With all the attention focused on Indigenous people in crisis, with government appointed consultants, committees, task forces and out spoken self proclaimed Indigenous leaders. They are all ignoring the most important issue, the right to vote our own representation body.
At no time do the respected Indigenous Leaders bring demarcately elected vote of representation of Indigenous people back on the table.
They are feeding off self importance and forgetting to talk to the grass roots, for the exception of government funded trips to confirm their involvement in breaching human rights of their own people.
These Elder’s of such are the same people that presided on ATSIC and were criticised by the government for not doing their jobs. Now the same government has them representing Indigenous people issues all over again. If this is not setting the Indigenous Nations to fail once again, what is?
It is time for freely elected Indigenous Representation to be brought to the forefront of discussion. The Indigenous representation we as nation’s have is an insult, nothing better then puppets of the government.
There are hard core questions of our rights to be asked, not just comment’s of putting fires out the government has started.

I did not ask for current Indigenous leaders to represent me and will not accept their government empowerment to do so.

It would be interesting to know if the AEC has done any TV ads encouraging young people to vote in local languages in Central Australia on the same scale as they have done "down South"? in English .

ATSIC may not have been perfect but I believe that with the right leader their history could have been very different . I am sure there were many good hardworking individuals in it .

ATSIC did at least give Aboriginal People an insight into the politics and use of power and money .

This knowledge is just as important today .

Their observation of Howard's Trojan Horse [called Child Abuse ] and his lack of respect as it galloped into their NT Communities will no doubt increase their cynicsm of Kartiya power and it's application to them .

I look forward to venturing up north to have a yarn with the locals .

I hope that what I find is that their Culture remains strong and that health and living conditions are good for the men , women and children .

I wonder if we should have Italians, Greeks, Croations, Serbs, Chinese, Malays all having their own self government in Australia? ATSIC was a complete failure. To continue to treat aboriginal people as different from anyone else is racist. That is why the epidemic amount of child sexual abuse needs to be stopped. Noel Pearson would be a great PM.

The time has come for action in terms of an Indigenous representative group. We as this nations First peoples have to come together to unite and vote on appropriate representatives in the political arena. The mainstream governing body have not and will not take our differences and needs seriously as Howard is still saying that 'assimilation is the only way to go for Aboriginal people within this country'. We are continually being disrespected, derailed and discriminated against and now we have to make a stand for ourselves. I am not a huge fan of Noel Pearson however I agree with his idea on helping ourselves. I also agree wholeheartedly with the Combined Aboriginal Organizations of the Northern Territory response to the Howard Governments proposals released earlier last month. Pat Turner is an energy force we as a collective need to have if we are serious about having our own political party. We have a right to be heard and taken seriously and as far as I am concerned, Pat Turner is the right leader to have. Until we have a representative body we will continue be overlooked, disrespected, derailed and discriminated against.

BlackRainbow,

Get your mob educated and there won't be any problems.

I guess you've all heard of the 'surname' currency in indigenous australia?- ever since the invasion of Australia, the ruling classes have used indigenous people against indigenous, why? because it works,the British had a long history in dealing with indigenous dissenters througout their 'colonisations' - the same surnames appear again and again, in the old Dept of Aboriginal Affairs, thru to ATSIC (which at the time I knew would never work) and it continues, the rest of us, just sit back and are powerless, I am indigenous, they are not my leaders and never will be, there are plenty of educated indigenous amongst us, but they are so conned by the system and promises, and self preservation they too are powerless, or are not game to rock the boat, I am not a 5min Murrie, nor does the mob where I live accept me as one of theirs, why, 'cause i wont play their game either. but I am one of the very few who can legally (white mans way) trace my indigenousness -back to 1890 when my ggmother was one of the very first to marry a white man in Qld. Before the "Act" came into play, It is my view that the so=called 'leaders' of Indigenous people need to remember the old fairy tale "The Emporers New Clothes" cause they are playing the same old games, i've seen it many times before and it just continues.- I want what we've all wanted for 200yrs our land back; ...How can indigenous people engage in Aust society when all the rules are put in place by whitemen backed by 1000s of barristers/lawyers. won't happen, we will go the way of the tassie tiger; in another forum (Engaging in Moderate Islam) the Muslims state there are 300,000 here in Aust and are winging they want this and they want that...more this and more that, we've heard it all down the line in the 50s the Italians, then the Vietnamese; then the Maltese 500,000 , more Maltese in Aust than in Malta!..cont in next post.

