Stand: That every Australian be invited and encouraged to support the most proactive movement ever undertaken to reconcile with indigenous Australians. The first step to be the signing of the following Reconciliation Declaration:

SIGN THIS PETITION: https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/THE_RECONCILIATION_DECLARATION/

As an Australian citizen I acknowledge that before Europeans ever set foot upon this land, many great nations already prospered here. I acknowledge that this land I now call home was colonised without the consent of those original inhabitants and this has resulted in great hardship and suffering. For this I am sincerely sorry. It is my desire to reconcile past wrongs and a build a future where indigenous Australians live in complete equality with non indigenous Australians. All rights afforded, all opportunities open. I therefore support renewed efforts toward reconciliation with Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander’s as a process of recognition, respect, healing, justice and unity.
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Background: The vision of reconciliation is a complex and sensitive matter and one of this countries most important national responsibilities. It is my belief that true reconciliation requires the recognition of an aboriginal nation.
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I see the indigenous nation as being a nation within a nation. Sovereign to a point with independent values, beliefs and governance but not to the extent of independent laws, currency or geography. I see the aboriginal nation as being as much symbolic as sovereign, co-existing independently as well as interdependently with modern Australia and living within the existing rule-of-law. In the sense that we acknowledge aboriginal people as the traditional owners of this land I see the same circumstances applicable to the formal recognition of an indigenous nation.

I see the indigenous nation becoming once again one of the greatest nations on earth. We will know it as a nation of peace existing side by side yet inexorably intertwined with the its sister nation Australia living in harmony and mutual respect, the way it should have been from the very start.

So..you'd be moving up to high school next year right?
Isn't it funny how stupid White people will support any form of Nationalism as long as it's not their own?
The most hilarious part is where you list all the ways Aboriginals are not a sovereign people and set out a series of caveats and rules for how this supposed "nation" would operate.

Drivel. One can only wonder at the motivation to actually spend time on such half-baked nonsense.

It even manages to prick the balloon of its own pretentious fol-de-rol, with this statement:

>>I see the aboriginal nation as being as much symbolic as sovereign<<

There are a few definitions of "nation" floating around, none of which encompasses the idea that one can be simultaneously symbolic and sovereign. For example:

"Nation: a large body of people, associated with a particular territory, that is sufficiently conscious of its unity to seek or to possess a government peculiarly its own".

Given the highly distributed nature of Aboriginal settlements, the variety of unique languages across the Aboriginal people of Australia, and the fact that they have never shown a concerted desire for a single "government peculiarly its own", I see this whole exercise as a piece of mindless self-promotion by its author/s.

We clearly need to find more effective ways to bring education, training and jobs to our Aboriginal communities, but that has little or nothing to do with "sovereignty". And if they are ever able to position themselves as a viable, separate nation, with common goals for their people, there will be only one remaining impediment: geography.

Eventually, likely within the next 300 or so years, there's no doubt whatsoever that part of Australia will be annexed. This land will become the aboriginal nation, with all the independence, laws and self government of any free independent nation.

It WILL happen. It should happen. No if, buts or maybes.

Well said Pericles.

If there is something to make me shudder, it is nationalistic rhetoric.

As for an 'Aboriginal Nation', how would that even be possible?

Jay 123,
Annexed? How do you annex your own land?
Aboriginals hold the title to something like 20% of the continent already, they could all move to those lands if they wanted to but as Marcia Langton has noted, young Aboriginals can see the road to the nearest big city and not much to the sides.

Yvonne.
The idea of "First Nations" itself is patronising because a nation is a European concept imposed upon non Europeans, ditto the concept of "sovereignty".
The idea of "sovereign peoples" depends on sovereign individuals, individual sovereignty is commonly called Anarchy, the rule of the self.
It's just stupidity to suggest that people need permission or instruction on that point and for most Aboriginals the die is cast at birth anyway, they don't have any other option but self rule.

Yvonne asks "how would that even be possible?". It will only be possible when our nation grows up, becomes more civilised and humane, and finally recognises that all aboriginal land was forcibly stolen from the inhabitants, and their descendents deserve at least some of it back.

