Mickijo,
According the the findings of the "Bringing them home report", a major reason for the current alcohol and social problems in the aboriginal community is the depressive result of the breakup of the family unit by the dispossession of their children.

As for the stockmen/domestic servant opportunities given to those children - this was all the government ever intended them to be.

Some of them (but not all) even got paid for their efforts.

rache, the whole concept of removing children from their homes was in essence the same role DOCS are supposed to be performing today. That is, remove children who are at risk of abuse (both sexual and physical) and place them in environments where they could be raised safely. Unfortunately, some of the constabulary removed all children rather than just those at risk and placed them with the local churches who assisted with raising the Aboriginal children as good, wholesome, civilised white folk (more sarcasm).
It has been mentioned in this forum how the government has attempted to atone for past sins/actions by giving the Aboriginal people so many benefits. This can be financial or something tangible. How many white Australians can afford a brand new car every three years and only have to make one payment to keep it? Aboriginals get this benefit. Look at housing, how many whitey's have to wait years to get public housing while Aboriginals get it immediately? Heaven forbid if they destroy the place, the government is gracious enough to provide them with another house, usually of better quality than the first. Talk about training Pavlov's dogs! Bad behaviour will be rewarded by the Australian Government. I must be crazy to deny my aboriginal heritage when I can sponge so much of this nation's people. Screw that! I'd rather earn an honest days pay for an honest days work.
Aboriginals have had a free ride for far too long and all of their perks and benefits should be stripped away now the government has said sorry. I am incensed when dealing with the elders of our local aboriginal community who are constantly drunk. These are not people I want to look up to or learn from. I believe the government should say sorry to the whiteys for allowing the aboriginals to get so many more benefits and financial incentives than are available to the white folk. Put everyone on a level playing field and give whitey the same types of benefits.

what a crock of babbling the apology was. kevin rudd read like a robot he rambled on with waffle he didnt stick to the facts of what happened if they the aboriginals can get some peace from the so called apology which was a detour around the thruth all aboriginies need to get together with the white victims of these institutions and whack the government in the hip pocket they ripped off your kids and they ripped off our kids if a pedophile got hold of you bad luck not friggen good enough the government are not sorry they hide these dirty mongrels behind a wall of silence and they use the power of the crown solicitors not to give you commpensation wards of the state state wards fudicury duty of care duty of care what ever they are all full of it if if you got abused or stolen vice versa then you are entitled to compensatation if they said sorry to me like kevin rudd said today i wouldnt accept it just makes mad to think that the aboriginal people belived the crap that was said this morning they tried to word it so you all felt so good well getting down to reality did you feel good i bet all was not happy all you had to do was look at the faces of your people in the gallery half were like what the at least if paul keating had been able to do it yes it maybe beleived sorry my back side fight for ya commpensation black and white

Wassup – your post reminds me of someone else who used to post here. “The usual suspect” has not been around for a long time but if here, I am sure he would be expressing the same values and attitude s as you.

He is/was aboriginal too. He and you are individuals who are proud of who you are and indifferent to how others might choose to label you.

Re “Screw that! I'd rather earn an honest days pay for an honest days work.”

Only through taking on and dealing personally with the issues of self-reliance (including earning an income), do we find the dignity and the self respect which allows us to grow as individuals and experience all we can aspire to.

Dependence upon government “benevolence” is a crutch which weakens the individual and keeps him or her shackled to the whims of the state.

Foxy, I read your missive on colonial history. I would observe you seem more concerned with the ownership of pastoral leases than the territorial land claims of aboriginals.

I wonder why?

That Packers and others have pastoral leases is irrelevant, especially when the corporate entity employs many individuals to work, under negotiated employment contracts.

Pastoral leases are subject to statute. The government is not relinquishing any authority which they might have over pastoralists. In bringing up such matters and adjoining them with aboriginal land rights, you allude to what might be a second agenda, based in your own personal political bias

Dear Col Rouge,

This is getting a bit tedious. I actually don't have a political agenda as you imply - my choices in that department have always been guided what I felt was right at the time.

Anyway, that's a different story - now to answer your point about Aboriginal land rights ... here goes:

In 1992 High Court judgement, known as the 'Mabo decision,' after a successful land rights claimant, Eddie Mabo, was not the victory it was hailed to be at the time. It was a 'historical compromise' between the powerful and the powerless. The judges did not order stolen land to be handed back to native Australians. In deciding that Aborigines might have title to 'crown land' where they had lived continuously, the judges added an escape clause. Land rights could be 'extinguished' by the existence of freeholds and leaseholds held by the huge pastoral estates, many of which the sons of nineteenth-century English aristocrats had acquired, merely by 'squatting' on them.

The Native Title legislation that followed the Mabo judgement was the 'personal mission', as he puts it, of the then Labor Prime Minister, Paul Keating, whose speeches about 'reconciliation' reached rhetorical peaks unscaled by his predecessors. Keating's achievment was to sell the critical ambiguity of Mabo to 'moderate'Aboriginal leaders. It was , he told them, the best deal they would ever get from the white man.

Noel Pearson, one of the Aboriginal negotiators, said ruefully, "To refuse to play the game no longer seemed smart."

Keating was not slow in showing how the game was played. In accepting his assurances, Aborigines gave up the right of veto over 'development' on much of their land, a fundamental principle of land rights.

Prime Minister Howard went further. He demanded that Aboriginal communities give up even the right to negotiate land development. His adviser, South Australian Senator, Nick Minchin, used code familiar to black Australians, and one echoed by Pauline Hanson.

If Aborigines got "too much," he said, the 'community' would resent their special rights' and this would 'undermine the reconciliation process.'

CONT'D

In the meantime, the 'pastoralists' and their lobbyists clamoured for the new legislation to be tested. They did not have to wait long.
In 1996, in an appeal case involving the Wik people in Queensland, the High Court ruled that Native Title was not necessarily cancelled by a leasehold. In other words, a lease was a lease: it granted possession of the land only for a specific period of time.

Thunderous abyse rained down on the 'radical' and 'politically motivated' (where have I heard that one before?) judges, from
Cabinet ministers, agribusiness, mining groups and their media allies.

"In other circumstances," wrote the historian Henry Reynolds, "conservative politicians and business leaders would have flocked to the opposite side of the argument. They would normally applaud the centuries-old battle of the common law to protect property rights against the state. The problem in the Wik case was that the wrong people had acquired rights to the land. What they baulk at is that they will have to deal with indigenous Australians as equals for the first time in 200 years."

This is the heart of it. 'Most Aborigines,' said the Canberra Times, 'gain no legal rights from the Mabo or Wik decisions. What they did gain was a significant moral victory...Aboriginal groups have since behaved with more dignity and more reason, and more willingness to discuss, negotiate and compromise, than some of the groups still unable to get over the outrage that Aborigines have any rights to land at all.'

I won't go on any further -if you're really interested to delve into the subject - go to your State library - they'll be more than happy to assist you.

Cheers.

Cheers.