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.