Belly, firstly you will find the posting rules vary between the article and general pages. As far as I'm aware posters all get the same limits (I did see one poster seemingly post more than their fair share some time ago and I don't know what happened there, if memory serves me correctly the poster was not one who the administrators would have been likely to give special treatment too).

In regard to your other questions I'm not aboriginal so it will be interesting to hear others take on those issues. My view is that people are not at their best when they have little sense of hope and think things are stacked against them. When the cultural structures which have supported them are ripped away. That does not excuse child abuse or other abuses but it does mean that we need to be working towards helping aboriginal people have hope for the future and a sense that they will be given a fair go. We need to encourage (and facilitate where appropriate) the establishment of new cultural frameworks which work for aboriginal people within the context of modern Australia.

Clearly many things are not working well for many aboriginal australians at the moment. Some of what I'm hoping we can learn is what we can do better.

R0bert

It seems like a very individual approach is what is needed. Even in a state as small as NSW, there are a number of tribal areas, and within these there atill appears to be a number of clans (the anthropologists might correct my terminolly if I've got these the wrong way around). These groups all have differing backgrounds, with differing beliefs and cultural practices. Australian aboriginies speak a variety of languages as well. I also put it that there is a vast difference between the needs of aboriginies in an urban environment, to those in rural and remote environments. Some circumstances will require harsh punishment, and possibly removing children to a safer environment (by all means with their parents so long as they are the perpetrators), other circumstances will require education (both formal and informal) and assistance. Each group and individual within the group needs to be consulted and helped to work out a plan for them and their life (I dont see this as being particularly paternalistic, given that there is a mentor relationship in many school and work environments, its just applying the same concept in a different context). The broad brush approach that has been applied by govts so far, obviously doesnt work. Time to take a different tack.

Belly ache,

Isn't it interesting that when Australians want to be angry at the
Japanese, it would seem to be acceptable for the memory to cast back 60yrs to WWII, but when the issue is the treatment by Australia of Indigenous Peoples, we are always hearing the catch-cry of 'We can't dwell in the past , we have to move on'.

You stand there on Anzac days with your hand on your heart remembering those who died defending this country (usually in another distant county -w0rk that out?) and get all weepy with patriotism.

Lest we forgot you say.

But ask you about the wars that went down here and you know jack.

Best we forget you say.

Then you ask me how invasion is connected to those issues like I and others actually believe child and spouse abuse is connected to them.

If you can show me where any Aboriginal man has declared this please point it out to me.

Its actual origins are from Right wing commentators, yes all the one's you worship like gods.

Belly you're a very unoriginal thinker who lends from right wing popular sentiment to create your own ideas.

CG, still tracking down that stuff for ya, hang on there!

Robert, I have difficulty with your reference to aboriginal culture. As you say, they have had their culture taken away. What are you going to replace that culture with, and more importantly, who is going to define it and then who is going to teach it. As I see it, if you will all pardon the phraseology, aboriginality comes in many shades of black, and what may be acceptable to some may not be acceptable to others. You can't really give back to them a culture which has been lost (even if not altogether forgotten) and which realistically belongs in the past.

Likewise, your reference to delivering education in a culturally relevant manner causes me some concern. On the surface, it seems like a worthwhile philosophy, but carrying it out in practice will have a few hurdles, particularly finding the appropriately trained teachers.

One thing which needs to be included in the new culture, is a rejection of the hand-out mentality which has been acquired during the past forty years of welfare. This doesn't only apply to abaoriginals, but to the general community too.

In my previous post, I made reference to "the stolen generation" and it was suggested by someone that we had a lot to learn in that regard. I would agree with that comment, but perhaps we could learn how to apply the concept in a different way to everyone's advantage. The aboriginal kids in the back blocks are going to remain terribly disadvantaged if you leave them where they are. If the white kids can be sent off to boarding school to get a good education, I see no good reason why the same thing can't happen to the black kids as well. The government has done a lot of worse things with our money in years gone past.

We need to do something radical, instead of tinkering around the edges, otherwise they will be on the welfare merry-go-round for ever.

VK3AUU, you might be onto something. Instead of another stolen generation, send the kids to boarding school instead. By all means pick just a couple of schools, so that each kid doesnt feel isolated from their kind and culture. Taxpayers can foot the bill (give us something to do with the budget surplus) - I have no problem paying for a long-term worthwhile cause. Some charities might kick in and help pay for some of the extras that go on at boarding schools like excursions.

There was an interesting tv show on I think Australian Story (ABC) that showcased two retired teachers who were teaching at a school in a mining town when the mine shut and all the white workers left town. They opened up the school, and with their own hard work and enthusiasm by one of the elders, got most of the local black kids to attend, by basing lessons around horseman ship. They drove 100's kms round trips to pick kids up and get them to school, paying for the fuel themselves, taught swimming lessons in the old water supply, and funded trips to distant swimming carnivals, and even helped 1 girl to attend NEGS (boarding school in Armidale). This proves it can be done. The concern of these teachers is what will happen when they are too old to keep going (or need a break).

Rainier you may duck and dive as much as you wish, to far more than you would wish to know in your comunity I am uncle.
If I wished to I could execpt to totaly seperate invertations to become a Aboridginal by execptance.
I put in for this comunity in every way includeing time money and so very many ways.
Sir in the middle of the night my phone rang a man I KNEW TO BE RACIST was on the other end crying.
He found a male child trying to kill himself and follow up found he had been raped, by close family members for years!
thousands yes thousands of such storeys exist.
No white problem here mate, oh sorry yes I truely blame my race for it.
We waste time and money and act without guts inflicting this on children.
How? we talk in threads like this to people like you who focus on yesterdays wrongs .
NOT TODAYS CRIME.