cont...The Gov has bent over backwards for all these interest groups for the last 60yrs, and always indigneous have to take back seat. When is enough enough.
About the surname currency? there has been some interesting PhDs on this very subject - do the research. Many posts here put their foot in their mouth all the time, but it is the Murrie way that we are tired of telling and retelling our histories. To us, many people have no idea what they r talking about and need to get educated or shut the hell up.

The paternalism of successive white australian governments is and has been a crime against the humanity of indigenous people.
Australia should have followed New Zealand's example years ago and reserved seats in all governments for indigenous representatives. Indigenous people could decide whether they want to be on the general roll, or the indigenous one. Only then could we guarantee to our sorely abused, mistreated cheated and too often vilified indigenous Australians some representation and, eventually, justice.

Thank you for your interest and all opinions

Sorry I posted a mesage but its not hear.
phone number on web page .
Ask for Wendy or George. I will post more on your thread later
www.halakindmeats.com
look forward to hearing from you.

When was Australia invaded?

I've looked in the history books but there doesn't seem to be any mention of it.

I did see that at one stage we feared invasion from the French and later the Russians but even the Japanese didn't manage to invade.

So when did this happen?

The initial invasion was with the First Fleet and has continued ever since .

Perhaps you are one of the white-armbanders that says we just "wandered in" accidently shooting , poisoning and driving off the original inhabitants whenever they showed resistance .

The NSW Country Women's Association had a vigorous Debate about the same a few years ago .

Naturally on a show of hands we were invited in.

There was no invasion, that is a myth dreamed up by activists to further their own agendas.
1,200 or so poorly equiped and largly unarmed people, mainly Europeans, set up camp at Sydney Cove and the locals were so poorly organised that they couldn't or didn't bother to offer any resistance.

One decent attack by the Aboriginal people would have hurled the newcomers into the sea.
They were so vastly outnumbered that they would have been childs play to any organised people no matter how poorly those people were armed.

Face up to it, there is no returning to the old ways, because as soon as you learned to read and write the past was gone. Remember the past and be proud of your culture but to live and prosper in modern Australia you must become part of the mainstream.

Indeginous reps in Parliament is a regressive step which would only delay the advancement of Aboriginal people.

Ise Mise,
Twelve hundred people from outer space arrive at your local camp ground and you say the local land owners didn't consider it an "invasion" . You are having a lend of us .

The truth ,however unpalatable to white senstivities should at least be acknowledged .

By no streatch of the immagination was it an invasion, it couldn't even be called an incursion.
I'm not having a lend of anybody.
There was no invasion, period.

Not only that there was no nation to invade.
The notion of an Aboriginal Nation is only an idea picked up from European culture.
See learning to read and write does change things and there is no going back.

Ise Mise ,

Ok , you say "no Nation to invade" .

I say instead the plan was "we will invade the country of those Black inhabitants of that great south land although we are not sure whether they speak a different language in Perth to Sydney - that doesn't matter, muskets and swivel guns talk all languages, and we know from reports they probably won't like us taking over anyway."

Now you may observe Australia is a big country ,big enough to hold all those European Nations with so many different languages that you say all these strange notions of nationhood come from .

There may be an islet, say Norfolk Island that would better suit you your ideas.

Then again the penguins may have something to say about that .

