JayoM,

Difference doesn't necessarily mean inequality. The feminists went through this false dilemma (difference = inequality since =equality = sameness) back in the late eighties (cf. Joan Scott).

In fact, equality MUST presuppose diversity and difference, otherwise it would mean nothing but 'sameness' and no two people in the world are the 'same'. And by the way, no two people in the world are utterly, fundamentally 'different', either: we are all of one species, we can inter-marry, but we are all individuals. Even identical twins are often quite different - but two people from completely different 'cultures', backgrounds, histories, places, can be quite similar.

But to get back to topic, across Australia, Aboriginal people since the War have chosen- very broadly speaking - two paths: either to get the hell away from missions and stations and get into the mainstream economy and society, where their children could have better opportunities than they did, OR stay in a welfare-bolstered and -cocooned environment and keep putting their hands out.

So maybe the persistent high-unemployment groups in rural and remote Australia are in a sense, the residual populations from that time when some made the leap and some didn't.

When people rack their brains and furrow their brows about how to get rural and remote Aboriginal people into employment, I'm reminded of that joke about 'How many psychologists does it take to change a light-bulb ? X, but the light-bulb has to want to change first.'

Twiggy Forrest's project has accrued more than fifty thousand committed jobs for Aboriginal people. Far fewer people have come forward to grab those jobs. That alone has exposed the sham of Aboriginal unemployment in one fell swoop.

I certainly wish Warren Mundine well in his push for community employment programs, etc., because the resources that many communities have already make such schemes eminently viable, but I get this deja vu feeling of Groundhog Day all over again. What's the bet that someone will come up with yet another excuse why people can't get into work ?

Joe
www.firstsources.info

[TBC]

[continued]

Ten years ago, my wife and I stayed at the community where she was born, trying to encourage people there to enrol in serious study and set up a Study Centre there, in a community with 12,000 acres of good land, a brand-new dairy (run by her brother), and equipment and plant galore.

We used to joke (or maybe it was just me) that if a thousand Vietnamese took over this place, they would have the lot under cultivation, or fitted out with fish-farms, orchards, etc., within a year. Probably a bit racist, but there you go.

Three years later, not a single new job had been actually created: the Council and CDEP people there congratulated themselves at their AGM that they still had almost everyone on CDEP (= unemployment benefits) as they had had, the year before.

My brother-in-law had trouble getting any of the young blokes out to work at 5.00 in the morning in the dairy, so eventually it was just me and him, a couple of middle-aged graduates.

So employment schemes ? Cut the welfare schemes first and see how that goes.

Joe
www.firstsources.info

My point is, why do the indigenous get a guaranteed job, while we do the training, only to be often told, sorry, you don't have enough experience.

This is where the discrimination comes into it.

finally platypus1900 has said something that makes sense although I can't see the reason why I should contribute one dollar to their welfare while the offer hate in return.

Poirot
So you think a black man deserves what I have worked for and fought three wars for just because he is black [or part thereof]. Let them rot in their own bigoted racial ingratitude.

" Let them rot in their own bigoted racial ingratitude."

Got that - Mr Superior White Man.