Banjo, whether they live in cities or rural areas doesn't matter.
They are still disadvantaged.
So obviously something needs to change.

I am not saying anyone is to blame, just that whatever is happening now is not working.
I am one of those nurses who has worked both in rural and urban Aboriginal communities, so I have seen how it really is...

Suseonline.
I have policed in most of the communities north of Cairns and I have also seen what you call disentanglement. Until they get up off their arses and contribute to the social equation they will remain disadvantaged.
They get the same disposable income as any other social security recipient and in their multi family home structures from Grand parents down to babies born to babies there is a huge amount of disposable income available.
Most of it is spent on grog and grass.

Suseonline could you please explain how Aboriginals are disadvantaged? What advantages do you and I have access to but Aboriginals do not?

Sure Bec....if you or I went for a job, we might have a chance of getting it, but just by looking Aboriginal , they won't.
Some families haven't had a real job or education for several generations, so they don't know how to hope any more.

They are considered thieves or thugs before they do anything wrong in shopping centers etc. how many times can they be shunned before they fight back?
Their culture is one of sharing...so if they have money, they give it to others.

Their children and elders die much younger and European introduced diseases like diabetes affect them at much greater rates than the rest of the community.
Need I go on?

I don't know the answers Bec, I just know we can't go on as it is now.

Suseonline,
Most of them won't work because they can't work. The don't know how and they don't want to learn. Working is not in their genetic makeup. They come from a 'hunter/gatherer' tribal makeup. They wandered the land, ate an area out and moved on to the next. Don't believe that 21st century created culture the 'smarties' are throwing up as being a reason for their existence
Their are thieves and thugs and encouraged by their families and peers to hunt the white man. Sure we ruined their patch, took away their lifestyle and introduced them to the evils of our society but that was because they were a conquered race in complete disarray as far as an economic future in a moderns society was concerned.
The men hunt whites at night and the girls start having babies at 12/13 for the cash handouts we give them.
They live for the drugs, grog and sex that their lifestyle affords them and we condone.
One thing you are right about and that is that it can't keep going on.
We have to stop the clock. Strip away the layers of social security and support and really take stock. If they want the benefits of white society then work for it otherwise go back to the bush and see how long they can survive.
Come and live where I live and see for yourself. They are laying around everywhere. Drunk, drugged, abusive and abrasive in the streets and gardens of this town.
Sure there plenty of their culture living off their woes and the government cash that they manage to secure in grants and program funding but after they have got themselves a new 4x4 and a residence in the best part of town there is not much left to help their fellow man.
I could go on all night but that is pointless just go look for yourself.

Chris,

Around 60 or 70 % of Indigenous people have moved to the cities and are in mainstream education or employment. More than 33,000 have graduated from universities -about one in every nine adults, one in every six women. Indigenous women are commencing university study at a slightly greater rate than NON-Indigenous Australian men. Urban, working Indigenous stats are not that different from those of other Australians.

The drop-kick population is not all that significant, 30-40 % of the total. It tends to have such dreadful rates of poor health, high incarceration etc., that it knocks the daylights out of the overall Indigenous statistics. But it's a minority, mainly in rural and remote areas, mainly male-dominated. So we know its characteristics - it's not 'Indigenous people' overall.

So culture, race, inheritance etc., don't really count for much. Sure, family culture, the passing-down from generation to generation of drop-kick culture, can be clearly seen in genealogies, but there is always a proportion which escapes and gets into mainstream education and employment. And they're who we have to place our expectations in. It's the dropkicks, the bludgers, the loafers, the skivers, who we have to focus policy on (and their kids), not the entire population.

Joe