taken out by sniper fire while police had the chance?
Whatever, according to you they’re all “living icons of true blue european Australians”.
Is that icon, as in “a symbol representing or analogous to the thing it represents”?
Meaning that these mass murderers and paedophiles are representative of white (presumably male) Australians?
You must have topped your gender studies class with such an objective and well-balanced assessment.

IT never ceases to amaze me how those who are most ignorant seem to scream the loudest.

*Peter Hume's* comments re Sovereignty are repugnant in the extreme and I note that the Dutch made similar arguments in relation to their claims over Indonesia.

I note further from the BBC's Race Scientist documentaries that the Nazi attrocities were nothing new. Many of the other Euro nations and most especially the "Transplanted Genocidal Poms" were also guilty of terrible crimes against Humanity, and I personally subscribe to the view that once a so called Sovereign party commits such acts, that it no longer has the right to make Sovereign claims and should disband.

Hello *Oliver* I appreciated some of your comments.

For *Everyone* there is a PHd from U.W.A. that wrote a book entitled, from memory, "For their own Good." For my 2cents worth, I recommend it as a good read for anyone really interested.

Apart form drawing attention to the highly suspicious hoards of missing contentious legal documents from the archives in W.A. and I can confirm something of this from my own investigations, it does highlight how keen the Original Australians were to get involved with farming way back when land was being giving away for nought but the requirement to make improvements to it.

The improvements however were contingent on getting finance from the banks .. and so it goes on. The BlakFellas were never given a chance, relegated to camps, sensorially deprived and corrupted with booze and nicoteine. Little wonder some of them have gone a bit wayward.

..

Hmmm .. Haven't seen *JohnO Pilger* since a talk at Curtin Uni. I thought he was a tad shy when prodded about the issue of U235 Enrichment Waste Munitions though. ;-)

He has some excellent articles on his web, did a great doco on Indo "slavery" not so long ago which was also discussed here and featured in a recent most excellent doco on the "war journo's" What was the name of that book on the Vietnam war again?

..

Jiwa sosial sekali kata orang miskin di sini.