Non aboriginal people need to comprehend that they do NOT have a right to determine the outcome of the lives of aboriginal people. Only the aboriginal people have that right. The racists and supremacists on this forum hate hearing that, as they consider "their" version of culture to be superior to aboriginal culture. Aboriginal people are looked upon by the supremacists on this forum as lesser beings, in need of "control".

Because of their cultural history on this land, aboriginal people deserve their own autonomous nation. This won't happen for many hundreds of years yet. Why? Because the supremacists and racist have a deep seated and primitive need to "control" aboriginal people. I suspect as our nation matures and grows up, the supremacists will slowly become fewer and fewer and fewer. Eventually Australia will recognise that aboriginal people have a right to their own autonomous nation, and complex mechanisms will then be put in place for the transfer of land. Likely the transfer itself will take several hundred years, for obvious reasons.

It can happen, and eventually it WILL happen. The only thing in doubt is the time frame.

Jay123,
The biggest factor mitigating against separatism is that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.
How is your idea of shunting them all off to Arnhem Land or Cape York different to anything that's gone before?
You'd also have to seal the borders of that nation otherwise every White criminal,pedophile and parasite would flock there like bees to a honeypot.
If Aboriginals have this supposed right to the same standard of living as Whites then assimilation is the answer, not separatism because you can't have a first world society without a majority first world population.

[This person is a sock puppet who has been barred from the forum for offensive behaviour. If anyone notices someone like this turning-up again can you please notify me? Their previous persona was Jay123. Thanks, GrahamY]

this is more like reconcilation propganda and a declaration. You would have to be totally ignorant of history

'As an Australian citizen I acknowledge that before Europeans ever set foot upon this land, many great nations already prospered here. '

many great nations prospered here. What was the life expectancy? Give us a break from this rot. Ask young girls promised to uncles how they felt about it. You want to pray you were not disabled or you could well be clubbed over your head. Tell me this is a joke! Please.

[This person is a sock puppet who has been barred from the forum for offensive behaviour. If anyone notices someone like this turning-up again can you please notify me? Their previous persona was Jay123. Thanks, GrahamY]

many great nations already prospered here. '
runner,
I think there's some serious leg-pulling happening here. However, if only one speck of evidence can be produced I concede.

Yep. Well said Pericles and Yvonne.
(though, it is a little worrying to be on the same side as Yvonne...I'll have to read her post again!

VfA>> . I therefore support renewed efforts toward reconciliation with Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander’s as a process of recognition, respect, healing, justice and unity.<<

VfA, I have been an advocate for the first Australians here on OLO since joining....I have started many threads on the subject. I am an advocate from birth because I grew up in a politically engendered household.

By way of pedigree may I tender that my relatives via the Labor movement and the Students Union were involved in the “bus in” protest that built Charles Perkins status as a community spokesman............. I speak to several relatives working with the community at Aurukun and other northern towns every week or two.......I get phone videos of community events and lots of the kids playing and mucking about.....one of the kids playing on a slip and slide came in the other day.

I had sent tens and tens of emails to the last government regarding the Aboriginal housing pledge that was not delivered. I have so far sent handfuls of emails to current members of parliament regarding indigenous issues, some of the issues were raised in parliament.

Signing an online petition is seen as an effortless task that carries no conviction, writing an individual email and filling their inbox is in their face. Emotive words like “respect, healing, justice and unity” are simply catch cries of the “Latte Set” ............inner city speak.

I applaud you for championing the cause but the problem is theft and greed....for every billion given....only hundreds of millions reach the community. VfA carry on advocating for these humanistic concepts but email the relevant ministers asking for total accountability of the moneys supposedly delivered for indigenous well being.

Could we perhaps have a reference to these great nations that existed in Australia pre 1788?

I can find plenty on the net about the great civilizations/nations of ancient India, China and Egypt and about the early Greek, Roman and Babylonian nations but nary a peep about great Australian nations.

So how about a reference or two, V f A?

If any Reconciliation is required, it is to reconcile the tax payer with the spending of $100,000 per head for every aboriginal living on out stations, like Aurukun, & $55,000 for those in mainstream Oz.

It really is time to say enough is enough, & chuck the whole staff of Aboriginal affairs departments everywhere, on the scrapheap of history.

If people chose to live out of mainstream Oz that is fine, but it is time they paid their own way when they do.