Is Mise, you are a rabid racist but don't realise it. Not only do you appear to have no knowledge of the facts of the European occupation of Australia with the consequent displacement, murder, torture, enslavement and genocide of the original inhabitants, but you even deny such things occurred. But even that is not as distressing as your total lack of understanding of and compassion for the consequences. This I find truly shocking. You probably own your own house and car and have had a reasonable education. I wonder if you would be in the same position if your parents had worked all their lives, but had their wages stolen by the government to use for the construction of roads and hospitals and city schools, so you were brought up with no amenities in the cheapest and nastiest rental accomodation because the dominant society wouldnt rent good houses to your sort, and because of the theft of most of your parent's wages you couldnt afford anything better. I wonder what you would feel if your grand parents had been murdered, your aunts and cousins poisoned and imprisoned, your uncles and brothers dragged from their lands and dumped in reserves or in exile with hundreds of people they didnt know on Palm Island.
Read rosalind Kidd's "The Way we civilize" and her latest book on Stolen Wages, and then see if your callous dismissal of aboriginal welfare is justified.

ybgirp: "Is Mise, you are a rabid racist but don't realise it."

While that's quite probably true, what is certain is that Is Mise's knowledge of Australian history and law with respect to Indigenous dispossession is utterly woeful.

Mise, thought you should know that most of us read pretty broadly, certainly more than those Phantom comic books you keep paraphrasing.

Now if you really want an example of racism how about a respected
Aboriginal man who shocked other Aboriginal men (and me) by asking them,

"Did you marry back?"

They ask him what does he mean and he says "Has your wife got more colour than you?"
They ask in some amazement why? "Why would I do that?"

"So your kids have more blood than you.".

Now that's racism. This particular bloke, who was a good friend, later married a white woman and when I tackled him about 'marrying back' he grinned, through his beard and said "Ah mate, love's blind".

He's dead now so we wont mention his name because I don't know the
mourning customs of his mob, but if you've been around you'll know who I mean. Used to act a bit in films too.

Advising people to face reality is not showing lack of understanding or compassion nor is it denying the happenings of the past.

Aboriginal people are never going to get Australia back, it's worth to much. Simple as that.

Just suppose for a moment that they did; a more powerful, more numerous people with expansionist ideas would simply come and take it.

Look at West New Guinea and ponder.

Is Mise wrote: Indeginous [sic] reps in Parliament is a regressive step which would only delay the advancement of Aboriginal people.
If you believe this, Mise then I suppose you think that having 'Green" reps will disadvantage the conservation movement, Religious independents will disadvantage religion, Reps from the chamber of commerce will disadvantage commerce...? Why don't you think about what you write before pressing the keys? As for "advancement" I presume you mean jumping on the consumer treadmill that is destroying the planet? Perhaps it might be an idea if 'white' culture backed off from all this 'advancement' and took a leaf out of the book of a people that survived for about 60,000 years perfectly well without doing any damage to their environment.
As for marrying 'back', it wasn't a racist notion, it was an idea to preserve culture -- an idea, Mise, not a law. You may have noticed that catholics tend to marry catholics, Muslims muslims, jews Jews and so on for similar reasons.

What a tosser!

Well now, if the notion of marrying back is not racist then I am much relieved because I have a friend who is half Aboriginal and half Irish and she married a bloke from Connemarra, one Padraig O'Suilleabhan, because she wanted her children to have more Irish blood, an' here was me thinkin' that she was bein' racist. She's learning Irish Gaelic and both the kids are already good speakers.

If you have Indigenous reps in Parliament they will be marginalised and resented when they speak on any other subject than that which they are perceived to be restricted to.
What is necessary is reps who are elected by the ordinary voters who will stick up for Aboriginals as well as the rest of the citizens.

Or start an Aboriginal party and get some people elected, the notion that if you can't get enough votes then you should have a rep apponted goes against the concept of Democracy.

Hark to my final sentence in my last post. We have a country to our north west that would take this place over if given the chance and if it were not for European settlement there would proobably not be any recogniseable Aboriginal people left, for those who are wiping out the culture and identity of the West New Guineans would have long since left little trace of you blokes.

The future of the Aboriginal people lies within mainstream Australia, and with education, for without that you are finished.

Mise,

I agree with you about education but how would you explain someone who is Aboriginal (like me) who is vastly more educated and qualified than you and who retains cultural beliefs and practices?

