I went to a Reconciliation Week event in my area, on Friday night and at the end of the event - the Aboriginal performer said "we will see you again next year."

I then thought - will we ever see reconciliation - and how long will this week go for? Year by year, twenty years, fifty, one hundred, one thousand?

We still have the Aboriginal Tent Embassy from 1972 - and I question if many will move on from the past and recognise that no one human truly owns Australia at all.

Many people still see Australia Day (for example) as "Invasion Day".

How do we get people in general out of this mindset or is reconciliation simply something impossible to achieve in real terms?

I think we need to rethink the whole problem again maybe take a broader outlook
Australia is now portrait as a Multi-cultural society
But we still hang on christian beliefs Christmas/Easter etc
Maybe we should encourage a Full multicultural week for example encourage people to portray there cultural heritage food clothing etc in this one week each year and really celebrate it
Change Australia day to be ALL Australians day.
Change Christmas to xmas as a time for gift giving and celebrating the family (as most people look at it now anyway)
Easter as EGG day to have fun and let kids enjoy themselves
Simple fact is we are no longer a straight out Christian country So lets get with the Modern times
As a straight out reconciliation day I think this is the wrong way to go, It is terrible shameful what was done to aboriginal People in our past and also currently, But as a Multi cultural Country one group Can not have " Special rights" Fair and even for everyone is the only way to go.

Probably not. The concept is political nonsense, anyway. Their is nothing to reconcile in the 21st century.

Dear Aussieboy,

Christianity was the religion of the invaders. They have imposed it to a great degree on the Aboriginal people. One Australian Bible basher told me, "Aboriginal are still engaging in Satanic worship." He agreed with Archbishop Jensen that non-Christian religions are the 'tools of Satan', and the Aboriginal dances were a pre-Christian ritual.

However, in this 'enlightened age' we can recognise that the creation myths in Genesis have no more validity than the Aboriginal creation myths involving the Rainbow Serpent.

There is no reason that reconciliation has to come to an end. As we find out more about each other we can draw closer. I have been married many years. It is still a voyage of discovery.

Hey David
that was sort of my Point
Why keep flogging a dead horse
We are never going back to be a fully christian society so why not lead the way
We could always ask Cardinal Pell and his mates their thoughts NOT.
I like hearing Aboriginal myths and legends dream time stories
also Greek mythology and also Norse legends
Maybe if we gave Jesus a cape and more superpowers he would appeal to younger People more

The historian Henry Reynolds wrote
that when writing his books he spoke to
many Australians who felt that they had been
poorly served by their teachers and by the
nation's historians. They were denied information
and the past and they felt they were denied
understanding.

However, as Reynolds points out - it is now possible to
explore the past by means of a large number of books,
articles, films, novels, songs, paintings, primary
sources, archival records, and so on. Many voices
can now tell us about the past history of this country
and we can know a great deal about the history of
Indigenous-settler relations. But as Reynolds says -
knowing brings burdens which can be shirked by those
living in ignorance. With knowledge the question is
no longer what we know but what we are now to do, and that
is a much harder matter to deal with.
It will undoubtedly perplex us for many years to come.

Of course many things have changed. Much has been achieved.
Tolerance and understanding has broadened out and bigotry
to a large extend is in retreat. But the racist past still
weighs heavily on the present and as Reynolds says may yet
destroy any hope of reconciliation in this generation.

Black arm-band history is distressing. but it does enable us
to know and understand the incubus that burdens us all.
And Reconciliation Ceremonies play a big part in all of this.

Definitely not while the aboriginal victim industry is so profitable for so many.

The aboriginals will have to make many changes before they can be reconciled with me.

While we can still have a bunch of lefty ratbags select a vicious thug like Adam Goodes as Australian of the year, we will know their main interest is in keeping the dollars flowing, & not a damn thing more.

Adam Goodes a vicious thug?
Lol!

You must be a really delicate flower if you found his little dance threatening Hasbeen.
Other than that nasty dance, where has Adam been shown to be a vicious thug Hasbeen? You want to be careful about what you say publicly online...

Aussieboy,

"Change Christmas to xmas as a time for gift giving a...."

Already done hundreds of years ago.

"X-mas is a common abbreviation of the word Christmas. It is sometimes pronounced *...... but X-mas, and variants such as Xtemass, originated as handwriting abbreviations for the typical pronunciation *..... The "-mas" part is from the Latin-derived Old English word for Mass, while the "X" Comes from the Greek letter Chi, which is the first letter of the Greek word* .... which comes into English as "Christ".

There is a common belief that the word Xmas stems from a secular attempt to remove the religious tradition from Christmas by taking the "Christ" out of "Christmas", but its use dates back to the 16th century...."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xmas

*The pronunciations come up as a series of numbers so I removed them.

Better luck with the rest!

Dear Hasbeen,

What is your evidence for Adam Goodes being a
"vicious thug?"

As for our Indigenous people being a "profitable
industry?" Again to what exactly are you referring
and please provide evidence to substantiate
your claims.

The Indigenous are behind on every health indicator,
they are shockingly over represented in jailing
rates, their suicide and self-harm rates are a
national emergency and their rights to practice their
culture and heritage are being severely undermined by
governments all across the country.

These facts are available for verification at any of
our National and State Libraries for those interested
in learning the truth.

Hasbeen,
Have to agree with you...Goodes is a thug. If he wasn,t mixed up with football he,d be trying to kick the crap out of white mans society. He and his kind don't stop to think that the white man's society gave him everything he has.
Now they want more.
Up where I live they are going to knock down a perfectly good house because some black woman murdered eight of her children in the place.
They are going to declare her not fit to stand trial and she will be back in society within a couple of years..
Now they want more.
I am sure some white family or refugee family would love to live in the house.

//Up where I live they are going to knock down a perfectly good house because some black woman murdered eight of her children in the place.//

Did she? Or is that just what THEY want you to think?

http://nodisinfo.com/more-hard-proof-cairn-australia-stabbing-8-children-hoax/

Wow! You're probably right Toni Lavis, I'll bet those kids murdered themselves, while no one was looking of course, just to spite her. Do grow up a bit some time.

On Goodes, I am not interested in AFL, but see enough of it in news highlights to have seen how he plays football. He's a thug.

He also attacks 13 year old girls, because he's has a thugs mentality.

Time some of you ladies grew up a bit too. It really is time to admit that some lefties, like Goodes, are horrible people, & stopped loving them, just because they disagree with Tony.

Goodes appears to have a huge chip on his shoulder. Rudds sorry obviously did not work. Being encouraged by many regressives to celebrate culture leads to this spear dance nonsense. People are still speared for tribal punishment today in wa. Funny enough Goodes has made a lifestyle choice to live like a king and hate the hand that provided the opportunity.

//Wow! You're probably right Toni Lavis, I'll bet those kids murdered themselves, while no one was looking of course, just to spite her. Do grow up a bit some time.//

You crack me up, hasbeen. I'm kind of wary to share this one with you, because you'll probably come back shouting 'You idiot! Clangers don't live on the moon!' But what the hey. See if you can pick the satire this time:

http://stuffucanuse.com/fake_moon_landings/moon_landings.htm

I went to the website from Toni Lavis and can I suggest, that people not read or visit it.

It was (in my view) an awful, website (in the realm) of 'Adult only'. I could barely even stay on the site, when I realised its content and emphasis.

Being related to Aboriginal people myself (but of a Anglo Saxon and varied country background), I have on many occasions, defended Aboriginal people - because they have been stereotyped by a lot of people.

The relatives I have (who are Aboriginal - about 8), do not commit serious crimes and have never done so. They are a not a problem to society in general. One is an artist in the Northern Territory who displays works in major NT art galleries that are in the $2000-$3000 dollar sale range.

People across the board undertake and do horrible and illegal things towards others for a range of reasons, and some of the comments from very left, right wing or hateful people won't see any type of reconciliation occur with anyone, anywhere in Australia or elsewhere.

Hello,

The website I referred to (from Toni) is: http://nodisinfo.com/more-hard-proof-cairn-australia-stabbing-8-children-hoax/

I wont even click on the other link.

The site mentioned - its simply disgusting, and devalues this discussion topic.

//I went to the website from Toni Lavis and can I suggest, that people not read or visit it.

It was (in my view) an awful, website (in the realm) of 'Adult only'. I could barely even stay on the site, when I realised its content and emphasis.//

My word, I had no idea the Clangers are considered so distasteful by contemporary mores.

I work in a subservient role to an aboriginal chef. I often have a drink with him after work - he's one of my best mates, and a far better chef than I am. If I showed him that website, he'd have a laugh because he's bright enough to get the joke: it's taking the piss out of conspiracy theorists.

Despite all reason, there are still websites and people perpetuating nonsense ideas like 'the moon landings were faked' or '9/11 was faked by the government'. The 9/11 attacks resulted in the death of two thousand, nine hundred and seventy-seven innocent people - two thousand, nine hundred and sixty-nine more than eight. Would you object to reading a 9/11 conspiracy theory, when it is essentially making a joke of the death of two thousand, nine hundred and seventy-seven innocent people?

//I wont even click on the other link.//

Well don't be like that. I guarantee the other link to G-rated, and properly funny.

Whatever happened to offensive comedy anyway? My grandad wouldn't let my Mum watch the Flying Circus because it was rude... my parents frowned on my appreciation of the Doug Anthony All Stars... the only comedians who have come close to offending in the last decade are Frankie Boyle and Jim Jefferies. I think young people just don't care enough any more to even bother upsetting old people. I blame the interweb.

Adam Goodes father was White and he had a normal working class upbringing like the rest of us, it's said that he never met any poor Aboriginals or visited an outback community until he joined the AFL.

To answer the question. I hope to see the day when true reconciliation between Indigenous and non-indigenous Australians is achieved. Unfortunately still too many Australians think like Hasbeen, chrisgaff1000 and runner. Then there is Jay who admits he is 'proud to be a racists'. None of these people are interested in equality, and therefore reconciliation will always be a bridge too far for them.
Foxy posted the facts;
<< The Indigenous are behind on every health indicator,
they are shockingly over represented in jailing
rates, their suicide and self-harm rates are a
national emergency and their rights to practice their
culture and heritage are being severely undermined by
governments all across the country.>>
Until equality is achieved on the above fronts, and attitudes change, true reconciliation cannot be achieved between all Australians.

Paul1405,

What about you and Fox explain the bifurcation in aboriginal society? Where it is plain that many (most?) Aborigines are doing very well from taking full advantage of the opportunities available to them?

What, who is responsible, for the deep difference of Bungonia Gorge proportions between the many indigenous communities that are thriving - good health and well-being, women and children safe - and those where drunken, thieving brutes waste millions of dollars of taxpayer money and where children, male and female infants and adolescents are abused as a daily routine? How are doctors aware of it? Through the incidence of STDs in minors, where usually the children are presenting for treatment for other injuries.

Anyone here who has even a passing familiarly with country towns would be aware that following the demographic change of recent years, many of the towns are now lawless rubbish tips advisedly avoided by the travellers who knew them as previously welcoming, kindly and clean. Who wants to be abused in the street by drunken louts who steal anything that isn't bolted down and trash anything that is secured? Country towns always had many who struggled financially, however their modest circumstances did not result in the degradation of their environment and bullying and abuse of visitors as 'white C's'.

The solutions must come from within the indigenous communities and the Aborigines themselves. As is obvious from their personal success, their prosperity and the easily found safety of their families, many have already made the choice and are taking personal responsibility
for their own choices, freely made, to take full advantage of their opportunities.

otb,

If you think that the Australian Indigenous people
are doing so well perhaps you need to ask why in
our country , one of the most scientifcally advanced countries
in the world, why we still have the world's highest rates
of Dickensian diseases amongst our Indigenous people -
diseases such as rheumatic heart diseases and preventable
diseases like trachoma which causes blindness in children?

It is possible for anyone today to get answers by means
of a wide range of available resources. Libraries are a
wonderful resource. Of course, knowing brings burden which
can be shirked by those living in ignorance because with
knowledge the question is no longer what we know but what
we are now to do, and that is a much harder matters to deal
with.

Fox,

It is your habit to duck facts you have no answer to, preferring strawman and red herrings instead.

Here are the questions again and do try to answer this time.

"What about you and Fox explain the bifurcation in aboriginal society? Where it is plain that many (most?) Aborigines are doing very well from taking full advantage of the opportunities available to them?

What, who is responsible, for the deep difference of Bungonia Gorge proportions between the many indigenous communities that are thriving - good health and well-being, women and children safe - and those where drunken, thieving brutes waste millions of dollars of taxpayer money and where children, male and female infants and adolescents are abused as a daily routine?"
[from, onthebeach, Tuesday, 2 June 2015 11:17:51 AM]

otb,

Kindly provide us with evidence to substantiate
your claims. I am not ducking anything.
You have a tendency to make sweeping genralisations
on this forum and accuse others of all sorts of things.
Put up or shut up!

Fox,

More poisoning of the well and there you go again, turning it all back on any poster who queries your opinions. Still no answer to questions though.

Interesting that you are in denial of the many indigenous success stories, individual and community.

Where the individual and/or community takes up the opportunities they are well placed to be success stories. One could argue that it takes far more determination to reject the opportunities offered and paid for by the Taxpayer than it does to take them up.

Any solutions must come from within, from the individual indigenous themselves and from within their communities.

Now, lets try again to get an answer to those questions you are ducking,

"What about you and Fox explain the bifurcation in aboriginal society? Where it is plain that many (most?) Aborigines are doing very well from taking full advantage of the opportunities available to them?

What, who is responsible, for the deep difference of Bungonia Gorge proportions between the many indigenous communities that are thriving - good health and well-being, women and children safe - and those where drunken, thieving brutes waste millions of dollars of taxpayer money and where children, male and female infants and adolescents are abused as a daily routine?"
[from, onthebeach, Tuesday, 2 June 2015 11:17:51 AM]

Paul, Foxy,

I think that reconciliation means different things for every person. For me it means a meeting of the minds as to what is fair. The non indigenous people need to give the indigenous people equal treatment and not discrimination. Similarly the indigenous peoples need to take responsibility for their own actions.

For example, small remote communities whether white or not suffer higher rates of alcoholism, domestic violence etc, along with lower levels of housing education and health due to the high cost of servicing these communities. The cost of educating a child in remote communities sometimes equals the cost of a top private school in the cities with low outcomes, and health care is similar.

Choosing to stay in remote areas where there no jobs or prospects is a recipe for misery.

Reconciliation can only be successful if BOTH sides bury those long held prejudices and false beliefs. Bigotry is one of the greatest barriers to a successful integration of both black and white, socially and vocationally.

I relieved, unaccompanied, w/o my spouse at a far western, mid-sized township (a case of 'try before you buy'?), and I can tell you never would I willing go to such a place again, as a uniformed member performing GD's, never ! Drunken, brawling blacks, Vs drunken brawling whites. And who were worse do you reckon ?

I've been typing up old documents in relation to Aboriginal policy and I'm working through conference papers of the first meeting of the Aboriginal Affairs Council in 1968. Senior officers were asked around the table how many Aboriginal people were in their States (States always kept count of Aboriginal people, but they weren't counted not at federal level until after the 1967 Referendum): one said he wasn't sure because more and more people were coming forward to claim benefits that were not available to non-Aboriginal people. 1968.

When I lived in a community up on the Murray across the mid-seventies, pretty much everybody had decent houses, @ $ 6 - 8 p.w. rent.

By the end of this year, around forty thousand Indigenous people will have graduated from universities. 120,000 have commenced university study since 1990 or so. Currently, 15,000 are enrolled, 98 % in mainstream courses. Around 6,000 commence study each year, 20 % at post-graduate level, so around 40 % of an age-group are commencing study each year. 40 %.

Please, no more victim stuff. Those days are well gone.

Joe
www.firstsources.info

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

Have seen John Pilger's film - "Utopia?"

It depicts today. Not the past.

Dear Foxy,

No, life's too short to watch Bilger's rubbish and lies.

The people at Utopia are entitled to the full welfare benefits of other Australians, plus mineral royalties, plus a few other benefits besides.

Where Aboriginal groups have leased back some of their land to, say, the Conservation Commission in the Northern Territory, they receive annual royalties. At Mutitjulu, which holds the lease to Uluru, each household got $ 14,000 per year in national park royalties alone. Did Bilger talk about that ?

Don't confuse squalor with poverty, or believe every sob-story you hear.

Love,

Joe

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

The following two websites may clarify things
for you:

http://theconversation.com/review-pilgers-utopia-shows-us-aboriginal-australia-in-2014-21965

http://utopiajohnpilger.co.uk/about

You can deny the facts all you want and sweep them
under the rug as well as slur an award-winning
filmaker and journalist of Pilger's international
standing. That won't change the facts. They exist.
Much to our shame.