Is Mise>> Could we perhaps have a reference to these great nations that existed in Australia pre 1788?<<

Is M...............it is menial arguing over semantics...............the place was under constant generational habitation for 60,000 years.

Hasbeen>>
If any Reconciliation is required, it is to reconcile the tax payer with the spending of $100,000 per head for every aboriginal living on out stations, like Aurukun, & $55,000 for those in mainstream Oz.<<

HB, if the Aurukun residents all get $100,000 per head they aint flaunting it..............a totally ridiculous statement.

if the Aurukun residents all get $100,000 per head they aint flaunting it.
sonofgloin,
Hasbeen isn't saying that, he is saying that's how much is being spent on them & from my experience that amount is only getting them up to High school age.
I have a little math experiment for you. How much is it per person when you spend 30 million on infrastructure for a community of 45 over ten years & now this infrastructure & services is due for rebuild & repair.
Or how about 600 million per year for some 5000 constituents.
In the interest of fairness much of this funding goes to short visits career public servants.

Ooh Aurukun, I've got a video for that, oldie but a goodie:

http://blip.tv/slowtv/the-politics-of-suffering-peter-sutton-with-marcia-langton-2477583
http://blip.tv/slowtv/the-politics-of-suffering-peter-sutton-with-marcia-langton-p2-2477542

"There are simplistic, bourgeois ideas about what causes rage in such (remote) communities - simplistic, naive, self-serving, urban, bourgeois view(s).. The jig is up."To coincide with the launch of his new book, The Politics of Suffering, author and anthropologist Peter Sutton talks to Marcia Langton about the decline of basic standards of health and education in remote indigenous communities, and what needs to be done to address it. Both Sutton and Langton are renowned as fearless and authoritative voices on indigenous political issues, and this conversation reflects their latest thinking on the failure on idealist liberal politics to deliver positive results for remote indigenous communities.Readings Carlton, July 2009

S o G,

You said "Is M...............it is menial arguing over semantics...............the place was under constant generational habitation for 60,000 years"

Generational habitation for 60,000 years does not equate to "great nations" it only guarantees that there was, at most, a primitive tribal hunter gatherer society; where are the ruins of these great nations for assuredly no great nations existed in 1788 or earlier at the times of other European contacts.
That there was evidence of some Aboriginal Australians having lived in a town/village and cultivated fields in Western Australia is fact, but that progress is attributed to a Dutchman or two and is not indicative of any influence of a great indigenous nation.

Semantics doesn't come into it, the claim was that great nations existed whereas, in fact, none did.

Jay thanks for your links they were factual.

But your reason for posting them is to denigrate the indigenous community.

Given that the indigenous peoples have the lowest literacy rate of any group in Australia..............that their life expectancy is the lowest in Australia..............that the unemployment rate among indigenous Aussies as a segment is the highest............that the indigenous straddle the lowest socioeconomic segment .......that they are incarcerated at a rate five times the rest of the community.

Jay your expectation from a gene pool that was “stone age” three generations ago is unrealistic.

Is M>> Generational habitation for 60,000 years does not equate to "great nations" it only guarantees that there was, at most, a primitive tribal hunter gatherer society;<<

Is M, I understand what you are saying. Using European standards there was no empire building in Australia. But what makes those criteria the benchmark for nationhood?

Nationhood is about the collective, the people. They must identify with each other and have a social tenure passed down generationally. Our indigenous have a national pedigree of collectivism that dates back 60,000 years......unbroken, unadulterated...................unlike we Europeans who had 100’s of nations come and go in the past 1000 years.

Why do you want to smack our indigenous........ the poor and disenfranchised are always the easiest targets.

Sonofgloin,
Ok, got it...even though the links are truthful they're still "racist" because I have a racialised view of the world.

Did you pick up on Peter Sutton's comments on the classical world?
We don't speak Latin or Gaelic anymore, some people do it for fun or out of interest just as they will throw on a woolen cloak and a bronze Torc for the solstice celebration at Stonehenge.
The point is that's all well and good but those enthusiasts put the costumes away, jump back into their VW Golf and check the messages on their iPhone before driving back to suburbia.
Why would modern Aboriginals think any differently about their culture?

