Get this, one of my work colegues, who has an indigenous partner, has just rented a house on some Aboriginal arrangement and they are paying a piddly $87 per week, with ZERO bond, and no binding lease and they can stay as long as they like.

With rents averaging $300 per week, it just goes to show that the racism card is a one way street.

As you say it is not equitable butch. I personally have no issue with the broader support to aboriginals as a special group in the wider community.

We spend more money on foreign aid than we do on our indigenous, and that money does not go back into our economy. I wont whinge about welfare because I know that 99% of that money goes straight back into our economy within a fortnight.

after 200 years, and if we are still treating them differently, that my friend , IS RACISM !

If you're not a fan of welfare of this type it's your duty to get every cent of every government allowance you're entitled to lest it end up in the hands of bludgers. Anyone who is still breaking their back working in this day and age is a fool, do the minimum amount you require to get by and let the state provide the rest.
Better yet invest your money in a bottle shop or a fried chicken franchise in a highly welfare dependant suburb, your taxes will flow back into your pocket in no time.

The politics of envy!
Very ugly flesher.

Would you prefer your workmate was homeless?
Realtors are notorious for racist treatment of indigenous renters.
Hence why they get together and use their aboriginal organisations to help out. I bet you prefer the "blacks" to be living in the river bed or in humpys on the outskirts of country towns? Or maybe you think we should just give them some "blankets" and then they will go away?

Giving disadvantaged people a hand up is not racism.
Do you feel the same about all the whiteys getting public housing assistance. What do you say to all those who receive rental assistance from the government? Overwhelmingly white recipients?

Why single out aboriginals?
Racism thats why.
Almost any koorie would swap places with you flesher. Would you swap with them?

Mikk, ......Would you prefer your workmate was homeless?

No, i would preffer he was treated the same as anyother Austrlian earning a decent income. His partner also receives a pension for being aboriginal.

....Realtors are notorious for racist treatment of indigenous renters.
One could also say that indigenous renters (not all) have a bad reputation for destroying the houses they live in. Fact!

.... I bet you prefer the "blacks" to be living in the river bed or in humpys on the outskirts of country towns? Or maybe you think we should just give them some "blankets" and then they will go away?

No, not at all I just don't see why they, while in a normal functioning relationship should receive such preferential treatment.

.....Giving disadvantaged people a hand up is not racism.
whats the disadvantage about a guy who earns a grand a week, yet, simply because he is with an aboriginal partner, gets a house at a 75% discount, no bond and no commitment what so ever and no end date.

In fact, this is a true case of reverse racism as the other guy who has a white partner, earns the same amount, for the same job, pays full freight rent, a $1600 bond and is fully accountable and knows that being in a mining town, he could be squeezed out in six months.

$87 per week, when your partner earns $1000 per week, just because you're indigenous is a joke. Of cause on top of that she also gets a pension just for being an aboriginal and sadly pisses most of that against the wall.

If aboriginals wish to be treated as every day Australians, surely the hand outs, when not needed, should be cut.

@rehctub

i agree with your responses

very fair

Piss it up against a wall, well there could be worse options. Think of the publican or the butcher down the road if that person did not have an abo; pension. It all ends up back in revenue.

579, while I accept the money ends up in circulation, the problem I have with all welfare waste, is that it's mostly the kids who miss out, simply because many parents choose booze &cigs, gambling, even drugs at times ahead of the needs of their children because after all, the children are the intended recipients of a large portion of that welfare and they have no control over it.

Yes a fair portion comes back, but it doesn't address child poverty.

My point is welfare is for the needy and for one to receive such generous hand outs while in a functioning income earning relationship, simply for being Aboriginal is wrong.

Welfare is also intended as a 'hand up' to help people in need, not a 'hand out' which it obviously is in this case.

With some 200 plus years having past since white man came, at what point are these people going to stand on their own two feet and stop their reliance on unbalanced welfare hand outs.

Dear rehctub,

I don't know the precise circumstances of your colleague
and his partner and what
qualifies them to receive the benefits that you're
referring to. I'm sure there must be something more
to it than what you know. Opinion polls repeatedly
show large sections of the population favouring cuts in
welfare spending or favouring plans to "make welfare
recipients go to work." We're regularly being told that
welfare is a terrible burden on the taxpayer (welfare
represents a tiny percentage of the federal budget).
Why do these attitudes persist?

There is an ideology in this country that holds that
everyone has the same chance to get ahead. Therefore
it stand to reason that - if those who get
ahead can claim credit for their success, then those
who fall behind must, logically be blamed for their
failures. The disadvantaged are therefore supposed to need
incentives to work, rather than help at the expense of the
taxpayer.

There are few complaints, however, about how we pay out far more
in "handouts" to the nonpoor than to the poor - in the form of
tax deductions, and hidden subsidies, rather than the direct form
of cash payments.

Ah well, perhaps we need to look at the system that we have
created in this country and decide whether we need to
preserve, modify, or change it completely, so that its more
equitable for all concerned. Afterall if we created it - we
can surely modify it as well.