Onthebeach, I don't know much about Aboriginal communities outside of WA and the NT, but only a few of these communities in both the rural and metro locations in WA are doing well at all.
The vast majority suffer from multiple health problems, unemployment, domestic violence and criminality. I know this, because I have worked in many of them and I have friends working in them now.

What is your experience with Aboriginal communities?
Can you name the communities who are doing as well as you say?
Are many(most?) really doing as well as you suggest?

Loudmouth, it is all very well to have all these Aboriginal students supposedly studying at Universities, but are they finishing the courses and graduating? If so, are they then finding employment in their chosen field, or are they merely going on with further studies?
You must know how hard it is for these people to secure employment in jobs other than Aboriginal managed or subsidised businesses or Government jobs?
Racism is very much alive and well in the employment market.

Suse.,

Yes, thank you, thank you, I was going to raise that issue of segregated employment in case someone suggested that there was, after all, no racism in Australia: Yes, indeed, there is that sort of racism which most of the 'leaders' don't have a clue about: afterall, they're doing alright.

Yes, Indigenous people who graduate outside of the standard-Indigenous-oriented fields of study, almost invariably find it very difficult to find work. An aboriginal lawyer, for example, will be assumed to want to work only in some Aboriginal legal rights organisation. Aboriginal teachers, of course, are expected to devote their careers to teaching Aboriginal kids perhaps out in the sticks, even if they want to be Teachers of any kids anywhere. An Aboriginal vet or architect or engineer will have terrible trouble getting work.

Imagine that this happened, say, to women: imagine a female teacher-graduate being told, 'Oh we're so dreadfully sorry, dear, but we don't have any vacancies at any of the public girls' schools'. Or an Italian-Australian teacher-graduate being told, with deep regrets and sucked-in breath, that it's such a shame that we don't have any public all-Italian schools.

I recall a Secondary Science teacher-graduate having exactly this trouble to get into a public high school here in SA. She found a job eventually as (surprise ! surprise !) a social worker, working with Aboriginal people.

That is racism. Limiting people to working with 'their own' group is racism.

But don't expect the hot-shots to even be vaguely aware of it, or support any Indigenous people who want to work outside of Indigenous environments, as is their right. They're part of the problem: many of the 'leaders' in Aboriginal education, for example, don't think any Aboriginal people should study anything but an either an Aboriginal-oriented course or teacher education.

They don't have the wits to realise that people may want to, and have the damn right, to study any damn course they like, and work any damn where they like. In that sense, they are as racist as the worst whites in limiting their own people.

Joe

Yes I agree Loudmouth, but I don't know what the answer is.
Maybe after a couple of generations of education for both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people, things may change, but no reconciliation in real terms will happen any time soon.

Indigenous people in modern Australia, have the same needs and wants as the rest of society. The need for proper housing, employment, education, health services etc, these things are common to us all in a modern society. I also strongly believe, and I have seen this myself, there is an imperative for indigenous people to maintain their customs, traditions and language, fostered through strong community involvement. Self determination can only come from within, it cannot be imposed from outside. Communities need leadership and assistance to set achievable community goals.
I was privileged only this past weekend to attend the opening in Aotearoa of a million dollar wharekai (eating hall) on a marae in Northland. This wharekai was only made possible by the efforts of so many within the local Maori community. Through their own efforts at fundraising a substantial part of the project was paid for. I could see the pride people had in achieving something through their own hard work and not just having it doled out to them through some sort of government assistance. Like these people our indigenous are no different, they can, and do, achieve much for themselves through their own efforts, combined with a helping hand from the rest of Australia. It is a long row to hoe but I am optimistic that we will get there some day.
P/s The guy who said "I'll see you next year!" might have just as easily said "I'll see you in 10 years time."

I wish I had a dollar for every time these words (or similar words to the same effect) have been posted -

Dear __ _ _ _ _ _ _ ,

The following two websites may clarify things
for you:

Foxy

Hi Paul,

You put your finger on the key issue:

"Like these people our indigenous are no different, they can, and do, achieve much for themselves through their own efforts, combined with a helping hand from the rest of Australia. It is a long row to hoe but I am optimistic that we will get there some day."

Yes, exactly, more or less. I used to rave about self-determination and what could be done in communities and a friend, more sensible than me, used to say, "Yes, just add the miracle ingredient - effort."

But since 1990, around 120,000 Indigenous people have enrolled at universities. Nearly forty thousand have graduated - that's one in every six women aged 25 to 50, one in every twelve men. In the cities, the proportion would be much better. Yes, people are making the effort.

Meanwhile, out in rural and remote communities, I'm sure there are some people trying to make an effort. But strangely, across Australia you would be hard-pressed to find a single vegetable garden or orchard in any Aboriginal community - and yes, they do have running water. How much effort would that take ? So, instead, we have grandiose schemes with little Aboriginal labour input such as the Uluru tourist resort, now costing hundreds of millions. Land rights seems to have turned into merely a vehicle to gain mineral royalties while people sit around, although I would be happy if someone could prove me wrong.

Effort - the miracle ingredient !

Joe

Paul1405 wrote; "I also strongly believe, and I have seen this myself, there is an imperative for indigenous people to maintain their customs, traditions and language, fostered through strong community involvement."

Dear Paul1405,

The only way in which indigenous people can maintain their customs, traditions and language, fostered through strong community involvement is by isolation from the rest of Australian society. I would not want that, and I doubt that many indigenous people want that. A balance has to be struck between giving the indigenous people the opportunities open to any Australian and the choice to keep what traditions of their own they want to keep. This is the same balance that any group not in the mainstream of Australian society has.

As time goes by members of minority groups change the rest of Australian society and are changed by the rest of Australian society.

Indigenous people should have the same choices available to them that other Australians have. This is not compatible with their interactions confined to those of their own community.

Dear ConservativeHippie,

Don't be jealous.

You obviously don't know how to Google.

However, you can go into your local library
and be taught how to research the evidence
and facts of any issue. Then you too will be
able to present them on this forum. And if its dollars
you're after - acquiring some skills may help.

Paul1405, "Self determination can only come from within, it cannot be imposed from outside"

Greens have the memory of a gnat and they are mischief making.

How do you expect the public, especially taxpayers, to forget the shocking abuse of women and children, the violence and fraud and wastage of billions of taxpayers' money that went on behind the black curtain that rapidly descended after that well-meaning but easily-led gull of activists, Gough Whitlam gave Aborigines self-determination?

Whitlam and governments after stand condemned for allowing the self-imposed black apartheid and the black curtain that prevented the media and the public from seeing the thuggery, fraud and wastage that were rife and are still being overcome. Taking one aspect alone, education, there are hundreds of now adult Aborigines who did not receive adequate education and are functionally illiterate and innumerate. They cannot even fill out a simple form. They are forever hampered in the ordinary life of mainstream Australia and the world.

That was a direct negative consequence of the combination of Whitlam's self-determination and the extreme multiculturalism introduced by Whitlam and the dubious Al Grassby and furthered by that ignorant, syschophantic, ingratiating creep Mal Fraser who wanted to strut the world stage as an 'anti-racist'. Fraser gained well-deserved notoriety for aloofness and refusal to take advice and it showed in his poor decisions.

The evidence of the abuses, crime and waste of the self-imposed black apartheid days and the domination of indigenous communities by thugs and the stacking of intended indigenous representational bodies is there in reports of the government's own auditor the ANAO, which regrettably was never allowed to perform comprehensive audits of indigenous policy and multicultural policy either.

To that should be added the unprincipled, unethical and almost criminal behaviour of the legions of professionals and bureaucrats, the self-claimed experts and 'do gooders' (as in do good for themselves!) who annually siphoned off millions of taxpayers money in the process.

A return to those days? NO! Many of the leeches are still sucking away. Little improvement is possible with those self-interested log-jams in the way and fomenting strife.

otb,

Kindly supply us with facts and evidence to prove your
sweeping generalisations. It would help your
credibility. Otherwise you posts simply amount
to your own biases.

Joe, very true nothing worthwhile is achieved without effort.

David, when I said "there is an imperative for indigenous people to maintain their customs, traditions and language." That certainly can be achieved whilst at the same time maintaining a 21st century lifestyle. I'm not saying indigenous people can only maintain their customs, traditions and language by living in a totally isolated and traditional way. My partner is a traditional Maori, living in Australia, who speaks the language fluently, she understands the tribal protocols, customs and traditions of her people. At the same time she is a 21st century woman, just as happy working in a tough hospital environment as she is gathering pipi's with her bear feet in the traditional way. Clearly there is a place for a traditional way of life along with modern living.
For example, I would hate to see Aboriginal art confined to a dusty old museum and not being produced as it has been for thousands of years.

OTB,

I always enjoy your rednecked Nazi opinions, after all you are the expert on everything and they make for interesting reading. How are you and that dear old biddy of yours going at flushing out Fabians in the indigenous community? LOL

Dear sweet Foxy,

I suggest that OTB is pretty accurate in his assessments. Thirty billion, BILLION, dollars go into Aboriginal affairs each year, not counting all the standard benefits that people are entitled to. Since Indigenous working people, mainly in the cities, don't cost any government agencies much, if anything, then that thirty billion is expended in the care and attention to the needs of perhaps three hundred thousand people on lifelong welfare. A hundred grand each: that works out to one social worker, one nurse, and maybe one teacher, per family.

Self-determination has been a disaster, since it has been interpreted to mean, "You ask, and we'll give". The effort factor has never come into play. Are there any Aboriginal communities or organisations which are funded on the basis of effort, of achievement, of meeting targets ? Of course, there surely must be. Out in the remote areas ? I wouldn't be so certain.

I'm certainly not saying people are lazy, don't get me wrong: but in a foraging ethic, one takes what is there, given, by Nature, and if it's not there, you go without. Famine or feast. So along come governments which, for no apparent reason, give. Endlessly, and from the very earliest days: rations (equivalent to a pretty good day's food-gathering and - wonders ! - no effort required !), boats, guns, clothes, tobacco, etc., and on Missions, houses and schooling for your kids. Able-bodied people often don't even need to hunt and gather any more, even though it is allowed (yes, in each State; still is in SA). Not a bad deal - thanks, as people may see it, to the power of the elders.

I'm starting to suspect that Aboriginal people in remote areas don't have the foggiest understanding of how the outside world works, and government agencies don't have the foggiest understanding of THAT misunderstanding. So people talk past each other, and the notion of people doing for themselves (i.e., what most people would perceive as 'self-determination') recedes further and further, in both schemas.

And it's not getting any better.

Joe

Goodes is just another footballer who doesn't represent aborigines, who I would hazard a guess, would be very glad that he does not. He would be an emrassment to anyone connected to him. He is a trouble man who needs to straighten himself out if he wants acceptance.

Dear Paul1405,

Basic to a people's culture is their worldview. Emil Durkheim wrote "The Elementary Forms or Religious Life" describing Aboriginal religion. The book was published in 1912 when there was enough Aboriginal religion left to describe. It largely has been replaced by the European Christian superstition. The Aborigines over the long ages they have lived on this continent have developed a culture which gave them the techniques to get their food, clothing and shelter from the world around them. With the European style of land ownership they are no longer free to roam and provide for themselves according to their tribal methods. That has gone. Many of their languages have also gone. What remains is a detribalised, demoralised people for the most part. They can be put in enclaves and kept that way. They can be helped to make the transition to Australian society. The culture that existed in 1788 cannot be restored. It is more unreasonable to expect that then it would be to suggest Nick Xenophon go back to Greece. Greece still exists, but the pre-European Aboriginal world has irretrievable gone. It is a romantic, unreal idea to suggest otherwise.

Ask your partner what she thinks. The Maori situation is different. They fought the occupation of the English to such a degree that they were recognised as a people and made a treaty with the occupiers. I was in NZ recently and was told by a Maori that many even keep their traditional religion. Those who have left their religion made a choice. Their children were not separated from their parents.

All Aboriginal people have not had the same history.

Just to pick up a side issue to prove the enduring ignorance (so often self-serving to preserve their own careers and guvvy grants) of the multicultural 'experts' on indigenous affairs who advise government, I would like to take the 'informed', 'indigenous-sensitive' policy on hunting as an example.

Government allows indigenous to kill threatened species. However, that approval can be conditional upon the use of indigenous methods to do so. The unforseen negative outcomes of that extreme multiculturalism are two fold:

first, threatened species are being killed, needlessly; and

secondly, the slaughter is very cruel indeed and wounded animals for example turtles may be flipped onto their backs for use much later.

I am not endeavouring to cover the policy in all jurisdictions, but to prove that while government has been earnest for many, many years and perhaps always, in trying to protect Aborigines and their traditions, the advisers and consultants and often some of the indigenous who have set themselves up as advocates and activists are themselves ill-informed (eg through researcher error), or worse, allow their own benefit and careers to rule. Perhaps some just like power.

For myself, I find it very difficult to rule out the existence widespread, systemic corruption that has endured for decades and is assisted by cynical politics and tabloid journalism.

How else can one explain why the red flags waved by courageous whistleblowers and the findings and recommendations of the independent reports, for example by the ANAO (always tabled in the federal Parliament), did not result in change?

Of course I could have taken other topical examples of persisting health, education and social problems.

It is an area where simple, practical problems are being made very complex and murky by people who should and possibly do know better, but are serving their own secondary agendas. Any wonder so much academic research is flawed. Gimmie the grant.

Maybe the electorate needs to continue to tip out governments after one term until some statesmen appear instead of the career politicians and political hacks who infest the federal Parliament.

Hi David,

Why do you assume that Aboriginal people are, and have been, sheep, to be moved around at will ? Put this lot in this paddock, put that lot in that paddock ? In most States, people have travelled around, coming and going as they felt like it, no fences, never enough Mission and settlement staff (even if they wanted to) to round people up and keep them cooped up, certainly not in SA, not that there is any evidence (again, at least in SA) of any intention to do so.

As for your inference of a stolen generation, that is entirely debatable too. In the thousands of pages of stuff that I've been typing up, there is no unambiguous evidence whatever that Protectors or missionaries ever had any intention to take children into care, unless they were orphans, foundlings, or destitute. In SA, there is ample evidence of the Protector - the one-man Department - trying to keep families together, and to provide for single mothers or deserted wives and their children.

As for your airy declaration that people couldn't use the land, those rights were written into pastoral leases, and I'm told that (in SA) those rights still continue. But one unintended consequence of the ration system was that able-bodied people often didn't have to go out and hunt or gather or fish. In SA, the Protector provided boats, fishing gear and guns for people to make use of their land. So people had the choice of using their land, with vastly improved technology, or sitting around on rations. Guess what many chose to do.

Perhaps the colonials were incredibly and deviously clever, knowing just what might occur in decades and generations later. But I don't think so. They saw a need from the outset, and satisfied it. The people didn't always respond as they were expected to, i.e. by not using their land as they had the right to do, and that buggered up policy: people had options, and they made choices. As they always did. As they still do.

Joe

Bob Irwin- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk4xQWt77wo

Thankfully viewers are spared the live storage of speared, captured turtles.

Just one example of indigenous policy in action.

The political correctness of Australia's extreme multiculturalism holds that by definition, indigenous hunting is not cruel.

Dear Loudmouth,

I note your comments.

I find it quite extraordinary that some of you people infer you've specific knowledge of aboriginal behaviour. The two greatest barriers to reconciliation as I said in a earlier thread, are prejudice, false belief and bigotry ?

Most negative/criminal behaviour of blacks, is down to three basic problems;

Being; (a) Alcohol (b) Drugs & (c) Unemployment. Because of this bad behaviour, white people harbour these manifestly 'false beliefs' that most aboriginal people are all the same ? Moreover the average white person, has no fundamental idea, 'the why' they misbehave, nor do they much care why ?

Therefore I would say *MOST* bad behaviour attributed to blacks, is caused by us, meaning white people ?

It's us who freely supply them with grog;
It's us who give them the drugs; and
It's us, who are reluctant to employ them in any capacity, other than for the most menial of tasks ?

I have this long time friend who happens to be a psychiatrist. He travels for two lots of 3 weeks yearly, to settlements in the far western regions of Western Australia. He does locum work for the normal WA Govt. Psychiatrist, who normally consults in these outback regions, exclusively with indigenous people facing mental illness. It was he (my friend), who clearly simplified the problems facing todays indigenous people, for me. As well as what I've witnessed personally when I was relieving other police sergeants (on annual leave) in western areas of NSW.

I agree with you O Sung Wu, that alcohol, drugs and unemployment are the main problems facing Aborinals today, with the addition of poor education for various reasons.

At least you are coming at the problems with some experience.
OTB states airily that there are some Aboriginal communities 'doing well'. Do you know of many (any?) doing well, because he still hasn't given us the names of these places?