I only know Marcia Langton from TV & Peter Sutton I only know of what some one says about him occasionally.
From this limited perspective my opinion of Langton is that she is a activist opportunist who does not accept integrity as part of her agenda. Sutton is just an academic poodle who jumps when someone throws him something.
It's people such as those two who in my personal opinion are responsible for preventing the so-called Gap from narrowing. They are scab tearers.

sonofgloin,
How do I interprete your silence on my little math I offered you ? does that mean you accept those figures ?
I find it intriguing that you or no one else for that matter hasn't instantly disputed or at the least questioned those figures. Are you concerned they might be fairely close to the truth perhaps ? Anyhow a reply from you on that subject would be most interesting for most OLO'ers I'm sure.

I can't believe we are still here, TWO HUNDRED PLUS YEARS LATER still going on about this.

Time to move on.

All indigenous folk are welcome in my eyes, so long as they contribute, just like myself and my family do and have done for the few generations i can remember.

Reconciliation works both ways.

"Is M, I understand what you are saying. Using European standards there was no empire building in Australia. But what makes those criteria the benchmark for nationhood?

Nationhood is about the collective, the people. They must identify with each other and have a social tenure passed down generationally. Our indigenous have a national pedigree of collectivism that dates back 60,000 years......unbroken, unadulterated...................unlike we Europeans who had 100’s of nations come and go in the past 1000 years."
Posted by sonofgloin,

Nationhood, as we use the term is a European concept therefore European benchmarks must be used for the term, which in this instance was initially used by VfA.
Our indigenous were a big collection of tribes, speaking hundreds of mutually unintelligible languages, often at war with each other, in short a very primitive people who had no sense of any national identity.
Furthermore to speak of 60,000 years of anything more than the barest existence as nationhood is nothing more than wishful thinking.
If you wish to have a bit of experience of the real Aboriginal world then arm yourself wit their weapons and tools and try to live in the bush for a month without any of that inferior European technology.
Pick somewhere in the tropics, it's easier where it's warm and there is plenty of water.

Individual,
Well at some point we have to listen to someone, there aren't really that many Aboriginal activists or pro active sympathisers, we can't be completely cynical about every point of view.
Aboriginals have legal ownership of 20% of the continent but something like 70% of them live in the Eastern cities, there's no case for separatism and "reconciliation" is irrelevant, Aboriginals (being free agents and not mere objects) have made their choices.
Whatever the middle class bleeding hearts are doing they're doing for themselves, it's got nothing to do with reality.

Indy, sorry I was not ignoring you.
Re the numbers, I didn’t comment because it is plausible, I buy it.........but the numbers do not tell the tale. When we discuss infrastructure in these “settlements” we are talking 8 square Housing Commission dwellings along with some community buildings and a patch of bitumen here and there.

I agree with you that startling amounts of money go into the communities......but they still look like third world towns......why? As I said to whoever started this thread the community is lucky to receive one fifth of the tax moneys allocated. When a white board of protection held the purse strings they stole most of it. When the indigenous were given self management, they stole from it.....Indy I agree with your thoughts on Langton and Sutton.

Jay Of Melbourne >> Did you pick up on Peter Sutton's comments on the classical world?.
The point is that's all well and good but those enthusiasts put the costumes away, jump back into their VW Golf and check the messages on their iPhone before driving back to suburbia.
Why would modern Aboriginals think any differently about their culture?<<

Jay they do “think” differently, the settlement communities are still 60,000 years behind the society of VW Golfs and iPhones. They may well possess these things but the society that engenders the technology is alien to many indigenous communities. The only possession these people care about is their history and culture, one alien to Europeans, so we deem it worthless.

The destruction of community infrastructure is common in low socio economic communities, black and white, even the destruction of the government supplied housing. But how do you value material possessions when you know that your society is deemed worthless by the wider society.

Lester,

Failed physics at school did you?

WHITE is the presence of all colour.

Nice try for a diatribe though.

What's your ancestry, no negro blood?