Moreover, how do you explain this, not to me, but to yourself?

Indeed, how do you explain your own inadequacies to yourself?

I suspect that all your crap is really about you. Its not about me/us at all, we are just a convenience. It’s about your own failures and insecurities.

Have you got a mirror there, look deeply into it and you’ll see what you (not me or mine) have created.

Don’t blame me or mine, we have our own problems. People like you being one of them.

Rainier,

The only time that I toss is when the bed is lumpy, now having got that witicism out of the way, let us continue.

Having learned to read and write you have obviously discovered psychology, study it deeper and you will undoubtedly understand it as well. I suggest you do a little Latin also; start with understanding 'ad hominem'.

Rainier,

This is way off topic but as a well educated bloke and, as you say, far better educated than me; perhaps you could tell me how it is that when the ancient Egyptians built the Great Pyramid that 'pi' became a factor in their measurements?

Were they so advanced that they understood this mathematical concept long before others?

Is Mise,
Learn Latin, you suggest – what a puerile put-down... most remote indigenous people speak a couple of living languages. OK, personal comments aren’t helpful, but you ask for them. You confuse race with culture. There is no biological basis for the concept of race. The superficial visible characteristics that appear to set humans apart are relatively recent changes and have nothing to do with human characteristics. Culture is about personal identity and one's relationship to those around them. Of course education is useful, but that depends on what education, and it is not as important as self respect, a sense of self worth, of rightfully belonging, being respected and, in the case of colonised indigenous people, the knowledge that past injustices are not only recognised, but atoned for in some way.
In Australia none of those criteria are fulfilled. All Governments treat Aborigines as if they are unintelligent, unable to make rational decisions, need paternalistic laws, and require assistance to live. Instead of teaching locals to build and maintain their own houses, white builders are shipped in to do it for them, creating dependence instead of independence. Instead of training indigenous nurses and doctors, we ship in whites. Instead of training aboriginal teachers, we bring in white teachers. Very few Australian Aborigines feel comfortable among ‘mainstream’ Australians, because they are always aware of racist undercurrents. There has been no official apology from the government for past atrocities, and the issue of stolen wages remains unresolved. Justice is not available to Aborigines, as prison incarcerations and the resent acquittal of a policeman for murdering a man on Palm Island shows. You can't say, "Forget the past! Get on with life." because until the past is laid to rest, it corrodes the present. There is much mental pain and feelings of inadequacy, repression and failure that have to be addressed and redressed before we can expect Australia’s original inhabitants to dare to join the ‘mainstream’, as you call it. But what 'Mainstream'? There are thousands of ‘streams’ and all are valid - except for the Aboriginal stream, it seems

The suggestion to learn Latin was rhetorical and intended to draw attention to the amount of attacking the man and not the ideas.
Nowhere have I attacked culture or the people all that I have attacked are ideas which I consider to be erroneous and which do the Aboriginal people no good what-so-ever.

I have mixed with Aboriginal people all my life, lived with them, worked with them, soldiered with them and hunted with them, protested with them, helped arrange inter-cultural get togethers at University and been a guest at their gatherings. Last do that I was at was at at the reserve at Evans Head; where, when there's anything on you don't go unless by invitation.

There are many, many Aboriginal people who don't share your views.

Mise,

Yes I can write and speak a more than 1 language.

Latin?

Vos es stultus!

I took some undergrad courses in developmental psychology many years ago now and found it fascinating, as I do with any discipline that purports to understand human behaviour.

While you obviously are proud of your ability to make opinion on what my people should or should not do

You do this in a forum where you feel comfortable simply because you believed you would never be held to account. This is clearly indicated in the style of your posts and especially in how you have romanticizes both yourself as an expert on all things Aboriginal.

Moreover, the carefree way in which your have posted your views attests to someone who assumes that no one was reading this to hold you to account.

You were wrong.

So be told here and now. You are by no means at a level of knowledge and analysis that I could honestly have confidence in.

And so you should be careful not to project yourself as an expert.

You are not. By all means have a go, but be careful you don't get carried away with yourself.