The main issue here however is what can be done about all this so there is reconciliation? Even towns in WA and the NT where grog is forbidden are still plagued with the usual problems of domestic violence and crime, because the people go out and drink in other towns or communities and then come back drunk to their hometowns.

I certainly don't know what the answer is.

o sung wu,

You refer to *we*. Who is "we"?

It's only a select group of people and it's not the whole population.

Last year SBS showed a documentary titled "First Contact" and it related to a group of six non Aboriginal people (all Anglo Saxon/with cultural backgrounds) and these people visited parts of Aboriginal communities and met them for the first time.

The documentary was very selective, and a discussion show after the documentary concluded was very basic.

Personally, I just wish the producers had contacted me (I honestly felt like ringing them up) as I have had a lot of contact with Aboriginal people - having about 8 Aboriginal relatives myself - and I'm not Aboriginal.

I could tell them about all of the great things my relatives (including those who are Aboriginal) and family have done in the past and right now. For example, I was involved with an Aboriginal art project last year.

Any problems are with the people contributing to the problem initially, (like what you said), those not taking any personal action (including individuals) and government policy need to be addressed, but these elements can apply to any person. This does not apply to every Aboriginal person - I know as I have also met a lot of other Aboriginal people - and they are frustrated about constant stereotyping by elements like the media for example.

Change won't occur, without a changed attitude. So those who want to constantly harp back to the Oprah Winfrey period when I remember her blaming all problems on "white" people in the audience won't help. I don't agree with everything done by government worldwide - but that's why I volunteer to make a difference - rather than involving myself in violent protests about racism in Federation Square or take on extremist left/right hateful views on issues.

Dear Suse,

Chris Graham has written a very interesting article:

http://newmatilda.com/2015/06/01/not-so-level-playing-field-why-we-love-cathy-freeman-and-hate-adam-goodes

In it Graham tells us that - "while nations like Canada, the
US and New Zealand have signed treaties and made significant
advances with their First Nations People Australia continues to
deny even the most basic things such as land rights."

Graham points out that "we jail black males at a rate up to 8
times worse than South Africa did under Apartheid. We deny
Aboriginal people the right to educate their children in
culturally appropriate ways and we punish them if they resist."

"We restrict their basic entitlements to a social safety net,
we refuse to provide government investment to their
communities and then we blame them for their poverty."

Graham says that "we rail about the 'neglect of Aboriginal
children' and blame the neglected parents of those children who
are trying to raise their kids in 3rd world conditions.
And to this day we remain the only nation on earth with racist
clauses built into our constitution designed specifically to
discriminate against Aboriginal People."

Did you by any chance watch "Q and A," on Monday evening?
There was a panelist - "Uncle Jack," who set the record
straight about the current government's cuts to Aboriginal
Communities - and the dire effect this is going to have.

As Chris Graham reminds us - "We took the children away, we
engineered dire poverty which endures today. We stole
Aboriginal land and Aboriginal wages and we continue to
discriminate against the First Peoples of this land..."

"Third word nations have eradicated trachoma, an eye disease
that blinds children and adults. Australia hasn't. Our
Aboriginal population has the highest recorded ratio of
rheumatic heart disease on earth. A preventable disease
linked to poor living conditions."

And we are reminded that "By every social measure, Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islanders are the most disadvantaged people
in this nation, and some of the most disadvantaged people
in the world."

O Sung Wu & Foxy,

Yes, 'we' are so powerful, so all-controlling, that 'we' do this, 'we' do that, Aboriginal people are like puppets, they do exactly what 'we' want them to do: 'we' want them to get drunk, they get drunk. 'We' want to jail them in huge numbers after committing offences ('we're such b@stards), so they commit offences. 'We''re so powerful.

I'm sure it's not intended, but this smells of some sort of triumphalist racism. In my experience, Aboriginal people have done what they liked, as much as anyone else and probably a damn sight more. They've seized opportunities. They've had opportunities and spat them out. They've worked hard. They've loafed, not done a day's work in their lives. And everything in between. They please themselves. They're nobody's puppets.

Sorry if that comes as a shock.

Joe

The documentary I referred to also includes the killing and spearing of a large turtle. It was shown very upfront and close - being more visible than what the other link shows. The turtle was left in a boat overnight to die (and suffer) - and then eaten the next day.

One woman was in tears about the matter and very, very upset (she looked shocked) - and she wasn't willing to eat the turtle.

The Aboriginal people (as part of the remote community in the documentary), said undertaking the killing, and leaving it to die overnight, was part of their traditional "culture" and said other nearby commercial fishing operations caused the most damage, so what they did was O.K.

Some Aboriginal people, have advised people who undertake this activity to stop now, as they are killing endangered species, but are often ignored.

The Greens (environment?) say under "aims" (re aboriginal culture) on their website:

"Protection for cultural rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, including their right to practise and revitalize their cultural traditions and customs, including language, and to maintain, protect and develop the past, present and future manifestations of their cultures."

Under "principles" (re animal rights) they say however:

"Humans have a duty of care to minimise physical and psychological suffering of animals resulting from human activity."

So to the Greens, are you truly a pro the environment party or not?

Being vegetarian, (and of course I don't eat any sea based animals), I say two wrongs don't make a right.

Sweet Loudy,

Here's a pic - I s'pose these fellas were glad of the "rations" and "opportunities" that they were availed of all those years ago.

http://enewspaper2.thewest.com.au/Repository/getimage.dll?path=WAN/2013/01/23/24/Img/Pc0240500.jpg

Do you ever write about the indigenous people in chains?

Just asking

Poirot,

Yes. If you check out the transcript of the 1904 Roth Royal Commission in WA, and the 1935 Moseley Royal Commission (also in WA), you will find many references, really serious concerns, about chaining of prisoners and witnesses. There was special concern by Dr. Roth in 1904 about the chaining of female witnesses, especially of young females, who were always dreadfully abused on the long journeys into town.

All available in fine detail on my web-site: www.firstsources.info That's what it's for, after all. Read, Poirot, and learn.

Joe

Thank you, Loudmouth,

Strange, though, you continuously wax lyrical on this forum at how good the indigenous had it when white man arrived, that you never seem to mention such things.

But it's nice to know that it's "all on your website".

Perhaps I should have a look.

Or perhaps I should take a leaf out of your book and dismiss your stuff out of hand?

Like this...

"No, life's too short to watch Bilger's rubbish and lies."

As we know, "history" is entirely reliant on its interpretation.

Poirot, Loudmouth and Foxy, I feel like I am stuck in the middle of this argument, given that I have seen it from both sides.
My stepsister married an Aboriginal man and had 2 sons with him. He was a non-drinker and a dancer with an Aboriginal Dance troupe, however, he treated her very badly and it all turned out very nasty.

I also worked in both rural and city based Aboriginal communities and WA rural and NT hospitals for years before I was burnt out and had to leave that sort of nursing behind for my own well-being.

Foxy, you say that many Aboriginals have very poor health outcomes, including trachoma, ear infections, diabetes and kidney disease. Yes they do, but not for want of health facilities and staff trying their hardest to make a difference.
Do you know how hard it is to urge them to want to seek help, or to stay, or let their children stay in health facilities until they are well?

I would go out chasing them around the countryside practically begging them to let me give them or their kids some vital medications, or wound dressings, or any other health interventions. Again and again, they bought back the same kids, in the same terrible condition as they were the time before.

It is soul-destroying, believe me.

The kids are bright and loving. If we can get them early and give them a good education, and keep them healthy, there may be a chance they will grow up and make a difference for their people, but if not, this problem will just go on and on...

Hi Poirot,

I don't know about waxing lyrical about how good people had it, I'm still working on that. That doesn't mean that terrible things weren't done, somewhere in the country, at some time. I suspect - but don't know enough about it - that Queensland might stand out as the State with more reactionary and more brutal policies, but I'm not there to go through the documents. That's somebody else's job.

Did people have it good, or at least better in, say, South Australia, after colonisation than they had 'had it' beforehand for fifty thousand years ? Women ? Old people ? Very young children ? Very tentatively, and at the risk of being lynched, I think they may have. Certainly conditions and opportunities are far better now than fifty years ago. And on balance, no matter how lousy they may have seemed, physical conditions then may have been better anything in those first fifty thousand years. Traditional life was hardly a bed of roses, and we don't do Aboriginal people any favours by pretending otherwise.

Policies were indeed different in other States, no two States (or the NT) had remarkably similar policies. Although I'm from NSW, it does seem that SA had by far the most enlightened policies, often decades, even generations, ahead of other States. I get the idea that Queensland didn't even have a ration system in the nineteenth century: during droughts, people would flood over the border into SA, to the chain of ration depots in the north-east, then go back in the good times. In SA, the Protector issued perhaps a hundred 15-ft boats, but in NSW, only a handful seemed to have been issued up until 1882. The Victorian ration system seemed far more haphazard than here in SA. And WA was just so vast.

It's strange how we've forgotten how recent so many social welfare provisions actually are: no single mothers' benefit before about 1972, few scholarships to university before the mid-sixties - but we tend to take for granted that what is around now, has always been around.

Joe

I'm not blaming any particular group, for the difficulties blacks have had since white settlement. All of us have created problems for them, of one sort or another, perhaps unintentionally - I know I have, purely out of ignorance.

Fact; for whatever reason, blacks cannot handle liquor. Once UTI, they often become belligerent, escalating to aggression and violence. Any person UTI, whatever their colour, once they become aggressive, they become very ugly indeed. Moreover, if they're black that 'ugliness' image seems to remain firmly inculcated in a witnesses mind. Once sober, if the poor bugger seeks work, his reputation generally precedes him, that of an aggressive drunk. This seems to be the standard pattern in most, small country towns in NSW, and similar in other States too I should think ?

I'm not suggesting the same doesn't apply to a white person, it does it's just that image for whatever reason, diminishes over time ?
Intermittent drunkenness of black youths often has terrible consequences - they become so depressed at this never ending cycle of no job, no money, no self respect, on to the cheap booze, they suicide. That's why when we used to lock up blacks, they were immediately placed on suicide watch ?

Black people should never be left 'one out' in a cell, they should always have another (preferably black) person with them.

Have NO DOUBT, it's us Whites 'collectively', and perhaps unintentionally, who've indelibly damaged for all time, the indigenous people of this great country. The real questing is, what now should we do about it ?

Dear Suse,

I can fully appreciate what you are saying based
on your experiences.

I am merely citing the evidence as I find it.

There are so many voices out there that all seem
to be saying the same thing - and it
does look like this complex issue with continue
to perplex us for many years to come.

Hi David,

My partner is a "Christian" believer in the Christian God, but she also holds to her own traditional gods as well. The concept is different in that the gods exists as a family with Rangi the Sky Father and Papatuna the Earth Mother at the head of the family. Its my understanding that there are many other gods and deities as well covering all kinds of situations. I know last Friday night, the God controlling the weather got a wake up call, and strangely he delivered on Saturday, cold but mostly fine.
On numerous occasions my partner has been called upon in Sydney to perform ceremonies for people, for example, a house cleansing for a couple who lost an infant to cot death, very important that a spritual is done by someone in a senior position and who knows the protocols. Interesting that at every formal gathering it is first necessary to recite a whakapapa (genealogy) right back to people who were living when Captain Cook was alive. "T" sees no conflict between the Christian God and the Maori gods, seems more the merrier, happy coexistence is the way to go. Unfortunately Christians couldn't see it that way.

Dear Paul1405,

My daughter also collects religions. On Sunday afternoon she goes to a Buddhist sangha. Buddhists do not have any gods. On Sunday morning she goes to the Unitarian church. Unitarians are not sure there is a god, but, if there is one, he/she/it is one. On Friday night she lights the candles for the Jewish sabbath.

Some Aboriginal people have also made a synthesis of Christian and Aboriginal belief. Some non-Aboriginal Christians have encouraged what they call Aboriginal spirituality. Other Christians call Aboriginal non-Christian rituals Satanic worship.

Durkheim in "The Elementary Forms of Religious Life" writes, "There are no religions that are false." He argues that religion arises in social life, and his book is a study of Aboriginal religion.

There will be reconciliation when all Australians are treated equally and special provisions for some groups are done away with.

Just treat all according to their needs and do away with divisions based on race.

We're told that the process of Reconciliation began
as a result of the Report of the Royal Commission into
Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in 1991:

http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/people/what-you-need-to-know-about-reconciliation#tocO

We're also told that "supporting Reconciliation means working
to overcome the division (often called "the gap") and inequality
between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people...It isn't something
one decides to "do". It is a process at the end of which there
may be Reconciliation - but this can never be guarenteed."

"Differences are biggest in health, income, living standards
and life expectancy..." Much more needs to be done to
address these issues. Also the question of -

"How can you have Reconciliation - if you don't know
the other person's culture?"
this needs to be addressed. The more we
learn about Aboriginal People and Torres Strait Islanders -
the more we will understand their problems.

'Reconciliation' is one of those value-laden mantras that serial activists and moral BS artists - many of whom earn their daily bread from the victim industry - use as a hammer to threaten and belt mainstream Australia into allowing them to continue to swing from the taxpayers teat.

As in the case of 'The Apology' by Kevin707, there will NEVER, EVER, be reconciliation as far as those lobbyists and trouble makers are concerned. Not while they have a ticket to ride the gravy train and there are $billions available from that bucket of money being extracted from exasperated taxpayers.

The federal government needs to come to terms with the very obvious split in aboriginal society, where thousands have moved on and left behind those choosing to be dependent on sit-down money. Either way there are self-fulfilling prophecies at work, with one direction bringing independence through informed choice and skills development, with pay-offs being promise, success and happiness. While the other, dependency, is a downward slide to learned helplessness, violence, drugs, poverty and squalor regardless of how much money is allocated.

As well, where 'reconciliation' is involved, there is too much intervention required of and by government resulting in a continuation of the conga line of fleas on fleas on fleas - the quick-witted opportunists who siphon off the moneys allocated.

The leftists and indigenous activists know that there never will be any, let alone lasting agreement by them on what 'reconciliation' means and entails. It is subjective. It will always be shifting sand with leftists trying to prove their superior morality (never their principles and ethics though!).

The feds need to fight against being suckered into making politician's promises and concentrate more on those simple, practical, possible, low cost, effective and measurable steps to assist and rapidly multiply the numbers of willing and able.

I would very much prefer the feds to think in terms of life transitions (with broad possibilities resulting from choice) and not 'reconciliation'.

I have observed for decades how aboriginal families are at war with each other. Family brawls are quite common involving machettes, knives, flagons and fists. How on earth can their be reconcilation until they stop fighting each other. Something that never enters the progressives heads. Just maybe some of the 'cultural'practices of older men taking young girls and payback contibutes to these brawls.

I watched with great interest "Q and A," on Monday
evening and found Jack Charles or Uncle Jack as he's
afectionately known to be quite an unusual panelist.
I didn't know much about him so after the program
I did a bit of research. It turns out that Jack Charles
is an Aboriginal elder, actor, gay man, member of the
Stolen generation, ex heroin addict, ex-thief, and
Australia's National Treasure. He has common sense, mixed
with charm, and unbelievable life experience - without
a political agenda or a personal brand to sell. He's
somewhat different from the usual "chattering masses," on
Aboriginal issues - becaue most people talk the talk but
Jack Charles walks the walk.

Jack Charles confronted Asst. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg
with the truth behind the government's accault on
Aboriginal Australia. Uncle Jack conceded that there was
"Mobs of good will by lots of Australians
all around the country."

However, "But the policies that are making our lives worse
than poor white people of Australia ...to remove us from
lands, the people of the top end, to remove them from
their lands, to take away funding strikes me as peculiar,"
he said and continued - "strange and I'm trying to look for
another word."

Uncle Jack spoke of the personal cost that government cuts
to funding could have. Amy McQuire confirms
that - The Abbott government slashed the
black's budget in its first year and combined 500 programmes
into the broad streams under the chaotic Indigenous
Advancement Strategy that has resulted in the de-funding of
many Aboriginal Community controlled organisations and
services.

Uncle Jack said that keeping funding for housing and drug and
alcohol services was important. Life experience was also
important for policy making and dealing with the
crippling problem of Aboriginal incarceration, Jack later said,
responding to a question on the over representation of Aboriginal youth in juvenile detention.

As one reader commented - we do need people with lived
experience in both creating and implementing policy.

Hi there LOUDMOUTH...

Nothing you could say would particularly shock me my friend ! If it was me you described as being engaged in some 'triumphalist racism' you're not the first nor the last I expect. Other than to say you've got no idea what you're talking about ?

My observations concerning the unfortunate plight of our indigenous blacks who live in or near the environs of some of our small far western NSW towns, was something I saw for myself. Their hopelessness, especially the younger people, was palpable, and very sad. Trying to put them in the back of our secured F150, was shameful. Rather than locking them up, they should be hospitalised, weened of their need for alcohol. And the bastards who sell them the liquor, locked up in their stead ! Still as a raciest, what would I know, eh Joe ?