Lester>> Jay nailed it. Like Jay said, the abos have made their choices and reconciliation is irrelevant. If they want their uncivilised, tribal, black nation they can go and invade some island somewhere and set it up , but keep that primitive rubbish OUT of Australia. Australia is a WHITE culture, and if any of the brown skins whether they be abos or Middle East Muslims/terrorists don't like that, they can GET OUT<<

So our indigenous should do what the British did to them.....invade an island........”keep the primitive rubbish out of Australia"
...that’s a laugh .........Lester they were here first. What is apparent is that these Stone Age peoples are dramatically more cultured than you Lester.

Is M>> in short a very primitive people who had no sense of any national identity.<<

Is M, I will tell you what was shared amongst them the “Dreamtime,” they had a collective animist religion, with the same core deities...there were up to a million of them worshiping the same story line. Regarding the myriad of languages, look at Britain...the only reason they all speak English is they had the technology to re educate millions.

Is M>> Furthermore
If you wish to have a bit of experience of the real Aboriginal world then arm yourself wit their weapons and tools and try to live in the bush for a month without any of that inferior European technology.<<

Furthermore is it Is M?........... “arm yourself with their weapons”.... what s that about?.........I am not indigenous, I don’t share their culture, I don’t share their third world living standard...but I do share their struggle for competent management of the States ongoing tax payer support to the communities. Noel Pearson is my Great Black Hope.

I was not ignoring you.
sonofgloin,
Thank you.
.but they still look like third world towns......why?
That is due to the fact that those with the authority to put their foot down don't. Unscrupulous indigenous leaders exploit this lack of gonads & the above is the result.
A non-military National Service would sort this.

Those indigenous leaders feather their own nests and the rest of Australia pays SSS for it.
Right is Right,
That's because these indigenous leaders were shown by white Australian Labor bureaucrats how to do it. They were taught by the experts.

"Indigenous 'nation' " ?!

There would have been tens of thousands of land-holding groups across Australia, often at war with each other. Will this silly initiative degenerate into endless feuds between groups arguing over boundaries of 'their' 'nation' ?

Not to mention the simple fact that every Indigenous person is, by definition, related to many land-holding groups, i.e. 'nations', so each person would have to spend god-knows-how-long trying to trace - in the 'proper' way - which is their primary group, and which are the secondary groups. And then work out where their primary group's land-holding is supposed to be. And then go there, to live on their land with their 'own' people ?!

And what ? all this leads to a recognition of sovereignty ? Meaning what in substance ? Or is it all just some sort of symbolic stick up the white fellas' @rses ?

Meanwhile, everybody would have to deny any non-Indigenous ancestry in order to present 'pure' links to land.

Who dreams these things up ?

Joe

Watch out Joe saying this;
Meanwhile, everybody would have to deny any non-Indigenous ancestry in order to present 'pure' links to land.

Could end you up in court.
No freedom of speech in Australia.

The notion of one Aboriginal nation is not new - a bunch of conservative whites, under a retired Adelaide accountant named Colonel Genders, floated the idea of a 'full-blood' nation somewhere in the Northern Territory, back in the 1920s. Supposedly, all full-bloods were to be moved there. [I apologise for using the term, but that's how it was phrased.]

David Unaipon (the bloke on the $ 50 note) was the poster-boy for this movement and pretty clearly he saw himself as the President of this independent 'nation'. He was paid to travel around southern communities to gather support, but they unanimously told him to shove it.

To my shame, I had a similar idea in the early seventies, until a very wise person asked me, "But who would leave their own country to go there ? And whose land would they be trespassing on ?" I was a lot younger and even stupider then, but those questions did it for me. Not to mention the necessary compulsion of hundreds of thousands of people all over the country to bring it about. And the idiocy of requiring mixed-marriage couple to either all pack up and go there, or to split up. An utterly idiotic idea then, and far more so now.

But it would create a multitude of new permanent jobs, committees and international conference attendances, for yet another bunch of rent-seekers.

There are real problems facing Indigenous people. It would be more constructive if some of these rent-seekers turned their attention to those and actually did something useful. But that's hardly likely.

Joe

The anonymous Vision for Australia wrote of "a nation within a nation. Sovereign to a point......"

Interesting how some people's minds work: (1) 'brilliant' idea; then (2) zip. Not the slightest grasp of what might follow.