@foxy

i concur

Dear rehctub,

I've just come across a website that might be of some
interest. There's a chapter in it on whether
Indigenous people get extra funding that might be worth
reading. We're told that generally Indigenous people
receive the same level of public benefits as non-Indigenous
people and that they do not get extra funding just because
they are Indigenous. However, there are specific government
programs that have been introduced to help those economically
and otherwise disadvantaged.

http://www.humanrights.gov.au/publications/questions-and-answers-about-aboriginal-torres-strait-islander-peoples

It's worth a read.

Dear Platy,

Thank You.

@foxy

why is the young poiro lady so upset?
tell her to have patience with an old man of 115

tell her sometimes simple lines are clearer than seemingly elegant verbiage ....

btw... the punctuation marks like "..." is part of a very simple communication process

. = full stop
.. = stop but think
... = thinking
.... = must think but be careful not to think like poirot
CAPS = help poirot to focus as she often thinks too deeply

:)

Dear Platy,

Who am I to give advice to anyone - either you
or Poirot?

I am barely capable of correcting my own stuff-ups.

I'm sure that you two will work things out for yourself.

why get so touchy about the aborigines?

isnt that racism?

it is so hypocritical we give them nice names but deep inside we still hold on to our biased views

Dear Platy,

I hope that much has changed regarding our
Indigenous People in many respects. Much
has been achieved. Tolerance and understanding
has broadened out and hopefully bigotry is in
retreat. However, many of us don't really
understand the plight of our Indigenous People
and the problems they have to live with. I certainly
don't fully understand so many things - especially
living in the city as I do. I rarely come into contact
with any Indigenous People. I can only make
summations from what I read. And I guess there's
many Australians in the same boat.

@foxy

i have a fren who is doing a phd on our indigenous people
we have long discussions on this matter
and i must say i have learnt much from this friend
on why white australians and new zealanders treated the natives so differently... one with contempt and the other with uneasy respect

nations conquer foreign lands for various reasons
i do not wish to go into a lengthy poirotic discourse on this (maybe i will learn to do it at the higher tweeter level..hhh)

200 years ago england came to conquer and claiming this land for their king
the first admirals called this land 'terra nullis' because they do not even see the natives fit enough to be called human

never mind about all the wrongs done
it had been done

no one sane enough will want to advocate turning the clock
no amount of apologies will make it right
let us go beyond apologies over and over again... it is so tiring and does not make anything better

the impt lesson to learn is

a. there will continue to be wars
b. there will continue to be the taking over of lands

BUT, let us remember to treat the conquered fairly and humanely as we ourselves will be the conquered one day

what I have given to Aboriginals

- food on the street
- food in my home
- lifts in my car
- various goods at my cost

what I have received

- being called a white __
- beaten aboriginal women on my doorstep
- wife being called a white _ with threat of rape
- having young aboriginal steal my wifes jewelery

I fell very sorry for them and will continue to help where I can. What I detest is the progressives with their rewritten history that encourages blatant racism from aboriginals and the constant victim mentality given to them leading to the above behaviours.

@runner

i understand what you are saying

it is sad

i am of the opinion that there must be an end to apologies
but on the other hand, we must understand the natives have a very very different mindset, something very ingrained to their way of looking at life
and it is going to take many many more generations for this to be resolved
the solution is the dying out of a culture... very sad

whites, some islanders, some asian culture are tribal and warlike
we must understand that the australian natives and the malays etc are not like that
they believe they are part of a greater Mother Nature
they live peaceably with the change in the seasons and the elements

this is a very difficult problem

i have no answer

Careful everyone, Andrew Bolt found himself jerked into court for less
that what I have seen here.

'Careful everyone, Andrew Bolt found himself jerked into court for less
that what I have seen here.

yes Bazz the regressives hate their lies being exposed. Nothing new though.

I must be a racist, I got an aboriginal houseboy sacked once, in Townsville, in about 1948. I would have been about 8.

My parents were members of a group who, in those glorious days before TV, videos & all this modern stuff, played cards at various of a groups homes each week.

One couple had a reputation for serving beautiful toast at supper. The group were discussing this beautiful toast, & wondering how the house boy made it so good.

It was no great secret. A couple of us kids had been had been out in the kitchen watching him spin his magic. They wanted to know, so I told them, the secret.

He popped the butter into his mouth, chewed it until soft, then dribbled it onto the toast spreading it as he did.

I could not understand what I had done to cause so much excitement.

Did I become a racist that day, or was I born that way, or was it racist for the group to be upset?

PS. Did you like that one Poirot.

Foxy, I can only assume that this guys partner has rented the house and his income is not declared, or something like that.

My issue is, at what point are indigenous people going to stop being indigenous and stand on their own two feet. They get all the assistance in the world if they want it, at no charge, they get cheap housing, cheap loans yet there are very few genuine Aborigines left on our land, so one can't help but wonder just how many are simply riding the gravy train for it's worth.

I can assure you that if an indigenous person applies fir a job at a mine site, they will get it.

We provide the assistance, we provide all but free housing, we have even apologized for past wrong doings, although not with my support, so I ask again, when are they going to move on and make something of themselves and break away from this ongoing welfare deoendancy..

If one wants to be treated as equal, surely they must stand up and be counted.