Hi O,

Thanks for that, no, I didn't mean that anybody was an out-an-out racist, just that the notion that 'we' - us Anglos - have some sort of imperial power over the every movement of Aboriginal people may be somewhat up themselves in believing they have that power. But the people you refer to made the easy choices, perhaps a long time ago, the choice to go down a dead-end road from which ultimately there is no returning. Ghastly. But they made those unfortunate choices. I have relations in that situation.

Others didn't make the same choices, in the same families. They battled on, working whenever they could find it, studying when they could, getting better jobs, seizing work opportunities. Sometimes it didn't do them a hell of a lot of good, and sometimes their kids fell back onto the Welfare Option. Nothing is guaranteed and, given the racism in terms of employment which funnels blackfellas into blackfella jobs, many Aboriginal people have been cut out of decent and well-earned careers.

My point was that power relations have never been perceived by Aboriginal people as all on one side, none on the other. At least, not until the last forty or so years, when the victim industry really got going. Sometimes I wish I could be a victim of some sort, perhaps as a left-hander, but no, not really, one has to surrender so much of one's humanity.

Meanwhile, 120,000 Indigenous people have gone to university since 1990. Nearly forty thousand have graduated and fifteen thousand are currently in the system, and most of those will graduate. I'm too old to worry needlessly about the rest. They make their choices, the soft options, they take the consequences of those choices.

I'm currently typing up a document from 1968, the first conference of the Aboriginal Affairs Council: they discuss housing, education, etc. But very little about health. Why is that, I wonder ?

Choices - consequences - health consequences.

Joe

Thank you DAVID F. for once more giving us all a peek into your vast intellect, in your thread directed to PAUL1405. I hadn't the foggiest idea that some religious faith's, attributed to aboriginals had some alleged satanic connection, a statement emanating as you indicated from some Christian groups ?

It's little wonder the poor buggers became screwed up with all the 'white' help they receive, and unquestionably not wanted ? I was always under the impression their own religions had been observed for centuries, given anthropologists have often described them as being amongst the oldest ethnic groups on earth, with no biological similarity to that of the African negroid ? Anyway it's all above my 'pay grade' as they say ? Thank you DAVID F, I've learnt something !

'It's little wonder the poor buggers became screwed up with all the 'white' help they receive, and unquestionably not wanted ?'

actually they have become far more screwed with since the secularist took control. They insisted on supplying the grog in the name of equality, took away any moral base which should of involved caring for ones own children and encouraged the perenial victimhood. They also poured billions into dead end schemes that had negative outcomes. You really do know how to twist the truth and deny reality David f. You really do demonstrate the mindset that has led to suich misery for the INdigeneous people.

Thank you JOE for qualifying your earlier statement. You obviously have a far greater knowledge of the 'big picture', where mine was merely a snapshot of the most disadvantaged groups I've come across.

Something that's always puzzled me ? We (again) take them off the street, and put them before the Court (a JP), usually AM the following day, to have them bound over for the next visiting Magistrate. More often than not he/she shows great leniency, dispensing justice with liberal quantities of tolerance and forbearance. Usually accompanied with a direction, to the nearest Base Hospital for a (mandated) treatment assessment in accordance with a judicial direction. This is done to assist the Magistrate in determining the penalty phase. Generally involving a brief custodial stay for blacks, thankfully less onerous for them now, then in the past ?

The sergeant I/C, is usually required to pull the various strings together, to ensure the offender receives ALL the benefits the State can provide him/her ? With everybody concerned legitimately helping; the police; the judiciary; the Medical people; probationary officials; special indigenous consultants - everyone all pulling for the individual in a most positive way ? Yet within 36 or 48 hours you're putting the same completely inebriated individual, back in the secured F150 again. Why ?

They've got the entire judicial, medical, and social security fraternity 'pulling' for them ? Yet within a matter of just a few days, they're back exactly where they were before. Why ? To my untrained mind, it's almost like a death wish, as it were ?

I suppose I'm as puzzled as anybody about what we are supposed to be supporting in this 'Recognise' campaign. There are so many options and levels that perhaps it is useful to actually put them in writing, and see at what level or option, if any, you and I might say: 'Yes, that's about it':

1. R [seriously]

2. Recognition.

3. Recognition of Indigenous people in a parliamentary resolution.

4. Recognition of Indigenous people in the Preamble of the Constitution.

5. Recognition of Indigenous people in the body of the Constitution.

6. Recognition of the special rights of Indigenous people in the Constitution.

7. Recognition of the need for a single treaty with all the 'first nations' and clan groups across Australia.

8. Recognition of the need for individual treaties with all 100,000 Indigenous clan groups across Australia.

9. Recognition of the prior sovereignty of clan groups over all parts of Australia.

10. Recognition of the current sovereignty, now, of Aboriginal groups across Australia.

11. Recognition of the current sovereignty, now, of Aboriginal groups across Australia, with commensurate payment, each year, for loss of sovereignty to be paid by non-Aboriginal people.

12. Scrapping of all programs supposedly involved in Aboriginal areas which cannot show any improvement (i.e. KPIs) over the latest period for which they, obviously, must have been keeping records and who have been receiving, between the4m, $ 30 billion.

How the hell did that get in there ?

Hi o sung wu,

My partner can testify that she got a belt at school, and more than once, when she was 5 or 6 for talking Maori, and not using her "new" pakeha (English) name they gave her. They told her she got that pretty name, because her Maori name was too hard to pronounce, 60 years later she still has two names. Her little country school was 95% Maori with all white teachers. She sat in weekly scripture class while the old white minister railed against those false gods, and the idolatry that people still practiced, it seems he was very much a fire and brimstone type of minister, and that was in the early 1950's. Yet she does not hold any sort of grudge against white people, not even for all the land taken from her family and others through lies and being too trusting, that is another story in itself. Would you give your 200 acres of prime land for $500 worth of store credit, only if you thought you were leasing the land and not selling it, but then it pays to be able to read and write "T's" father could do neither, and was trusting of a white man "friend", as were many other families in the valley. Only to see their small farms taken and their homesteads they were supposedly going to keep, after they were done up, burned to the ground, to stop people from returning. The fire brigade reported their homestead burned down because of an electrical fault, yet the power had been disconnected, the regular arsonists, the son of the new land owner, was clearly identified to police, by eyewitnesses, as he was several times, but nothing was done. The people lost everything in those fires, photos, keepsakes, all irreplaceable items.

Hi there PAUL1405...

Though a different country, and a different culture, but the same old theme, white people cheating and lying to black people particularly if the disenfranchised person could neither read nor write !

You know Paul, it's like accounts we hear of gross paedophilia - sometimes I'm ashamed to be a male ? Likewise, accounts of whites taking advantage of the ignorance of blacks and cheating them, I'm ashamed to be white ! Don't get me wrong, I'm no 'goody two shoes' far from it. It's just I don't like people in positions of power and influence taking advantage of someone who's not so powerful and without any 'clout' whatsoever. Just another instance of being a friggin' bully is all ! And gezz I hate bullies with a passion.

Paul, there are some blacks who really deserve a smack in the mouth, similarly there are many whites who deserve the same treatment. I will freely admit, until I started relieving other sergeants at small country stations, I did harbour quite a lot of racial bias and intolerance towards black men and women.

In fact I was brilliant at recounting the tired ol' raciest jokes to other members at the Station. That was until I went around and saw many of the humpies these poor buggers were required to exist ! The constant stream of instances of gross domestic violence, the same story, with different players and often sadder endings ?

The old man returns to the humpy, pissed completely out of his brain, and then 'wack' over goes his woman, shedding claret every which way. And it was up to us to 'try' and sort it all out...? It really opened my eyes Paul, in a very big way, let me tell you. But hopefully I now have a more balanced view concerning their complex problems and possible solutions ? 'night to you Paul !

o sung wu,
Glad to see you remember the country relief postings.
I loved them mainly for the variety of experience and the
nature of the people.
Had the time of of my life and finished my law degree runnibg the Broken Hill Gaol owned by the Police back then.
Most of my country stints were up around Lismore, Ballina and as far as Tamworth.

Have we all be watching 8MMM on iView?

http://iview.abc.net.au/programs/8mmm/IP1330D001S00

You might learn summat.

chrisgaff1000, "..country relief postings. I loved them mainly for the variety of experience and the nature of the people"

Doctors, nurses, teachers and others would have said the same once. Maybe some can remember less formal arrangements too, such as by Rural Youth (Young Farmers).

We have a number of young doctors in the family who in recent years have undertaken country placements. However their negative experiences would deter them from ever considering a return. The demographics have changed. That is the crux of the problem.

A niece was the most recent to endure a country placement, although she had been looking forward to it, having lived in the country as a child. Before her country placement she had travelled the world and performed voluntary work in two overseas locations devastated by natural events and suffering civil unrest. Yet the place she remembers as threatening and presenting a real risk of personal harm was her country hospital placement in Australia, where medical staff and other public employees were regularly abused and threatened on public streets and had personal property stolen or living accommodation damaged (stones and bottles from drunken layabouts).

She is now a specialist in obstetrics and gynaecology. Not in the country.

Dear onthebeach and o sung wu,

You both have had more contact with Aborigines than I have had, and I find both your experiences interesting. I used to be one of the editors of "Social Alternatives". Each issue was based on a particular theme, and there were stories and poems in addition. Some of the stories were from Aboriginal writers. In general they were lively, descriptive, often humorous and reflected their oral culture. One contribution came from an Aborigine who was doing graduate work in English. It had the same sort of turgid academic prose that one often finds in academic writing. Some academics write quite well, but this one's ability had possibly been destroyed by his English department.

Dear Paul1405,

Organised religion is one of the few social organisations in this modern world which build community. We interact with people at work but don't necessarily see them outside of working hours. Many of us get our food from an impersonal supermarket. Even members of a family may not have a close relationship. Religion provides fellowship in the midst of an atomised society. However, the beliefs of religion contain a great deal of nonsense.

To reject organised religion and to keep a belief in fairy tales such as God means to me to withdraw from what is worthwhile about religion and retain the nonsense. I am glad your partner has kept what is worthwhile about religion.

Emile Durkheim believed that the origins of religion were
social, not supernatural. He pointed out that,
whatever their source, the rituals eneacted in any religion
enhances the solidarity of the community as well as its faith.

Religious rituals such as baptism, bar mitzvah, weddings,
Sabbath services, Christmas mass, and funerals - serve to
bring people together, to remind them of their common group
membership; to re-affirm their traditional values; to
maintain prohibitions and taboos; to offer comfort in times
of crisis; and, in general, to help transmit the cultural
heritage from one generation to the next.

In fact, Durkheim argued, shared religious beliefs and the
rituals that go with them are so important that every society
needs a religion, or at least some belief system that serves
the same functions.

The cause of much of the social disorder in modern societies,
he contended, is that "the old gods are growing old
or are already dead, and others are not yet born."

In other words, people no longer believe deeply in traditional
religion, but they have found no satifsying substitute.

Well I'll be buggered, G'day to you CHRISGAFF1000...

Long time no hear there Chris, hope you're OK ? Indeed, you may remember there was a shortage of volunteers to go to the bush, I don't mean townships, up and down the Pacific or New England Hwy's, but to far Western regions of NSW ? The likes of Nyngan, Cobar, Ivanhoe, Burke and of course, the 'Silver City' itself. Depending on your time there, you'd probably recall Merv LOVE who became OIC of Broken Hill Gaol, when the Prisons people took over ?

Who can forget poor old Wilcannia, and their impenetrable racial complications ? However you'd well recognise, it wasn't the black fella's, the townspeople, or the coppers that caused the trouble ? It was down to the media, more particularly, the ABC !

They got a whiff of some minor racial problem(s), the sort of issue that most country towns need to confront from time to time, and from there they twisted it into some full scale racial conflict ? Instead of first, seeking the facts, by directing their initial enquiries to the local OIC of police, they rode into town heavily armed with all manner of cameras, sound men, presenters, and producers, with the sole intent to 'beat up' a good story in which to highlight in their next 'Current Affairs' programme.

In their wake they left a lot of broken men and women displaced from their modest camps, disrupted the loose harmony that had existed there, with almost the entire town with 'For Sale' notices affixed to the windows of their small businesses. Police arbitrarily moved on, complete with a pile of unfounded allegations of misbehaviour etc. and the PA overloaded with requests for legal assistance ?

Chris, I must confess, I've 'grown' to have a great deal of sympathy and compassion for our blacks. Not your Everleigh Street, REDFERN variety, but those from the bush. Consequently I don't mind being identified as a 'n....r' lover in this instance - blame the Department, it was they who sent me out relieving in the bush after all ?

Hi o sung wu,

Unfortunately not enough of us have your first hand experience, or your compassion. It is always easier to go with the mob mentality than to be the odd man out. Coming into a new environment, gauging the general sentiment, and when pressed its much easier and far more comfortable to agree than disagree.

On the score of the "Everleigh Street, REDFERN variety" a people I am close too. Yes they can be discussing, there is criminal and anti-social behavior by the bucket fulls. There is no way these folk should be abandon, there are good people in the community trying to do good things. I was pleased at a meeting we attended with the words of the then new police local area command chief and his attitude. He spoke of the need for the police to do more than simple policing in Redfern, the need to become part of the community. He had made positive steps to establish good personal relationships (trust) with the local Aboriginal leadership. Also doing a great job with the local PCY Club. A couple of months back our 'Maori Entertainers' had a Sunday afternoon entertaining in one of Redfern's well known watering holes. A really fantastic afternoon. Aboriginals enjoy the music of the likes of Johnny Cash, just as we do. Our monthly 'Island Reggae' nights are a hit with both indigenous and Islanders alike. My partner is the "Maori food coordinator" for want of a better term, for a project later this year, a harbor cruse, bring together both Indigenous and Maori culture with entertainment, food etc, fingers crossed

G'day there PAUL1405...

I must confess Paul, until I worked in a few of these country townships, my attitude towards blacks was not particularly forgiving. Being exposed to 'Eveleigh Street', when I was quite new in the job, was both challenging and mind-altering ?

There were always, a fair number of individuals loitering about and hanging around Eveleigh Street and its environs, all day and well into the night, mixing with and stirring-up others within the area. Most were not residents. Many I'd question their actual ethnicity to determine their precise degree of 'aboriginality' ?

However that's not our function, we're there simply to 'keep the peace' nothing else. I'm quite positive CHRISGAFF1000 would echo my observations, as to what it was really like in those days - with the only light moments occurring, when dear old 'Mumma SMITH' and her many cohorts waved a cheery hello as we drove past ?

Unfortunately my prejudices (if any?) and dislike for 'some' blacks, was a 'learnt attitude' from those days of the Redfern patrol ? Whenever we slowly cruised in our truck down that short street, the abuse and the detritus, coming from just about every quarter, including small children, was something to behold.

So bad in fact, it again attracted the ABC TV (I think) who decided to dedicate another programme, on how bad relations were between the 'residents' and police ? Naturally Paul, we copped all the blame, because of our frequent but intermittent presence within the area ? The fact it was our job, to maintain 'a presence' was immaterial. The deteriorating relations, was entirely down to the police, insisting on maintaining 'that presence' ?

Paul, at the risk of criticism for some racial remark; I've always found Maori people far more reasonable and more compliant when police have a need to intercede for some reason, than our own Aboriginals ? No doubt when either, a Maori or Aboriginal are heavily intoxicated, both represent a handful if an arrest is imminent. You're doing a marvellous job, by the sound of it Paul !

So what should be the question that we are all so eager to say 'yes' to ?

Or is this going to be a Shorten referendum - we don't know what it is, but we agree to it ?

Perhaps one problem that might hinder a 91 % 'yes' vote is that Indigenous 'leaders' - and ordinary people - don't seem to agree amongst themselves about what they want that question to be. Another problem arises from the inconvenient fact that some 'leaders' are putting forward suggestions to remove all discrimination - then suggesting that a clearly discriminatory clause be added.

Note to Aboriginal 'leaders', 2007: What do you think of organising a referendum on something to do with 'Reconciliation' or 'Recognition' in, say, 2014 or better still, 2017 ? Changing the Constitution ? Long way away, yes, but we have to get our act together early, to be absolutely in unison on this one. Absolutely clear, absolutely no disagreement, 100 % together, otherwise we're stuffed, there's no point putting a dog' breakfast before the others, they'll cut us to pieces. And by the way, we'll have to run this past the rest of our mob first too and get them to agree 100 % as well. What are the chances, you fellas ?

So what was the question again ?

The pre-requisite for 'reconciliation'(sic) is for the Australian public to suspend their critical faculties and judgement, and swallow all of the 'Black Armband' spiel, regardless of how outrageous and unsupported by evidence it is.

Next, an emotional guilt trip to accept the eternal victimhood of Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders.