Perhaps, to be fair, the writer lives in a convent on a remote Scottish island and has just read a schoolbook mentioning Australian Aboriginal people. In her mind, all Aboriginal people live, not dispersed across the whole of Australia and mostly urban-based, but all in one location, hundreds of miles from any contamination, all gaily enjoying their entire range of cultural practices intact; and that they have all had more or less the self-same solidary experience, not a multitude of experiences - as they actually have cone for fifty thousand years.

And "sovereign to a point" ? A bit like being "pregnant to a point" ? Or "dead to a point" ? Sovereignty to a point, how would that work ?

For fifty thousand years or more, intelligent people populated this continent, cut off from the rest of the buzzing world, and in its good times and its dreadfully bad times, in which perhaps half the population in drought-stricken regions died, the very young, the old, and anybody who couldn't keep up. This paper

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/10/10/1215627109.full.pdf

gives a thorough analysis of life expectancy in various types of societies, including hunter-gatherer societies, and early- and late-industrial societies. Fascinating, once you get your head around it.

The idiocy of the claim of becoming "once again one of the greatest nations on earth" just has me shaking my head in wonder: how could anybody be so ignorant ?

But I don't suppose that's ever stopped anyone :)

Joe

Whatever one thinks of what the Indig' were or were not before white settlement the simple fact remains, that land and that life are gone, and impossible to renew, even if that was desirable.
It's way past time for the Indig to start trying to enter the 21st century on an equal footing, only they themselves can begin that process.
As it stands they are their own worst enemies, but also their own best hope.
I'm against any recognition or divisive separation based on race, it's a guarantee of future problems.
Their culture has been largely destroyed and no amount of ashes and sackcloth will bring it back, get over it and move on.
Unlike a lot of people I've been personally involved with the Indig and their problems, both urban and remote NT communities and I weep at the waste of resources and money, the corruption and outright theft.
Those losses are inevitable given the lack of supervision, any human anywhere would be tempted, yet any attempt to enforce accountability is howled down as racist, see what I mean about the problems that spring from having racially based programs?
It's time to stop pandering to idealistic crud and declare true equality, no special racist monies or programs, give the Indig' the same resources and the same responsibilities as the rest of us, and give them thereby the opportunity to become a part of the country they actually live in.

I never met Peter Sutton or Marcia Langton but I often think that if indeed all these so called authoritative voices and advisors to government on Indigenous people are in fact who they appear to be then why are we still in the same dunny. Maybe that is the problem, a hell of a lot of experts with 'big picture' solutions instead of government talking directly to the grass roots leaders, people who are experts on themselves. ATSIC wasn't perfect but what bureaucracy is ever perfect? But at least we had our representatives, our leaders chosen by us. Some of them weren't desirable and needed to be weeded out but most were honest and genuine. It is a pity that the black cabal of advisors to John Howard could not realise the folly of their actions in advocating the dismantling of ATSIC. Noel Pearson doesn't offer any 'real' solutions either, without his 'faceless' advisors in his ears he wouldn't say the things he says, he's a bit like a ventriloquist doll, evident in his so called welfare reform plans showing signs of cracks at the seams but still manages to attract the lion share of tax payers dollars from government despite very little to show for the amount of money thrown at him, lots of activity stats in the trial reform sites but few outcome stats (there is a difference) oh except maybe Aurukun. I would like to know how much consultancy fees he pays himself while people in those community trial sites don't appear to be any better off.

Trotting out the same old tired voices for the sake of same old ideological talk fest about the so called 'problem' with Indigenous people. Here's how I see it. Western paradigms cannot hold up under the weight of Indigenous epistemology. This is the problem. It is a fact. There, I said it! I am not pretending to be the 'authoritative' voice on Indigenous people but from where I stand, my ways of knowing, and understanding come through interconnected familial relationships I have with metaphysical and natural knowledge entities: my epistemology. Western ways of knowing is compartmentalised into four major abstract "pillars" of knowledge: critical theory, positivist and post positivist, feminist, and constructivist-interpretivist. Basically, the imposition of these or combination of these means that fitting square pegs into round holes becomes the dominant lens through which a field of view can be seen as the only right and white way of knowledge production. I am not the first to write about this, many Indigenous scholars have been emerging here in Australia and overseas, are doing this, writing about our research philosophy. Here in Australia, scholars such as; Arbon, Rigney, Gaeia, Moreton-Robinson, West, Fredericks, and Nakata are the vanguard of this emerging renaissance of which I am also making meaning contributions. Read their interpretations of Indigenous philosophy and maybe some of what i am writing about here makes sense. The Pearsons, Langtons, Dodsons et al are becoming old guard and old hat.