Gallipolis!

Ise mise,

Revealing but not surprising, in my reading of the Senate Inquiry booklet , [ISBN:978-0-642-71858-7] Howard and Brough's new Aboriginal Intervention,ie Assimilation Laws in Northern Territory may not be appealed to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for a scutiny or reversal of decisions that negatively affect Indigenous Australians.

This is racism at it's worst. Frankly disgusting.
This surely can have nothing to do with child abuse .

I imagine your Evans Head Indigenous friends at least can use the AAT.

Also the NT Law on bail and sentencing as amended now prohibits "taking into consideration ANY form of customary law or cultural practice ".

For Indigenous people,many of whom are traditional and tribal with English as a 2nd or 3rd language this is another racist and destructive aspect of Howard's last gasp on Aboriginal Affairs .

Most OLO posters I suggest could find the Senate Committee Report riveting ,revealing and disturbing .

This legislation comprises pages writen by Howard and Brough's "20 lawyers" that will be the basis for the 21st Century's opening chapters in Australia's ongoing Black-Armband History .

To quote again from the report-[p66] :

The Law Council of Australia responded that it was "speechless" at the legislation providing the Minister the power to change the legal framework and the [NT] legislation .

Rainier,

You obviously didn't get the point of my reference to ' ad hominem'.

do you get this?

concentrate, it takes some deep thinking but I'm sure you can get there...

"As for what we were like before we met you, I no longer care. No periods of time over which my ancestors held sway, no documentation of complex civilizations, is any comfort to me. Even if I really came from people who were living like monkeys in trees, it was better to be that than what happened to me, what I became after I met you."

*Jamaica Kincaid*

Did you get the latest from the Territory and from Brough?

Indigenous representation is now an impossibility.

Well Brough is right! As long as we have hundreds of white amateurs like you providing gratuitously stupid commentary - how are we supposed to be heard?

Rainer,

Aboriginal people are citizens of this country. They are entitled to the protection of the law, just the same as all other citizens or indeed as are all people within this country, citizens or not.

You speak of customary law. Why should citizens be subject to two sets of laws? 1967 gave Aboriginal people the right to be counted as Australians, why do yau and others seek to deny them that right?

An Aboriginal woman of my acquaintance was married as a child under customary law, she wanted nothing to do with her tribal husband but at the age of 14 she was taken by him. She, little more than a chld was raped. Eventually she got away from him and her people, got an education and became a successful businesswoman in Sydney.

There has been time and money enough spent since 1967 to have educated the current generations in living according to the law of the majority of Australians.
Why should Aboriginal women be denied their rights as Australian women?

This is the 21st Century, keep the enobling parts of your culture but discard the parts that hold you back.

Is mise ,
Seemingly never ending white Racism holds Aboriginal People back, nothing else . Some can beat it, many can't.

The vast majority receive it in various degrees from the day they are born.

If you can't see that now , you never will.

The Howard /Brough Intervention laws of the Northern Territory are a set of laws that it is well known, Racially discriminate against a certain unique group of people in the NT.

Surprise, surprise, the people are not white, unlike those that have the power now in Australia and many do not speak English.

In fact they speak and have their very OWN language .

Can you converse in an original Australian Language??

Yair, Strine.

Mise, i reach this particular point of time many times,its where white fellas like you don't know your own law, legal history, and politics.

My first year uni students would eat you for breakfast.

Should I spend some time here trying to bring you up to the basics?

No, thats your responsibility.

Now run along to your nearest library and do some study.
Come back when you've evolved to an intellectual level we can all engage with so we can have some real debate and productive discussion.

There now, be thankful I've taken you this far.

OK i'll grant that you are well educated and that keeping a certain amount of your people in a backward tribal state is good for your anthropological studies but it's hardly going to help them to reach their full potential.

Without the chance of education we would never have had an Aboriginal State Governor, nor an outstanding Army Officer, nor a Charles Perkins etc., etc.

Perhaps you'd answer that one about the Egyptians and 'pi'? Should be a snip to a person of your attainments.