Here is a heap of 'reconciliation' stuff that has to be paid for and that is outside of the ongoing and extras allocated in federal, State and local government budgets for Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders.

So when will the public be informed of,

first, the total cost? and

secondly, since the exasperated taxpayer will be stumping up for the bill, how will all of those 'initiatives' and knees-ups for the knobs be funded? What existing programs will have to be cut and by how much?

- Reconciliation,
https://www.reconciliation.org.au/resources/

Activists, lobbyists and politicians are forever finding new ways to spend $millions that government does not have, but is being taken compulsorily from taxpayers.

Amazing that there isn't ever enough money in the Budget to get rid of dangerous one lane bridges on the Highway One, the national highway where lives are being lost, but there is always plenty of money for dinners, knees-ups and photo opportunities.

Sorry, here is the link again,

http://www.reconciliation.org.au/resources/

Beach, as a far right white supremacists, there is nothing that could be put forward in relation to 'black people' and reconciliation that will ever satisfy you and those of your ilk. So be it. There is a fella, a local identity in our neighborhood, who runs around telling all and sundry "I hate Asians!", he can't help himself, unfortunately he was born with a mental deficiency, you on the other hand come across as a reasonably intelligent person in my book, so what is your excuse.

Paul, OTB, get a room.

So what would you say yes to, if anything ? Paul, OTB, Jay, Foxy, o sung wu, chrisgaff, Suse, Poirot ?

When you tick the 'yes' box, as an afterthought what would you have liked the question to have been ?

Even in the privacy of your own mind, can you explain to yourself, perhaps step by step, how what you might vote 'Yes' for, will improve the lives of Aboriginal people, women and kids especially, in remote settlements ?

//Even in the privacy of your own mind, can you explain to yourself, perhaps step by step, how what you might vote 'Yes' for, will improve the lives of Aboriginal people//

No. I wish I did. Because their lives certainly need some improvement. I don't know how to vote to close the gap.

But I know how to act: the first step is to stop pretending there is an unnavigable gulf 'twixt people of different ethnicities. The second step is to have a beer with them after work. The third step is to probe them gently in the hopes of learning more about their culture. The fourth step is question mark, question mark, question mark. The fifth step is profit!

But I suspect many of the 'cultural warriors' will balk at step two. Because sitting down for a beer and a chat is such hard work...

I reckon a fella would have to be pretty soft in the trouser department to be scared of sitting down for a beer and a chat.

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

Uncle Jack (Jack Charles) spoke on "Q and A," of the
personal cut that government cuts to funding could have.
The Abbott government slashed the black budget in its
first year and combined 500 programmes into the broad
streams under the chaotic Indigenous Advancement Strategy
that has resulted in the de-funding of many Aboriginal
community controlled organisations and services.

I would say yes to re-instating the funding of Aboriginal
controlled organisations and serivces - especially keeping
funding for housing and drug and alcohol services.

Life experience as Uncle Jack stated was also important for
policy making and dealing with the crippling problem of
Aboriginal incarceration - the over representation of
Aboriginal youth in juvenile detention.

I would say yes to having people with lived experience in both
creating and implementing policy.

There are huge divisions in health, income, living standards
and life expectancy between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal
people. These issues need to be addressed - by people with
lived experience in both creating and implementing policy.
There's a lot of people talking the talk - we need people
who can actually walk the walk. People who have common
sense, experience, without a political agenda or personal or
political brand to sell.

Come along to the 'Black Market' tomorrow 7th June 9.30am to 4pm at Bare Island La Perouse for a day of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander food, art, products, dance and more. Entry $2, no discrimination, even OTB is invited providing he's got two bucks and for $90 more we'll have Dean Kelly (no relation to Ned) teach him how to make a genuine Aboriginal spear, never know, could come in handy one day. My tribe are all going, that is after our young moko's rugby league team does the haka all over the kids from Lapa, in a most friendly way of course.

http://www.firsthandsolutions.org/

hopefully the 3 charming aboriginal girls who beat up my niece and stole her wallet last night wont be there Paul.

"how what you might vote 'Yes' for, will improve the lives of Aboriginal people, women and kids especially, in remote settlements?"

I want to see a focus on practical reconciliation, which means for instance that indigenous children can expect and always experience the full protection of Australian law and the full enjoyment of a broad, useful education with English, maths and civics that other children have as of by right.

Practical reconciliation with goals that are measurable with numbers and regularly reported on and publicly. Examples being in health, (lower) incidence of crime in their postcode, school attendance and employment in real jobs (not the fudged variety in the public service).

It is especially in semi-skilled and skilled occupations where the gap is most evident. There a special effort must be made to train indigenous women, where the gap is even more significant.

If indigenous want to be included in real jobs, not just 'indigenous' jobs, that is where the effort is most required NOT tertiary degrees that have NO future except as clerks in the federal public service and Quangos.

Government needs to concentrate more resources where cooperation and success are likely and demonstrated, not continue to throw more money and resources to adults (and a horde of parasitic advocates, consultants and lawyers) who consistently prove they have no intention of acting honorably.

I want to witness an abrupt turn away from the symbolic reconciliation that achieves nothing, has a stake in increasing distrust, discontent and problems, inevitably drags indigenous down as eternal victims (of their own making!) and sees millions of taxpayers dollars siphoned off by the victim industry - and I would definitely count the Human Rights Commission as part of that.

Even with the best will in the world it is simply not possible to provide all services and all opportunities in remote localities.

I believe that the 'reconciliation' word will always be a distraction and prone to symbolism (and fraud and wastage).

OTB,

Those 174 remote 'communities' in WA contain, officially at least and perhaps far fewer, only 1300 people. An average of seven each. A house, at the end of a fifty-mile road, constantly maintained, a house with a bore, solar panels, perhaps a telephone box. And mostly likely uninhabited, perhaps for years. Perhaps a spot audit should be taken of remote outstations, just tov see if anybody is actually there.

Dear Foxy,

You mention incarceration. Perhaps you could have mentioned offences. People do commit them, you know. What programs are being put in place to divert young Aboriginal people from committing offences ? i.e. something practical ? I'm very worried that young people in outer suburbs and rural towns are actually turning away from training, education and any sort of participation in society, and at a time when employment is becoming harder to find.

Indigenous enrolments may be going up at universities but, I suspect, in a very skewed way - that the children of urban working Aboriginal people are flocking to university, while the children of welfare-culture families are dropping out more than ever. Perhaps someone in schools could refute or confirm this. If so, then the Aboriginal population is splitting into at least three -

* remote-area people, cashed-up but illiterate, and with little or no English, totally alienated socially from the rest of Australia;

* rural and outer-suburban people, turning more and more to welfare, and away from employment and participation in the rest of society, and becoming more and more alienated, like in a parallel world;

* working people, usually urban, usually metropolitan, providing their children with role models and incentives to take their place in a common society. Unless these people are employed in Aboriginal organisations, it is unlikely that they receive anything much of the thirty billion dollar Indigenous affairs budget, they're doing it on their own, and fair enough.

It's difficult to see how anything symbolic, words in a preamble or a treaty (with whom?) would make any difference. Closing the gap ? I'd like to see that.

Joe

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

Of course people do commit offences. However Jack Charles
(Uncle Jack) spoke of various programmes that would help
towards solving these problems. Programmes that were run
by people with lived experience and programmes that were
Aboriginal controlled. However 500 of these have been
de-funded (slashed) from the black budget
by the current Abbott government. Uncle Jack emphasied that
keeping funding for housing and drug and alcohol services
was important. As well as life experience was also important
for policy making and dealing with the crippling problem
of Aboriginal incarceration. He later said, responding to a
question on the over representation of Aboriginal youth in
juvenile detention.

Dearest Foxy,

Well, there have been perhaps hundreds of such programs over the years. If I was Abbott, I would demand that every program funded out of that thirty billions show their KPIs from the two most recent periods, what improvement have those programs made, and if none, then immediately scrap their funding.

Of course, if somewhere, someone could somehow find a program which was actually working, getting measurable results, then I would promote those programs as models, fund them generously, and praise them to the skies.

Yes, that might lead to mass Indigenous (and white) bureaucratic unemployment, but on the fruit-picking circuit, there is almost always something going on, in the Riverina, on the Adelaide and Ord Rivers, around Mareeba. Some honest work might work wonders with those bureaucrats. Just as long as they are kept away from Indigenous people.

Love,

Joe

Joe (Loudmouth),

I agree with your above posts.

I had some photos of houses in a remote location with an expensive solar + diesel generation plant. The houses were recent build at the time and could have been the subjects of home-owner pride in a city suburb housing development, but more strongly built. It was like a ghost town, except that ghost towns don't usually have domestic trash left about.

There needs to be independent comprehensive audits of indigenous policy and implementation. The Australian National Audit Office has performed a number of audits over the years, limited of course by the briefs it was given, and well done, if too politically sensitive and even conciliatory within those limited briefs. All were tabled in the federal Parliament.

After decades of ANAO reports and recommendations and its simple, practical guides for improvement, it is time that the exasperated public saw some results for the $billions of taxpayers' funds allocated to indigenous improvement.

G'day RUNNER if true, and I have no reason to doubt you, tell the coppers ! How old is your niece may I ask ? What are the brief circumstances associated with the assault & rob, and what time of the day did it occur ? I can only hope your niece is OK, and didn't suffer any ill effects from this awful event ?

I couldn't care less, what the ethnicity of the offenders are, or any mitigating circumstances that might prevail ? Too many street offences happen in this city, and remain unreported, and therefore never finalised. Particularly those occasioned against women and girls. It's only a matter of time when some other poor sucker decides to resist such an assault, and ends up being seriously injured for their trouble ?

Still RUNNER it's up to you my friend, and I do acknowledge you have a strong Christian faith, which has no bearing of course, other than it may well effect your decision to report the incident at all, unless of course you've already done so ?

These alleged young female (black) offenders, must be stopped from pursuing similar crimes, otherwise their future looks to be very bleak indeed ? Black women don't do very well in gaol at all.

LOUDMOUTH, ONTHEBEACH and FOXY; you've all raised some interesting thoughts on this topic, and I must admit on most issues, apropos the needs of our indigenous people, I'm totally ignorant ! My only real input - I know what they definitely DON'T need...BOOZE & DRUGS !

Employment; rather than seeking a University education, why not a proper trade course ? Building, plumbing, carpentry etc. ? They'd always be likely to find well paying work, as tradesmen surely ?

Accommodation; as ONTHEBEACH mentioned, nice, newly built housing ? Does the average 'bushmen black fella', wants to live in a modern house ? When relieving at Bourke years ago, I saw a couple of newish, modern houses virtually unoccupied, the extended family preferring to live in their humpies down by the creek ?

Is there perhaps another 'type' of housing or accommodation better suited to their needs and wishes if so, what ? Has anyone actually sought advice from say Pat DODSON or his group ? I would've thought we should seek guidance from the aboriginals themselves, as to what type of housing would best suit them ? They like moving around, perhaps a caravan even ?

An aside, they 'love' their dogs, so whatever housing is determined suitable, it should include kennels or similar to accommodate the many camp dogs that forever hang around their settlements ? The dogs generally reside inside the house with the family. I've seen up to a dozen, of these half-starved mangy looking canines and their pups, in one house ?

I just thought I throw the above into the mix, in an attempt to pick all your brains ?

O Sung Wu

My niece is in mid 30's (recovering from major stroke). She was walking (with limp) as part of rehabilitation. She is ok. Never ceases too amaze me how people acts worse than packs of dogs especially when they smell someone wounded. Sorry mate but the police in wa have a no win situation. My nieces situation is by no longer isolated and justice rarely happens. The victim industry ensure that.

Hi there RUNNER...

Mate I'm sorry to hear from you on several fronts. Your niece has been afflicted with a major stroke at such an early age, leaving her with a discernible limp, thus identifying her as being choice prey for an assault & rob by a trio of cowards ! And neither you, your niece, or the police harbour any expectation whatsoever of receiving any meaningful justice in this deplorable crime against the person ?

Moreover it would now seem, in this enlightened age of 2015, a crime of violence, involving a partially incapacitated female victim, is just all too mundane to even bother with. Probably adjudged by some puerile bureaucrat, as not being in the public interest to even bother seeking any form of equitableness or legal redress ? How sad eh RUNNER ? How very sad and ineffectual, this once great country has become ? I'm buggered if I know mate !?

Joe,

According to the 2015 budget papers with total expenditure set at $434.47 billion. 'Assistance for Indigenous Australians' is set at $2.1 billion, with an additional $743 million for indigenous health. So please explain your figure of $30 billion. I simply do not see where it comes from. Unless you are referring to the expenditure indigenous people might incur as part of the general community.

runner,

I am glad to hear your niece is OK. Thugs have no place in our society.

Runner,
I certainly do not condone anyone assaulting and robbing your niece, and I wish her a full and speedy recovery. It is rather cynical to say "My nieces situation is by no longer isolated and justice rarely happens. The victim industry ensure that." The police should do their job, and hopefully the perpetrators if apprehended, will be dealt with appropriately by the courts.

p/s The 'Black Market Day' went off very well with a beautiful sunny winters day in Sydney.

Hi PAUL1405...

You've hit the nail right on the head ! Generally speaking the police DO, DO their job and place these louts before the courts, and that's where the whole system fails, and fails miserably !

I'm speaking in general terms not crimes committed 'exclusively' by indigenous people. All levels of the judiciary are out of step with community expectations. We've discussed this specific issue ad nauseam, and still we get nowhere ? The courts are the real problem, without doubt.

Paul I appreciate your sentiments and I am glad your market day went well. My reality for the last six months is my wife threatened with rape, a taxi driver with a brick through his window outside my house and now the latest with my niece who lives in a different city. To my knowledge none of these Indigeneous people have been brought to justice. It is difficult to believe the stupidity of groups like Amnesty who claim Indigenous are over representive in prison. when obviously their crime rates are massively higher than the general population

runner is about to be assured that it is society's fault that indigenous (and other 'disadvantaged') commit crimes, especially the violence that is directed at people.

It is all in the trope, see here,

<Society Is to Blame

Man: All right, it's a fair cop, but society's to blame.
Church Policeman: Right, we'll arrest them instead.
— Monty Python's Flying Circus, "Church Police"

Basically, the old idea that people can be forced into a life of crime through extenuating circumstances. Since a person is born into a poor, violent, or non-white social milieu, we should not be surprised when such a person becomes a criminal, nor should we blame him for resorting to criminal activity; all his life, he has been operating at a disadvantage that most Acceptable Targets don't suffer from.

This trope is sort of a crossbreed between Inherent in the System and Freudian Excuse. Also known by the fancy name of "social determinism."

The Trope Codifier was the legendary American defense attorney Clarence Darrow (best known for defending John Scopes in the Scopes Monkey Trial), who defended a pair of young Straw Nihilist thrill killers, Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, by arguing that society had twisted their minds. Though everyone expected them to hang, they got off with life sentences.>
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SocietyIsToBlame

Offenders commit crimes by CHOICE and they should be held responsible for that choice.

to be continued..

continued..

The police force is there to uphold the law. That is the advice of the High Court (Chief Justice Sir Garfield Barwick). Police are never doing wrong but are doing what they are charged to do when they arrest an offender. Don't do the crime and don't do the time.

Taking the example of the rural poor who have always lived in and around country towns, they were always working poor who took pride in themselves and their environment. "Soap is cheap" as many a grandmother would have said and "Self discipline is a virtue".

Yet recent demographic change has seen many previously clean, tidy, law-abiding and welcoming country towns become the exact opposite - towns that travellers now avoid and the local businesses and councils are suffering as a result.

Symbolic 'reconciliation' blames, patronises and avoids responsibility. It is about lifelong tickets on the victimhood gravy train.

Hi Paul,

Yes, I suppose that figure of thirty billion includes all forms of payments to Indigenous people, explicit funding for programs, welfare payments, royalties from mining and conservation park leases, cattle and sheep agistment fees, exploration licences, and maybe many other forms of transfers.

Perhaps half, maybe more, of all Indigenous people live on wages from their own labour. Many of course are employed in those organisations which depend on government funding. So you're partly right, of course, in that much of that thirty billion, paid as payments to Indigenous organisations, is also paid out as wages for their Indigenous employees.

But many Indigenous working people never ask for, nor receive, any of that bucket of money. So, notionally, it is divvied up between perhaps two-thirds of the Indigenous population, say four hundred thousand people. This still works out to the equivalent of seventy five thousand dollars per head.

If there are any programs which actually do what they are paid to do, such as Indigenous student support programs at universities, then if I was Abbott or Morrison, I would expand them, use them as models in related areas (for example, support programs in TAFE, and in secondary and primary schools).

