It is very frustrating to see the lack of Indigenous representatives at Parliament House.

Why are there so few Indigenous Politicians in Government especially in portfolios where they could be directly involved in key issues for their own pple?

Does anyone believe it is a racist agenda that sees this occurence or is it simlpy the old ball and chain..paternalism?

Worldgirl
its probably a combination of various things.

One think it would NOT be.. "lack of ability"..... more likely things like pre-selection.

Also, it might be that most seats for parliment are dominated population wise by anglos ? Aborignal people seem to be concentrated in certain areas rather than dispersed throughout the community.

I hope we can steer well away from the position where we have to look at someones ethnicity for any reason. Sadly, ethnicity does usually have baggage. How could someone make decisions they KNOW will negatively effect their own communities interests, but they also know that such a decision is in the national interest... its a tough one.

Best solution is 'ban ethnicity' :) by intermarrying and removing it alltogether. Then we will only speak of 'Australians' for PM.
cheers

David
Do you mean like they tried to do when we first arrived? Remove the first people living here and put them into homes so they would eventually breeed out.
I think we should be very proud of these people who were the true owners of Australia.
Why do you think it would be in the national interest to leave people living in appauling conditions?
Why still would these people not be able to make a choice that might effect the whole of Australia?

Is this the reason we have left these people for so long?
Is this our christian way is it.?

Your right about one thing being it would not be because many of them lack the ability .

You normally have to be in a postion or had been there to understand how to sort out a problem and fix it.
Maybe that is why things are still such a utter discrace to this country as far as the way we treat them.
I cant help but think you feel we are a cut above them .
Perhaps I miss read you?
I know who I would rather be lost in the bush with between one of them and one of our polys>
A poly who was of aboriginal background and knowledge.
That would be the real deal.

The reason we have few Parliamentary members of aboriginal decent is simply a matter of numbers. Remember One nation got almost one million primary votes in 1998 but no one into the House of Reps. Yet the nationals with musch less votes got several members in.

If someone like Noel Pearson stood for the Senate, he would get substantial support. because he is well known and has a good reputation for speaking common sense. It would also help if he was a member of a major party.

Don't look for reasons that do not exist.

Banjo..I cant but think you do have a point there..Aboriginal pple are only, I heard said once..2 percent of the populatiion...but it really is much more than that..

The education system for example is not set up to best meet the needs of Indigenous pple..the Abl. citizens of tomorrow..the current european system does not even teach black/white history in any serious and truthful matter if at all.

Black kids simply feel alienated from the mainstream sysytem as it is and has been forever..retention rates here are appalling for the very fact that the kids dont feel part of it all.

A lot of teachers display their own ignorance toward them which makes it worse.

Why is it “frustrating” that indigenenous representation is low? Why should different people be in parliament to represent different constituents?

There only answer to the first one is, perhaps, that there are not enough of them and they don’t want to do it anyway – just like most of us. There have been aboriginal politicians, and they acted just the same way as other politicians do. In the second instance (aborigines representing aborigines) the idea is preposterous. Just imagine all of the different cultural groups in Australia wanting their own show in parliament!

The whole idea smacks of racism in the true sense: splitting Australians up into disparate groups. Isn’t multiculturalism bad enough for you?

They real percentage of indigenous Australians is more like 4%, incidentally