The "spin" put out by the leaders of the Mutitjulu community (and the other communities in the area) is amazing. There is a huge spike in STD's simply due to the fact that there are 10-12 year old girls letting themselves be used as playthings for a 600mL coke bottle full of unleaded petrol. Go down the road from Mt Ebeneezer, some 400-500km and you'll hit the Pitjantjarra Lands, where the same thing happens even more regularly as petrol has to be bought in from several hundred kms away (and the prices are amazing - the local stores only sell avgas which doesn't give the high).

As to the "spike" being due to the "number" of people using the clinic, no way, no how... Anyone who is gonna travel that far to use a clinic will go the same distance further and go to Coober Pedy/Alice Springs and use the hospital (discount airfares for community residents).

Oh hang on, were you arguing that young girls aren't subjected to sex assaults (legally sanctioned ones at that) in the NT? Here is an article on the same (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/culture-of-denial/story-e6frg8px-1111113048370), trouble is, that most people don't WANT to believe it (well, I don't want to believe it either, having witnessed it, I'm unable to ignore it).

The cover-up that came of that was amazing, someone had the guts to spill the beans and it was swept under the carpet by the same QC who didn't quibble when the police 'accidentally' didn't charge one of their own in time (2 months) for murder and he was acquitted over the time limit (somehow, firing blindly into a crowd of people was "part" of his job, go figure).

Steven you are correct, a great deal more assistance is required, in order to assist aboriginal communities. However, from my experience, the heart of the problems include also dealing with widespread alcoholism. One of the most difficult tasks or projects for any humanitarian, aide worker and government health worker.

What interests me most about this thread is that it's taken stevenlmeyer so long to acquaint himself with the parlous status of Indigenous people in his adopted country, given that he migrated here quite some time ago and used to teach in a university until quite recently. I used to teach similar stats to undergraduate students here back in the 90s.

I can't help but suspect that the welfare of Indigenous Australians isn't his real agenda.

csteele,
The problems in indigenous society are in fact not all that much different to the rest of the planet. Those who get up & have a go are being dragged down by those who have been indoctrinated with the mentality that everyone else owes them a living. Where the indigenous are unique is that no other country that I'm aware of provides such a big %age of funding, effort, patience & compensation as does Australia. Many indigenous leave their communities because they aspire to the western life style & commodities. Many simply try to get their communities back on track. Others simply want to live in small communities without artificial complexities. Unfortunately, do-gooder academic experts are being consulted by incompetent bureaucrats hence the progressive regress instead of progress in many communities. Not everyone wants to live a rat race & this fact is commonly not taken into consideration. For some people progress is materialistic , for others it's a peaceful existence. Those values should not be forced onto people who don't want them.

No, nothing should be forced upon anyone that is true

Noone should be forced to live in an alcohol-free environment simply because "some" in that community cannot handle alcohol (according to the Church groups/Council/Police). Simple answers like 'abolition' did not work in the wider community when tried there and do not work in the smaller communities in which it is currently in place. All it does is lead to alcohol smuggling and violence, the statistics on that are clear.

I'm unsure of Steven's primary concern, THIS IS mine, I am related to ~1/4 of the people in the communities I've discussed and I am humiliated that somehow "THEY" are to blame for having "failed" to jump from the stone-age (and ethno-archeologically it is true) to the current age without issue...

The major problem that many cannot accept, is there was no central authority, no real source of authority, not even religion, unlike virtually any other culture on Earth. In terms of adaption to the present-day world, where we have entered into a social compact and entrust the authorities with our health, welfare, safety and wellbeing, as well as our feuds, fights and payback, the issues facing these communities are beyond that of any comparable society, saving that in Afghanistan. That is the only other place on Earth where the absence of trust/social compact is anywhere near this level.

Big Men run communities on fear, no doubt, corruption & nepotism are rife, also no argument. Outsiders laws are simply ignored or accepted as an annoyance at best. These are not functional societies, nobody seems to want to admit that. Trouble is, that is the first and hardest step we have to take and until we take it, the problems make no sense. The society started as a State of Nature (cf Hobbes/Locke), everyone's hand was raised against everyman, there WAS NO SOCIETY, the largest acknowledged semi-organised unit was a 'clan' type, language group.

Horus

We have not been paying reparations to Aborigines. We have been paying bribes to rent-seekers, many of them of dubious Aboriginality. Paying reparations means making cash payments to individual Aborigines. The model I have in mind is based on the Germans paying reparations to Jewish survivors after World War 2.

csteele

I am convinced that poverty and unemployment are at the heart of high Aboriginal mortality rates. May I suggest you read the recently published Marmot Report:

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/gheg/marmotreview

The report includes a review of health outcomes for different socio-economic classes in the UK. I suspect it is as applicable to Australian Aborigines as it is to poverty stricken unemployed Brits.

However so long as Aborigines live in outlying settlements far from job opportunities they will remain in poverty.

Custard

I take your point about alcoholism and substance abuse. However, if the British experience is a guide this may BOTH an effect of poverty and unemployment AND a cause.

Bottom line:

(1) The British Marmot report as well as many others documents a clear relationship between deprivation and life expectancy. (In the British case the difference in life expectancy between the most and least deprived groups is about a decade)

(2) The opportunities for Aborigines to escape from poverty are not to be found in remote settlements or rural areas. They lie in cities

It follows that the only way out of this is for Aborigines to be encouraged - perhaps will cash grants - to move to where the jobs are.

Certainly nothing else has worked.