But if programs don't actually do anything from one year to the next, then I would close them down like a shot, and seize and sell off their assets. I would probably stop funding most international conferences and overseas travel by program employees. I would try to find a way to limit ILC funding to manifestly working projects with a relatively modest cost outlay, no more grandiose mega-projects - funding only for projects which actually employ Indigenous people at a relatively low cost-production ratio.

Once the dust settled, and the landscape was full of active, working programs geared to outcomes, instead of feather-bedding, nepotistic scams, we could move towards talking about reconciliation and recognition. i.e. reconciliation and recognition as long-term REAL outcomes, not as symbolic gestures.

Joe

Hi o sung wu

In defense of the courts, I don't think we have too many empty jails. Even though politicians talk tough on custodial sentences for various offences, when it comes to the crunch they are not willing to commit more of the budget to incarceration. The truth is for all the huff and puff there is not all that many votes in the prison question. In fact, we all want jails, but not next to our house. What does it cost to keep someone in prison these day $100k/year, that might have something to do with it as well. Someone steals a $10k car, you lock em' up for a year at a cost of $100k then they get out and steal another car. Very counter productive, its cheaper not to catch em', just make cars harder to steal, or increase insurance premiums.

As for indigenous people being over represented in the prison population, of course they are, as long as we have a prison pollution then there is an over representation of someone, black, white and brindle people. In an ideal society the ideal prison population is zero anything else is not ideal and represents an over representation. Given we are a bit short of ideal at the moment, society would be better served trying to keep people from offending in the first place, and therefore out of jail, much more productive.

Hi PAUL1405...

You've touched on several very salient issues in your latest thread.

The facts are; While it's true, there are far more blacks in gaol than there should be, for several reasons;

(a) they 'DO' tend to commit more misdemeanours (streets offences) than they should (and the reasons for this are both complex and varied, as we've already touched upon) ?

(b) the more serious (indictable) offences usually arise out of some booze or drugs fuelled activity, and the poor buggers cannot avail themselves of a competent barrister, thus they have to rely upon legal aid.

(c) In the bush the visiting Magistrate will often sentence a black fella to a short term in gaol, in order they may have proper access to a necessary regimen of medical/dental/alcoholic/drugs and more importantly a better diet to give them a chance to fix themselves up while inside. Furthermore, if domestic violence is an issue, it gives the antagonists spouse and kids some breathing space, or time to leave if she wishes ? - Paul, it's really an act of kindness all round, I kid you not !

Any incarceration, indigenous or not, adds to the imprisonment stats. Thus it does have the 'far left' jumping up and down bleating racism !

Paul, I'm retired now. However, it's a real pity when I was a relieving sergeant in the bush ? I couldn't have taken you around and shown you exactly, the real problems confronting our indigenous people. Specifically the terrible effects of booze and drugs, their almost primitive and unhygienic living conditions, and the terrible consequences these peddlers of booze and drugs, have had on this ancient race of people.

As I said in an earlier post, I was less then sympathetic for the black man, 'til I was sent bush ? Now, it's not a case of not enough money, it's really doing what needs to be done. Engendering (or restoring) self-respect, appropriate (initial) education, vocational (trades) training, catching these bastard peddlers of booze and drugs - this would be a positive start !

Hi Paul,

Spot on: ".... society would be better served trying to keep people from offending in the first place, and therefore out of jail, much more productive."

Yes, indeed. This is the point about funding programs which actually work, especially re-engagement, re-integration, anti-alienation programs, whatever you call them - programs that encourage/require [i.e. carrot and stick] young people to seize the multitude of opportunities available and make something of their lives. This might involve orienting those young people towards making use of the magic ingredient: effort.

Sociologically rather than anthropologically speaking, 'culture' is the lived experiences of people, and how and what they pass down to their children. One unfortunate problem with drop-kick parents, Black and white, is that they exert enormous influence on their children.

There is more than a grain of truth in the Marxist anthropologist Oscar Lewis' notion of a "culture of poverty", passed from parents to children, generation after generation - not necessarily a poverty of cash, but a poverty of ideas, horizons and effort.

Looking back over the past couple of hundred years of records, one can trace the sorry passage of cultural messages from drop-kicks from the 1860s, through to their children and grandchildren, and their children and grandchildren.

Vice versa: thank goodness, one can trace the striving of other ancestors, through to their multitude of graduate descendants today. My wife's great-grandfather John Sumner (1848?-1905, the first Ngarrindjeri to take out a lease of land, in the 1870s), for example, would, if he were alive today, count perhaps a hundred descendants who are graduates, perhaps dozens with Masters' degrees, while other families are yet to get one kid through Year 12.

Sociologically, culture is passed down through the family, close relatives, who 'guide' how to live and prevail, either by skiving or striving: so some people have intimate knowledge of education and work opportunities while others have intimate knowledge of all manner of welfare programs - and, it seems, never the twain shall meet, unless there are specific, workable programs to make the difference. Lives depend on making that difference.

Joe

o sung wu,

I daresay that when you were in the force you could reel off the relatively few but always reliable residential addresses and places the police patrols would be visiting in the shift.

You could go one further to point at small communities and postcodes where crime was always endemic.

Maybe you sometimes paused to reflect that the residential addresses where drugs, drunkenness, violence and other nastiness occurred changed as the ferals finally moved when police presence became too hot.

At the same time it would have been apparent that only some low income earners lead problematical lives and that applies to indigenous people too.

It isn't being poor or having a bad start (unless mum had the babe addicted to drugs in the womb) that decides one's future. That is made starkly obvious by the larger rump of the population who had to make their own way and did.

The biggest problem we face is how to provide some separation and sanctuary to everyone else FROM the marauding, preying ferals who have no pride in themselves, have decided on a career as a dependent, taker and criminal and are trying to drag everyone else down.

When police take away the drunken/drugged brute there will always be those scrubbers and apologists who see the offender as the victim and try to excuse him. Please remember though that we the public know that the real victims now have some relief while the cowardly offender is being dealt with by the only people he fears, the police.

What is obvious is that it cannot be bad luck, a bad start, discrimination and whatever that 'makes' the man offend, nor does it 'turn' him or seal his future. He does all of that himself by continuing to make poor decisions, quite deliberately, and by never taking responsibility. He chooses to be lazy, to flea off others and society and wouldn't work for a quid in an iron lung.

Dear O Sung Wu,

We're told that "You can put an individual
offender through the best-resourced and most effective rehab
program, but if they're returning to a community with few
opportunities their chances of staying out of prison are
limited."

I'm sure that as a former police officer with Aboriginal
experience - you'll agree.

Dearest Foxy,

What does it mean, " .... a community with few opportunities" ? Individuals have plenty of opportunities, and communities are more or less made up of those individuals.

Or do you mean that communities, per se, can implicitly or tacitly cripple individuals' access to opportunities ? Yes, I'll agree that communities can often be negative, ghastly, deadly places, whose degraded 'members' do nothing about the worst excesses of human behaviour.

Obviously, since human beings are not tied or chained or rooted to the spot in communities, they can pick themselves up and move. It may not have to be forever, or even for all that long, people can always come back to their birth communities for visits, and then get the hell back out again.

But all Indigenous people have as much right to the full spectra of opportunities as any other Australians, no matter where they may be. And, as it happens, there are probably far more programs being funded to do exactly that, for Indigenous youth.

Given the outcomes of those programs, and the high offence-incarceration rates, we're back where we started :)

Love,

Joe

Hi o sung wu,

it is a sad indictment when you honestly and truly can say;
"a short term in gaol, in order they may have proper access to a necessary regimen of medical/dental/alcoholic/drugs and more importantly a better diet to give them a chance to fix themselves up while inside. Furthermore, if domestic violence is an issue, it gives the antagonists spouse and kids some breathing space, or time to leave if she wishes ? - Paul, it's really an act of kindness all round, I kid you not!"
o sung wu, the worse thing about that statement is its true, and that is sad indeed.

"funding programs which actually work, especially re-engagement, re-integration, anti-alienation programs, whatever you call them - programs that encourage/require [i.e. carrot and stick] young people to seize the multitude of opportunities available and make something of their lives. This might involve orienting those young people towards making use of the magic ingredient: effort." Absolutely Joe who could disagree with that, the key is to ensure, with the best of intention there is a final positive outcome for people. Many programs begin with the best of intentions, but for one reason or another fall by the wayside, and all is lost.

cont

cont

"When police take away the drunken/drugged brute there will always be those scrubbers and apologists who see the offender as the victim and try to excuse him."
Beach, it is not my experience that scrubbers and apologists come out of the woodwork and excuse the perpetrator at all. If you see a desire to do something positive about the situation as "being soft" and favoring the criminal that is wrong. Just as when you say "it cannot be bad luck, a bad start, discrimination and whatever that 'makes' the man offend" The offending is at the end of the road, it is not at the beginning. Human beings are very much conditioned by their environment. I have two good sons, I believe myself, and their mother, did our best to bring them up in a loving environment, giving them positive role models, and as much opportunity as possible. I do not think it is an accident they turned out the way they have. I believe we gave them a flying start, never a 100% guarantee, but better than the start many disadvantaged kids receive.

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people we're
told are massively over-represented in the
criminal justice system of Australia. Aboriginal
people represent only 3 per cent of the total
population yet more than 28 per cent of Australia's
prison population are Aboriginal. Websites tell us
that Australia is heading towards one in two of the
prison population will be comprised by Aboriginal
people by 2020.

Something is obviously wrong especially in states
like WA and the NT which jails more than half of the
ten - 17 year olds. De-funding many Aboriginal
community controlled organisations and services -
(Abbott government slashed the black budget
in its first year abd combined 500 programmes into
the broad streams under the chaotic Indigenous
Advancement Strategy that has resulted in the de-
funding of many Aboriginal community controlled organisations
and services),
taking away funding for drug and alcohol services
taking away access to legal services - doesn't help
matters.

I am amazed that you keep on repeating the same tired old
lines - but can't see the bigger picture. As Jack Charles
pointed out -

"But the policies that are making our lives worse than
poor white people of Australia...to remove us from lands,
the people of the top end, to remove them from their
lands, to take away funding strikes me as peculiar,
strange..."

Dearest Foxy,

I'll say it a hundred times if you like: organisations which are getting absolutely nowhere, which can't point to any positive results from one year to the next, should be immediately de-funded. Any organisation which can point to concrete results should be funded, emulated, given an OBE, whatever.

The question should be: given the vast range of opportunities available, why are so many young Aboriginal people avoiding effort and turning to idiotic petty crime, and worse ?

In spite of so many useless organisations, Foxy, the opportunities are available. Yes, those organisations might as well not exist, or be funded. But regardless, the opportunities are there. People don't have to live like they do: there's a sort of arrogance in thinking that one does not have to put in effort like other people, that one is somehow entitled to live entirely without studying or training or working. I don't have the slightest sympathy for such people. They don't have to do the crime, but if they do, then they do the time. There are too many good Indigenous people to worry about the skivers.

Joe

'evening to you ONTHEBEACH...

For a layman (never served as copper) you have an extremely good appreciation of how the job really works. In fact it's really uncanny how accurate you are when you describe a normal night shift ? Same offenders, and addresses, and same pubs, parks, same public toilets. Then you have the same complainants, with the same bizarre even hysterical allegations. And even though you know there's no basis to those allegations or complaints, you still have to respond nevertheless, just in case something does happen.

Therefore much of our time is wasted, and could be more productively spent 'standing over' the local neighbourhood 'hoodlum tough guys', all of whom like to menace and intimidate others after they try to return to their homes, from a movie or night spot ! It's this particular group I took great delight in (verbally) 'pushing around' letting them experience how unsettling and frightening, such intimidation can really feel like ! As I'm absolutely positive most of you blokes on this Forum, would do likewise - I harbour an intense dislike for bullies.

ONTHEBEACH, as I said at the outset, you have an incredibly sound insight into the job per se. 90% routine, 10% and all s..t hit the fan !

I must close, my eyes are quite sore, it happens some nights ?

Hi o sung wu

What else can the police do, they can't break the vicious circle. I would like your comment on this one;
In the police submission to the licencing board regarding the 24 hours licence of a local pub in my area. The police stated that the pub was vitally using them as "private security". People were making their way from the city late on Friday and Saturday nights (drunk) going to this establishment and then in some cases getting out of hand, even as far as a pitched battle in the main street between a couple of gangs, the road had to be closed by the police. Any real trouble and there was plenty of it, the pub would call the cops. The outcome was a minimal reduction in their trading hours. I'm sure the pub owners are still doing very nicely indeed, and the police are still responding when called. I know when 4 or 5 cop cars scream past my place late at night, then the ambos as well, where they are most likely heading. this pub must cost the taxpayer a "$million" per year.
My partners sister took us on a tour of South Auckland, where she lives, a notorious trouble spot for Maori, (ever watched 'Once Were Warriors') sister pointed out no less than 18 establishments selling alcohol in a 1 mile area. They are all there, seedy bars, clubs, drinking joints, retailers, even the RSA (RSL for us) the lot. The place is a sea of alcohol, its not all run by unshaven shifty charterers Coles (New World in NZ) and other "reputable" traders all have their outlets there.

cont

cont

I have been to many Maori marae in NZ, in some cases hundred of Maori gathered together, you would think, given the stereotyping, a powder keg ready to explode! Not so, why, several reasons one is respect, the authority of elders and the Maori Wardens who are ever present, the biggest problem for them is usually illegal parking and also the mostly total exclusion of alcohol at the majority of marea is a big factor as well. A 60th birthday party once, young people asked permission if they could celebrate uncles birthday with a drink. The Kaumatua's (elders) went in and met. They decided yes (not agreed with by all including my partner, but as a woman had no say in such a thing) , beer only, show how much of it you have, (2 boxes) and only that and at the extreme end of the marea, and as per protocol, any not drunk must be left behind to be disposed of. No trouble what so ever and none left behind.

Hi Paul,

I love the way OLO threads meander all over the place, touching on so many experiences. Fascinating ! I love it !

I worked down in South Auckland in the early seventies, at Otahuhu, in the fellmongery at Westfield Freezing Works. Most of the blokes were Maori and Polynesian, except some older pullers. If Westfield had kept going, I suppose all of the pullers would be Maori and Polynesian by now. Many fond memories ! Terrific blokes, from Tonga, Niue, all of the Cook Islands, Samoa. They were all really enjoyable to work with. Kapai.

Ah, but BTT: If the issue of 'Recognition' ever gets to a referendum, what would YOU, dear reader, say 'yes' to, if anything ? What do you think the final question may be and do you think it would be too strong, not strong enough or just about right ? Do we need a lot more symbolism, or are you one of those flies in the ointment who wants more practical measures to Close the Gap, and couldn't give a toss about symbolism ?

Joe

I don't agree that the Constitution should be modified to recognise the Aborigines as the first human inhabitants of Australia. It is a fact that they are the first human inhabitants of Australia whether the Constitution recognises that fact or not. A constitution sets out the basic laws of the land. The fact that the Aborigines are the first human inhabitants of Australia has no bearing on the basic laws of the land. A constitution applies to the laws which govern all citizens of Australia. To single out one group of citizens for special mention seems counter to the purposes of a constitution.

It's a symbolic gesture which does not better the lot of the Aborigines but could be a precedent for other symbolic additions to the Constitution of Australia.

Hi David,

But what about a treaty then ? Pre-contact, the land-holding groups were the clans, or local descent groups, the people of a particular totem, as I understand it. Amongst the Ngarrindjeri on the lower Murray Lakes in SA, about 140 clans differentiated themselves into about eight or ten dialect groups (usually at war with each other), and as a single, loose group were called by outsiders, perhaps people from further up the Murray, Ngarrindjeri.

It's a bit like being football fans: some like soccer for some reason, some like AFL, some like rugby, league or union. Usually, say, an AFL fan will support a particular team, for example, the Western Sydney Giants. Somebody else might support Adelaide City in the soccer. Somebody else might support the Rabbitos in RL, or Sydney University in RU. They are all part of the 'tribe' of football fans. [That still wouldn't stop them belting the hell out of each other on occasion, even supporters within the same code, or 'dialect group']. Cricket or lacrosse might leave them cold: supporters of those sports would be outsiders, from other 'tribes'.

Anyway, if a treaty was to be proposed, would it be with each of the land-holding groups ? Or with dialect groups ? Or 'tribes' ? Or confederations of 'tribes', say all the Western Desert groups, or all Nyoongah groups ? Or with 'all Indigenous people as one' ?

The Nyoongah around Perth are getting 320,000 hectares of Crown Land back, as well as - over time - $ 1.2 billion. Would a Treaty open up a new exciting time when people across the country could get all the unalienated Crown Land, that was once all theirs, back again ?

Is it possible that odd groups may occasionally quarrel over boundaries ? And who is in which 'clan', or even 'tribe' ? Can people be in more than one ? And who is to speak for whom ? Ah, so many opportunities !