Numbul,

"I never met Peter Sutton or Marcia Langton but I often think that if indeed all these so called authoritative voices and advisors to government on Indigenous people are in fact who they appear to be then why are we still in the same dunny."

Fascinating logic: if x, y and z, then why haven't A, B or C done something about it ? There would be a multitude of factors between one set and the other, Numbul, if you thought about it for just on moment.

You have probably never heard of Peter Sutton or Marcia Langton until recently, either, and so fall into the child's trap of believing that thy have contributed no more than you know about, i.e. nothing. Professor Sutton has been involved in, and writing about Aboriginal issues, for nearly fifty years now: one of his first papers, in 1966, was about the fascinating and very distinctive English dialect spoken in my wife's community on Lake Alexandrina, Raukkan. He is probably the only speaker now of many Cape York languages, and has been in the forefront fighting for Indigenous rights for many years. Professor Langton has also been front and centre for many decades in championing Indigenous issues.

What sort of rubbish are they teaching at universities and TAFEs these days ? But stay ignorant and keep spouting bullsh!t: it's so much easier than actually learning anything :)

Joe
www.firstsources.info

Joe (aka Loudmouth), my opinion stands as it is, I am not responsible for your level of comprehension of the point I make, and I will not join you in bottom feeding by using abrasive, and bullying language in my reply to yours. You selectively isolate one part of my total opinion and proceeded downwards from there, although I must admit I now know a bit more about Peter Sutton than before thanks to the credentials you accord him in your last reply post. Thanks for sharing this. Also, I will make it my point of interest to read his publications, and will attempt [this is not guaranteed though] to find space for his works in amongst my researching and writing to privilege Indigenous Australian philosophy. One last thing Joe, I possess 30+ years of working experience initially at project officer, and finally senior manager levels within state, territory and federal public services all within Indigenous Australian affairs, and now as an academic and researcher all combine with my lived experience to provide me with an appreciation of the factors and issues for success and failures probably more than you. But then again, who am I to make comments about the "authoritative" voices about Indigenous Australians.

Hi Numbul

" I possess 30+ years of working experience initially at project officer, and finally senior manager levels within state, territory and federal public services all within Indigenous Australian affairs, and now as an academic and researcher ..... "You should remember that an assertion without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

God, how depressing. Where is the quality of yesteryear ?

You make some interesting but baseless assertions. But an assertion without evidence can be disregarded, without evidence. If you assert, you have to prove, or at least provide some back-up.

Joe

There is only one way forward for Indigenous Australians,
Isis, yes, thats the Islamic-state-twits. And all other ethnic
groups here. That is the modern way. You can't go back and
sit under a tree all day and hunt animals with spears to eat.

The same nature
that looks pretty in story-book photos will wipe you out
before the age of 20years, without modern medicine. A mere scratch
on your body will kill you without penicillin. The law of Nature
on this planet cares not for the individual, doesn't think you are
so special and is only interested in survival of the fittest.

Remember the Berlin wall, they had to build it to keep the people on the Russian side of the wall in, they were just leaving in droves to
get to the Western side.

In comparison, Hamas is doing the same thing in reverse, with 15 tunnels trying to get into Israel.

There are no tunnels by Israelies trying to get into Palestine, though. The reason being, Palestine is a hell-hole, compared to the well organised, prosperous Israel. The medieval thinking Islamists who run Palestine, just
enforce laws that make their people miserable and Palestine a medieval
hell-hole.

The Hamas warlords though, are desperate to get into Israel and take control of something built on modern, sensible, organised, contraceptive, ideas. All ethnic groups in Australia must
embrace the West or stay stuck in a mind-set centuries old and destructive to peoples lives. They will gain nothing by refusing
to progress. "old proverb"- He who sits on the lid of progress, shall be blown to pieces" In other words, once the modern genie, is out of the bottle it won't be put back into the bottle>"
And where do they all want to come? Europe,Australia and America.