What I'd give to be a lawyer these days ! In no time, I could buy my own Caribbean island.

Joe

david f,

I agree with you.

However with demographic change, the endless 'diversity-Australia-has-to-have', the activists can see the writing on the wall that says that the Asian migrants in particular will not be as mentally weak and susceptible to emotional blackmail as those young 'white' Skippies who have been drilled in White Guilt and Black Armband History in school.

So the rush is on to get the 'Gold Card of Entitlement and Compo in Perpetuity'. Ka-ching, the activists can practically hear the cash register now. So can the conga line of advocates, lawyers, bureaucrats, academics and talking heads who get their daily bread from the victim industry set up by that pompous, overbearing git Gough Whitlam.

Will the Victim Industry continue to be one of the largest industries in Australia? Successive Labor governments have made it so and all of those receiving Guvvy largesse courtesy of the long-suffering taxpayer do lower the unemployment numbers you know.

Problem is, how to get all of that invasion, secret whatever business (where the 'whatever' changes to suit), Rabbit Proof Fence, Stolen Generations and so on, all of the myth and factoids, shoved down everyone's gullets as well. It is necessary!

Suffer the impoverished taxpayer! Those young working Aussie couples will never be able to afford children. Not to worry, the 'Progressives' intend to ramp up immigration anyhow. -So get ready to pay even more. That's 'progressivism' for you.

Hi OTB,

Surely you're not suggesting that the Rabbit-Proof Fence story was made up ? A fable, a Chinese Whisper, built up and embroidered and modified and transformed over the decades since the childhood of one of the story-tellers ?

Yes, admittedly, there is no evidence for the Story, no newspaper stories, no journal entries, police or hotel records, Rabbit Department records, no references in memoirs (such as in Paul Hasluck's 'Mucking About'), in Mrs Mary Bennett's papers, or in the 1000-page evidence before the 1935 Moseley Royal Commission. But just because there is not a scrap of evidence, doesn't necessarily mean that it didn't happen, simply that there is no proof that it did.

I guiltily enjoyed pulling apart the Hindmarsh Island scam, thought-bubble by thought-bubble, although my wife was Ngarrindjeri and related to most of the participants on both sides, and it caused her a lot of distress to see the genuine Ngurunderi stories trashed by the scam. I wonder what the next Story will be ? It will be fascinating to analyse it, to examine the 'evidence' for it and any gaps in the story, i.e. what ought to be there but isn't, when it does appear.

Joe

Dear Joe,

The English government made treaties with the American Indians banning settlers west of the Allegheny Mountains. the Alleghenies roughly parallel the US east coast as the Great Diving Range roughly parallels the Australian east coast. When the US won the American Revolution it was open slather in Indian territory, and the Indians suffered. In any revolution, successful or unsuccessful, there are winners and losers. Most Indians had supported the English as they did not want their territory invaded. The United States has made many treaties with the Indians most of which have been broken. However, some of them have been kept. In some of those cases the Indians make big bucks by having casinos and other enterprises which may be illegal in the land around the Indian enclave.

Speaking of sports fans the following may be of interest:

In Modern English Usage by Fowler p. 547.

“The writers most of all addicted to it [sobriquets] are the sporting reporters; games and contests are exciting to take part in, interesting or even exciting also to watch, but essentially (i. e. as bare facts) dull to read about; insomuch that most intelligent people abandon such reading; the reporter conscious that his matter & his audience are both dull enough to require enlivening thinks that the needful fillip may be given if he calls fishing the gentle craft, a ball the pill or the leather, a captain the skipper, or a saddle the pigskin, & so makes his description a series of momentary puzzles that shall pleasantly titillate inactive minds.”

I find it a bit offputting when Australian politicians announce which athletic aggregation they support. Completely extraneous to the business of government.

Joe (Loudmouth),

There is a lot taught as fact in schools and implied as truth by the taxpayer-funded national broadcaster that not only has no evidence to support it but stretches the credulity of any but the naive elitist metropolitan liberals.

Liberals who presume to always know what is best for others and patronise the hell out of Aborigines, sentencing them to lifelong learned helplessness, dependence and even crime.

I come across many indigenous (some dislike that word) workers in building construction, but none of these effective, occupationally skilled, good family men, all good citizens, ever pull out the cultural card to impress, excuse or wangle some benefit. The conversation on the job is no different to any other men.

That is how it should be.

My present home was built by an aboriginal carpenter. Ask him and he is: a husband and family man first; second, he is a proud carpenter who wants to try some small development; and third, he is a passionate supporter of the Brisbane Lions. He was not impressed at all by that first grade footballer who confronted and hugely embarrassed a girl. Men protect kids he says and means it.

Prejudiced thought always involves the use of a
stereotype - a rigid mental image that summarizes
whatever is believed to be typical about a
group. (the word originally referred to a printing
plate, used for stamping the identical image over
and over).

Like ethnocentrism, stereotyped thinking is an almost
unavoidable feature of social life.
People tend to think in terms of general
categories, if only to enable them to make sense
of the world by simplifying its complexity.

We all probably have our own stereotypes, for example,
of what an Australian Aborigine, or an American Indian
is like.

The essence of prejudiced thinking, however, is that the
stereotype is not checked against reality. it is not
modified by experiences that contradict the rigid image -
especially when describing the Indigenous who live in
small rural communities and their problems.

So if a prejudiced person finds that an individual member
of a group does not conform to the stereotype for the
group as a whole, this evidence is simply taken as
"the exception that provesd the rule," and not as grounds
for questioning the original belief.

Or as in the case of Adam
Goodes - who's described by some -
as "arrogant" or even a thug, trouble-maker or
uppity black man. How dare he confront us with our prejudices -
and say - "Enough is enough!" He needs to -
play the game
according to "our" rules. As those uncomfortable with
multiculturalism will continue to remind us - "The heritage
of every Australian is to be exactly the same."
Heaven help you if you don't toe the line!

In any case -folks, Australians are decent people with the
right instincts and they wish everybody well: but if all
is not well, it is none of their business and they will
not lose too much sleep over it.

Booze and drugs, are the bane of our society ! Both, manifestly contribute to many good people becoming intractably bad ! In the hands of our aboriginals, the effects are even worse ?

The answer; before society can do anything constructive, we must catch and heavily punish ALL and EVERYONE engaged in the illegal or irresponsible supply of alcohol.

And when it comes to illegal drugs - for the first offence of trafficking, introduce a mandatory minimum of 3 years imprisonment. Second offence, mandatory minimum, 10 years. Third offence, mandatory minimum of 30 years. After which, if the offender having just completed his 30 years gaol, wishes to pursue a further career of drug trafficking - well... jolly good luck to him !

Of course, all this is just a mere pipe dream ? Unless or until our tedious judiciary decide to dispense justice, of a type that meets with both the community's and the police's expectations, all this ludicrous 'rambling' above, is just that, 'rambling' !

A case of...the coppers catch them - and the judiciary promptly cut them loose ! What a deplorable waste of time !

Dear Foxy,

The saying, "the exception that proves the rule," has an interesting history. Of course a rule applies to all circumstances. If there is an exception the rule is not valid. At the time that saying originated the main meaning of the word, prove, was test. The exception tests the rule, and, if there is an exception, the rule does not pass the test.

All an exception proves is the lack of validity of a rule.

'Booze and drugs, are the bane of our society !' Strangely enough O Sung Wu this was what many of the early missionaries warned against when floodgates were being made to aboriginal communities now run by 'enlightened' Government paid workers. They (the missionaries) were mocked and ridiculed. The revisionist of history do us no favours. Loudmouth is a breath of fresh air and obviously is interested in fact over fable unlike many of the academics wo push the rabbit proof fence fantasy along with many others.

Dear David F.,

I was refering to people speaking in generalisations
and stereotypes and retorting with the platitude that
this is just the "exception that proves the rule,"
which is an easy way of brushing aside this inconsistency
instead of questioning the original belief.

Dearest Foxy,

Stereotyping can seem positive, as well (of course) as negative: to believe that people have almost magical powers is a good example, finding enough water from the dew off one plant to last a whole day, for example. To love Blackfellas but expect very little of them - Noel Pearson characterises this as the 'racism of low expectations' - is another, and it's amazing how often they go together. It seems to be very difficult for many people to think of Aboriginal people as people.

Runner,

I'm an atheist but I have developed enormous respect for the missionaries of the 19th century, their devotion, love and relatively high expectations for Aboriginal people. But as you point out, yes, grog was a terrible killer everywhere, in every State and at every time. I suspect that the death rates were far higher for people living away from Missions purely for this reason, and that life expectancy was far lower - in fact, that entire groups killed themselves off by what so many missionaries correctly termed the addiction to grog.

I would also suggest that, mostly because of that addiction, the infant mortality rate - and eventually, the 'removal' rate - was far higher amongst people living away from Missions.

Traditional society was boom and bust - since food wasn't cultivated, and it couldn't be preserved, whenever it was available, it had to be consumed, totally. Then maybe people starved until the next time. So with grog: again and again in the early days, reports tell of shearers blowing their entire pay-check in one night, in drinking parties, beating the daylights out of each other as well, and coming back to Missions dead-broke. I think that boom-and-bust ethic is still alive and well in many places.

Joe

Fox, "Australians are decent people with the right instincts and they wish everybody well: but if all is not well, it is none of their business and they will not lose too much sleep over it"

You Googled to get that 'offering'? A trashy, forgettable throw-away line that was a very poor attempt at humour by some sorry, uninformed wanna-be comedian?

When you repeat it in the context of this thread and try to give it significance, it betrays the arrogant, culturally elitist bigotry that would damn with feint praise to set up and then trash her target, the Australian people.

Have you ever heard of the Mud Army?

What about this?
http://www.projects-abroad.com.au/

What about the military and police personnel who put their own personal lives, wives and families on hold to defend people in other countries from tyrants and to rescue people and restore crucial infrastructure after natural calamities?

The fact is that missionaries saved lives. Before Darwin it was the predominant scientific belief that the different races of humans had different origins, and we were not all one species. Missionaries believed that Adam and Eve were ancestors of all, and therefore the Aborigines were fully human. They gave them refuge. Others thought that Aborigines were not human so it was ok to kill them.

"The Lamb Enters the Dreaming" by Robert Kenny tells about the first Aboriginal Christian.

Loudmouth wrote: "Traditional society was boom and bust - since food wasn't cultivated, and it couldn't be preserved, whenever it was available, it had to be consumed, totally. Then maybe people starved until the next time. So with grog: again and again in the early days, reports tell of shearers blowing their entire pay-check in one night, in drinking parties, beating the daylights out of each other as well, and coming back to Missions dead-broke. I think that boom-and-bust ethic is still alive and well in many places."

Traditional society was not boom or bust. They had excellent techniques of food collection and food preservation. What shearers did had nothing to do with Aboriginal societies.

http://austhrutime.com/food_storage.htm tells about Australian Aboriginal techniques of food preservation. One explanation for the lack of Aboriginal agricultural development is their storage techniques made agriculture unnecessary. Typically Aboriginal societies all over the world spend about 17 hours a week to supply their needs for food. My son is an anthropologist and has lived with two tribal peoples in Brazil, Xikrin and Candela. They both have efficient food collection and storage techniques. The situation becomes different when a people change from hunter-gatherers to agriculturists.

"Dualism and its Discontents" and "Rain Forest Exchanges"are two of his books.

Dear Foxy,

I know what you were referring to. I was just pointing out that the present meaning of the platitude is nonsense.

In the bush you witness the boom and bust of the seasons. Boom and bust bring misfortunes, but bust is the worst and can last a generation, or kill off a generation.

When you get around the country there are ruins of homesteads and other building works to be found, where the return of the usual drought proved that the longer good season before was to be expected, it was usual too if only seldom occurring.

For interest,
http://rdafcw.com.au/wp-content/uploads/Drought-and-Poverty-in-CW-Qld.pdf

Plenty of roo bones around the west right now.

The Aborigines were not unaffected by the seasons.

Hi again DAVID F...

You never cease to amaze me with the depth of your immense knowledge, even in fields not entirely within your own academic disciplines. I wasn't aware of the processes these ancient people had, to preserve their food in climates as harsh and diverse as ours ?

Actually I always thought the agriculturalists were more modern, more advanced in producing their food needs. Rather more so than the hunter gatherers were ? Who by necessity were more nomadic in their existence, travelling through scorching deserts with all their possessions, day in day out where the existence of water, was always problematic ? While those who tended their crops, usually had an abundance of water in the first instance otherwise the proposition of growing anything, was bleak ?

A NT bloke I've known for years, his 'beat' if you like was as big as Wales ! Only a Senior Constable, he and his wife preferred working at one man stations in the NT, he was saying how his two black auxiliary police, were quite capable of walking/tracking through the desert country, in the heat of the day for miles, seemingly completely unaffected ? While he'll not even drive unless unavoidable, until later PM or early AM ? They're a truly extraordinary race of people don't you think ? Yet I know so little about them really ?

boom or bust can certainly be debated. What I have been told by old aboriginal elders is that if a child was born with a disability he was clubbed to death because they had no means or desire to carry him/her to the next waterhole.

Hi David,

Perhaps there is more food always available in millions of square miles of rain-forest than in a desert.

Boom and bust affected many Aboriginal groups in two ways:

* the daily search for food and water: whatever you could hunt or fish, had to be eaten fairly quickly, and that may be it for a few days;

* the periodic droughts across, and in different parts of, Australia - some lasting a decade and more and covering a million square miles of country - would have quickly had the animals moving out as soon as the water was hard to find, which would have meant that people had to also move quickly, leaving behind the old women and young children. A wide-area drought, like the current Queensland drought, may have caused entire groups to die. A ten-year drought would have meant a fifteen-year gap in the birth-rate. One drought in around 1200 AD lasted thirty two years.

Paradoxically, after settlement and the introduction of the ration system, droughts would have made no difference to the life-chances of old people or young children: in such times, even able-bodied younger people were supplied. So there would have been no interruption to the flow of births, no sudden infant mortality or elderly mortality. Everybody would have survived, and on their own country. Not only that, but instead of periodic (and often drastic) cuts to the population, numbers would have actually grown during droughts. With everybody gathered loosely near ration depots, ritual and story would have been assured as well, instead of people scattering to the four winds.

Joe

Dear David F.,

Of course it is nonsense in our present day
for most of us.
Unfortunately there's still some people though who prefer
to live with the anachronisms of the past.
And that is the point that was being made.

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

The reference in my post was to prejudice and
discrimination - two diferent, though related,
phenomena: attitudes and behaviour, and the way
in which prejudiced thought always involves the
use of a stereotype.

otb,

The information about common Australian attitudes -
that I gave earlier came from a history text book
for students describing certain attitudes in this country's
history.

For example like the language of the pub-crawling,
hard-working, dim-witted Aussie - portrayed by Paul Hogan
that gained popularity. "You drongo,"
or "He's a galah," became the accompaniment of the
traditional "bloody bastard."

The suburban life, and well being of Australian society became
the butt of many jokes of those times, and the intolerance towards
"new Australians," and "coloureds" was sent up as an unjustifiable prejudice.

It wasn't until the 1970s that the Ocker Aussie was packaged
for world consumption in films, but once done,
the exaggerated image of "Bazza (Barry) Mackenzie" became
one which many Australians were no longer so proud of.

This critical self-consciousness had become more and more apparent
and forced both politicians and the public to revise not
only policies but also many of their long-held and cherished
notions about themselves and the rest of the world.

Dear Joe (Loudmouth).

You may enjoy the following website (just for fun):

http://itspronouncedmetrosexual.com/2012/04/reasons-positive-stereotypes-are-not-positive/

We're told that "positive stereotypes are assumptions about an
entire group or identity - eg. gay men..."
They're supposed to be artsy, friendly, fun, social,
well-spoken, well-dressed-well-groomed, fit and sassy.

That's a pretty tall order for anyone to fill.

What if you're none of those things and you're gay?

What about black people who aren't good at sports,
or who can't dance like Sammy Davis Jr., or a woman who isn't
caring, and the list goes on.

Interesting article.

Dear Joe,

The figure of 17 hours a week is pertinent whether the tribal people live in a rain forest or desert. The Bushmen in the Kalahari desert still spend about 17 hours a week to provide their sustenance. Unlike our society with its uncontrolled population increase tribal people use abortificients and other methods to keep their numbers under control.

http://www.heretical.com/bjerre/aborig2.html describes one method by which tribal Aborigines keep their numbers down. Unfortunately missionaries have interfered with the practice.

Dear Joe,

I could not find the source for my statement of 17 hours a week. I will ask my son about it.

However, I did find this in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter-gatherer.

At the same conference, Marshall Sahlins presented a paper entitled, "Notes on the Original Affluent Society", in which he challenged the popular view of hunter-gatherers lives as "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short," as Thomas Hobbes had put it in 1651. According to Sahlins, ethnographic data indicated that hunter-gatherers worked far fewer hours and enjoyed more leisure than typical members of industrial society, and they still ate well. Their "affluence" came from the idea that they are satisfied with very little in the material sense. This satisfaction, Sahlins said, constituted a Zen economy.[25] Later, in 1996, Ross Sackett performed two distinct meta-analyses to empirically test Sahlin's view. The first of these studies looked at 102 time-allocation studies, and the second one analyzed 207 energy-expenditure studies. Sackett found that adults in foraging and horticultural societies work, on average, about 6.5 hours a day, where as people in agricultural and industrial societies work on average 8.8 hours a day.[26]

Recent research also indicates that the life-expectancy of hunter-gatherers is surprisingly high.[27]

@Foxy, Tuesday, 9 June 2015 6:21:30 PM
and
@Foxy, Monday, 14 April 2008 7:05:24 PM
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=1668&page=4

Xerox?

Your prejudice against 'white' Australians has you stuck in a rut.

Still, that is one of the distinguishing features of self-loathing leftist elitism.

I have already posted evidence that dispel your sad, unwarranted and biassed negging of Australians. My earlier post refers,

onthebeach, Tuesday, 9 June 2015 3:10:21 PM
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=6871&page=24

otb,

As I've told you many times in the past -
Citing a country's history and the attitudes that
prevailed during a given point in time does not equate
with being "anti white Australia."

Just because you find that part of history unacceptable -
does not change the fact that it existed.

Did you wake up this morning and say, "I think I'm going
to be a jerk today?"

You need to respond to things in their context.

If you are capable of doing so, that is.

otb,

BTW: Labeling people you don't know is also
sad, and unwarranted. You need to clean up your own
act first before criticizing others of - not who they
are - but of who you think they are.

"Leftist, Elitist, Self-loathing, Progressives ..."
The list goes on.

Those stereotypes need to be dropped. You've over-used
them on this forum.
The same goes for "White" Australians. I know that
you loathe multiculturalism, and deny the stolen
generations, however, those unjustifiable prejudices
rightly belong in the past. Take off
your blinkers - learning should be creative and
without boundaries. You need to modify your judgements and
cherished notions about both yourself and the rest of the
world - especially this country in the 21st century.

Hi David,

6.5 hours per day, seven days a week, - perhaps 60 hours per week for women, twenty for men - for the barest minimum: perhaps you are right.

But is that an average ? Along some coasts and on rivers like the River Murray, the people (mainly the women) probably gathered enough food for the day in a couple of hours. With fishing lines and hooks post-contact, in SA at least, that time was probably halved. Meanwhile, people across the Western Desert would have spent most of the day (at least the women would have) gathering scanty grass-seed for grinding, and the odd small mammal and lizard.

I don't know if it's coincidence, but it does seem that in those harsher parts of Australia, Aboriginal societies tend/tended to be rigidly patriarchal and patrilineal - those areas tend to coincide with cattle (if anything at all) versus sheep country, by the way. Conversely, in lusher and more productive areas, societies tended to be bilineal, or at least more matrilineal.

Just as an aside, the mothers of the earlier 'stolen generation' (up to WW II) tended to come from patriarchal societies, cattle country, hard country, and those children, I'll bet, were put into care during droughts, when the cattle industry would have been devastated and labour put off, as it is now in Queensland. I might be talking through my @rse, but somebody could correct me :)

Joe

Dearest Foxy,

'Stolen Generation': it rolls off the tongue so easily, and whites are such b@stards, so why not ?

Evidence ? A single case, and even that (Bruce Trevorrow) was at least debatable. Any other proven cases ? No.

I've written about it many times, but the school records at the major SA mission, 1880 through to the 1960s, showed that out of 800 kids ever enrolled there, only about a dozen were of kids taken to the Mission, almost all in the early days: orphans, kids brought down from the North by stockmen and surveyors and bore-drillers, and abandoned in Adelaide; a couple of cases of single mothers bringing their kids (ant themselves) to the Mission, and soon marrying, with the kids adopted into the group there.

Ah, but you mean kids taken FROM the Mission in all that time ? Yes, about 47 kids, almost all in the late forties and fifties, after so many enterprising families had up and left the place to work in (at first) the rural areas, on infrastructure projects across the State, leaving behind the more 'casual' families, who now had no 'aunties' to send their kids down to for dinner, or to bot off. Lo and behold, the local police station was finally set up in 1953, ninety four years after the Mission was built, and when half the population had already gone.

Lo, THEN behold the 'stolen generation'. One kid died of starvation down that way in 1955, and actually some of those kids 'taken away' spent their time either in hospital or in the convalescent home at Tennyson. Those 'stolen' kids spent usually less than a year away from home before returning. There's only one girl that I can't track, the child of a single mother who died of TB in 1944.

[TBC]

[continued]

So no, I don't believe in a 'stolen generation'. Were kids put into care by single mothers when they were babies ? Of course, just like the children of white mothers. At least until single mothers' benefits came in, in (I think 1971, under McMahon).

Now that you mention it, Foxy, should some kids be put into care now, in 2015 ? Bloody oath, until their mothers straighten themselves out. If mothers chronically neglect and endanger their kids, then that should be it: immediate adoption out.

God, people are right, I AM a complete b@stard. Sorry.

Love,

Joe

Fox,

You are on the back foot and protesting too much.

I am merely one of many who have drawn your attention to your unrelenting attacks on Australia and 'white' Australians. You find and create any example to disrespect them. It is interesting that you would choose the comedic caricature exploited by Paul Hogan, who himself leads an entirely different lifestyle. However you would never choose Dame Nellie Melba, Sister Elizabeth Kenny or others.

Your bias is rendered stark by the different treatment you give anyone who does not fit the mold of the 'whites' you despise. There you comb the Net for any example no matter how irrelevant to the matter at hand to show the 'superiority' of non-white culture.

That is YOUR extreme multiculturalism, disputing there is anything worthwhile in Australian values and culture and forever spruiking the endless 'diversity-Australia-has-to-have' to blot out any vestiges of the 'whites' and 'white' inheritance that your leftist cultural elitism is so offended by.

That is one of the distinguishing features of self-loathing leftist elitism. It is in the tradition of the 'expert sources' you often quote and broken record when you do, among them being Phillip Adams and Pilger. Adams,
http://tinyurl.com/lsohu8m

Again, I have already posted evidence that dispel your sad, unwarranted and biased negative stereotyping of Australians, a good, generous, kind and accepting people you generalise and sledge as uncaring, insensitive and bovine. My earlier post refers,
onthebeach, Tuesday, 9 June 2015 3:10:21 PM
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=6871&page=24

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

You a "bloody bastard?"

Ah, if I was only like "on the beach,"
and knew you better, I would have found greater
fault still!"

Dearest Foxy,

Getting to know me better ? If you play your cards right ......

Much love,

Joe

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

If I play my cards right?

What if I don't play my cards well and end up with
something less than what I want.

Back to the stolen generations. The following government
report is worth a read:

http://www.humanrights.gov.au/publications/bringing-them-home-report-1997

As is -

http://www.racismnoway.com.au/teaching-resources/factsheets/52.html

I wasn't around in the days when well meaning authorities chose to remove some aboriginal children from their families ? However what I've witnessed over the intervening years, their actions would seem to be wholly warranted, from what evidence I've seen ?

This 'Leftie' nonsense of a 'Stolen Generation', well I'll not attempt to articulate herein, precisely what I think of it all ?

Some parents are parents in name only unfortunately ? Often found leaving their kids to wallow in the dirt and dust (playing with the camp dogs) and barely existing in abject poverty. Often unclothed, unfed and filthy with bush flies all over their little faces, while Mum and Dad are on the turps absolutely 'stonkered'. We'd take the kid(s) back into town for a JP to sign a (temp) warrant of apprehension, permitting us to hold the kid(s) in protective custody for a period of 48 hours, usually at the local base hospital.

Other than when they reach double figures, rarely have I found any of these kids (physically) mistreated ? Deep down I really believe they care greatly for their children, it's just they lose all contact with reality, once they get on that bloody booze, worse still, the metho. or even turps ? Both of which, usually accounted for a premature death unfortunately. Still for most of them, what does life offer them, anyway ?

Foxy like many progressives need to redefine meanings of words. There were far more aboriginals saved than stolen. In fact many of the saved now are in plumb jobs and with a decent education.

Hi FOXY...

I'm very surprised that you of all people, have allowed yourself to be manipulated into believing in this horrid 'Stolen Generation' theory ? I do wonder who conceived such an emotive caption ?

Prima facie it sounds really terrible, almost as bad as the Arab Slave Traders, who plied their miserable craft along the Gold Coast of Africa and the now Namibia, during the early 1700's to the late 1800's, for the burgeoning American cotton growers market ?

Of course I'll admit, mistakes may've been made, resulting in the unfortunate separation of progeny from their parents, but in most cases it proved to be the very best thing, for all concerned.

Naturally, human emotions being what they are, do play an important role in this relocation strategy, and that's the regrettably downside of such a scheme ? Despite this, if a family were sufficiently concerned, they may've been selected as part of the potential focus group for future relocation of their children, perhaps they need to ask themselves why ? Are they taking care of their children to the best of their ability ?

FOXY I can't tell you the number of times I've personally tried to influence blacks by begging, asking, demanding, and even threatening them (all in situ, in their own environment where they're most comfortable and at ease), often in their 'dry creek-bed' humpies. Generally all it is, is to comply with something quite basic - eg. to do with their behaviour when in town; their kids; camp dogs; their completely busted unregistered vehicles; whatever ? More often than not, it just falls on deaf ears, it really does ?

I'll freely admit, back during those times, when the Churches had more significant influence in such important social programmes, they tended to make judgements structured purely upon some religious imperative, rather than that which is based on sound practical facts. What's 'best' for the children concerned.

Foxy, this is only my views, based essentially on my own empirical evidence ?

Dear O Sung Wu and runner,

Before you can discuss the "Stolen Gnerations," you
both need to read the government report, "Bringing
Them Home." You need to read why Aboriginal
children were forcibly remove from
their families, where they were taken, and what happened
to them. Perhaps then you will begin to understand the
horrific abuse they suffered in institutions and foster
families that left thousands traumatised for life.

Hi Foxy,

Seriously, you need to take such works with a huge grain of salt. How many cases of 'stolen generation' have been brought to court and proven ? One: Bruce Trevorrow, from Meningie here in SA. And that case, in 1958, was very dodgy. I knew his mother slightly, nice lady, and her boyfriend Cyril, and some of his family fairly well. Some of the kids were my wife's cousins.

I had a long and fascinating talk in about 1982 - eight hours straight without a break, if I remember - with the social worker, Marj Angus, the one who had advised that he should be fostered by a Victorian family rather than sent back to his family. I think she certainly was acting with the best of intentions, and I probably would have done the same thing as she had done. The poor little bugger - he was only a year old at the time, Christmas 1958 - was close to death and had to be flown to Adelaide for emergency treatment. Surely that says something.

You have such a good heart, Foxy, but you need to be a bit circumspect about claims. No, I don't believe there was ever such a policy as a 'stolen generation'. Even 'removals' in Queensland were usually of whole families. And neglect happened then, as it does now, and in far more difficult circumstances.

At the beginning of the Second World War, all white and half-caste kids in the NT were evacuated south, to Adelaide and Sydney. Some didn't want to go back. Some didn't get back until around 1954. Of course, some of those kids would have been too young to understand why they had been evacuated, and could later honestly claim to have been - for no reason ! - taken away.

Reality is far more fascinating and variable than fiction, isn't it ?

Love,

Joe

The leftist 'Progressives' are not interested in the much larger number of State Wards though. Why not?

<As many as half a million Australian children were placed in institutions and foster care throughout the 20th century. Many were wards of the state, under the direct guardianship of state welfare departments, which often failed to protect them from physical, emotional and sexual abuse, despite annual inspections of institutions and legislation that often precluded the use of corporal punishment.

Most were not orphans. They were removed from their families when poverty, parental separation or neglect resulted in family breakdown, or because their parents were not married, or because they were deemed by social workers and police to be in ''moral danger''. Until the late 1980s, this was defined by Victorian law as including truancy, having a criminal parent, associating with criminals or, in the case of young women, suspected under-age sexual activity.

Institutions were seen as an easy solution to complex social problems and children bore the brunt of society's inability to deal with social disadvantage.

Those questioning the need for an apology should consider whether they would wish to swap places with a ''Forgotten Australian'' or wish to relinquish their children to the types of institutions or foster care that the Forgotten Australians endured.

More nuanced criticism points to the fact that removals were carried out under state legislation. It questions why the Commonwealth should apologise for state policies and practices.

The apology to the stolen generations has been regarded as appropriate because the Commonwealth had responsibility for indigenous policy. However, indigenous children were also taken from their families under state legislation and, in Victoria at least, indigenous and non-indigenous children were placed in the same institutions.>

http://tinyurl.com/q25mc4n

Any shabby treatment of State Wards or indigenous does NOT reflect on the general population who would have been horrified to know of the deficiencies, notwithstanding the usual neglect that resulted in placement in institutions.

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

Reality is definitely more fascinating.

And the reality faced by any member of the Stolen
Generation - in trying to
get justice in the courts - would be having to
face the

"uncomfortable truth ...that the parliaments
of the nation, individually and collectively enacted
statutes and delegated authority under those statutes that
made the forced removal of children on racial grounds fully
lawful."
(Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. Apology to Australian Indigenous
People. House of Representative. 13 February. 2008).

No FOXY I do NOT need to read anything. Until some of these erstwhile critics get of their backsides and see exactly what's going on in these small outback settlements, I'm completely done with this topic, as I've no hope of ever convincing anybody, least of all you FOXY !

Dearest Foxy,

Statutes !? There were never any. It was never lawful, in any State (although I'm not sure about Queensland), to remove Indigenous children for no reason, and it is likely (judging by the number of successful court cases) that there were few if any children ever take UNlawfully. Sorry, dear :)

OTB posted an interesting quote:

"The apology to the stolen generations has been regarded as appropriate because the Commonwealth had responsibility for indigenous policy."

The Commonwealth didn't have responsibility for Indigenous matters until well after the 1967 Referendum. Once the single parent's benefit came into force, around 1971, the number of children being taken into care dropped dramatically - for white as well as Black.

Why do people these days imagine that Aboriginal kids were the only ones ever taken into care ? There must have been huge numbers of white kids taken into care. My mum's mother was raised in the Hull workhouse, and then by the Barnardo's, in England. My mum's father was on the road working at nine, up in central Queensland. My own father was supposedly raised by the Salvos in Redfern. It seems that none of those knew their mothers.

So why did Rudd go all apologetic ? From a sense of power: the power of the deeply concerned white intellectual class. I suspect that, amongst many whites, there is such a powerful feeling of, well, power, of being all-powerful, almost God-like in their supreme power, that they get quite a buzz out of 'apologising' for using it. But no, I don't think it was anywhere near so cut and dried as that in 1967. And it never was.

BTT: so what would YOU agree to, if anything, in a change to the Constitution ?

Joe

Dear O Sung Wu,

I fully understand how you feel.

Here's something to make you smile
a little:

"There are 4 kinds of people to avoid in the world:
the assholes, the asswipes, the ass-kissers, and
those that just will sh++t all over you."
(Anthony Liccione).

Fox,
Charming.

o sung wu,

The Aboriginals who lived on our family properties were nothing like the ‘long grassers’ that the originally well-intentioned but very foolish Whitlam policies encouraged and rapidly increased in number.

On the family farms and all over the district there many Aboriginal workers who moved in and out of farm worker housing and flexed that and their work to suit their lifestyle. It was usual for them to go bush for varying times when they were in a mood to do so. As well, there were some and those with younger children who preferred to send down roots.

The long grassers who regularly tried to move in on our local indigenous were rebuffed. They were in smaller numbers then. Country police knew the difference and control had not been lost.

It was when Whitlam created the victim industry that things went pear-shaped and there were thousands of usually men who found it easier to bludge, bully and create strife while on sit-down money, believing they were victims themselves (and while using a boot or steel picket on their women).

To settle a point of concern, it wasn't the mainstream indigenous, mainstream society or you/'we' who created the problem of alcohol. It was the left-overs from the leftist human rights activists (serial protesters, Marxist and Anarchist, who were so often working against the mainstream there too with their lawlessness and secondary agendas) who were finding life boring without 'authority' to challenge. They were the cows in the China Shop, ignorantly, arrogantly, tipping the baby out with the bath water, for instance to allow alcohol in the self managing communities that resulted from Whitlam. The Black Curtain of the self managing communities already hid corruption, fraud and violence - to which more and legal booze was added.

As can be expected, the same arrogant, uninformed, ideology-driven, egocentric leftists would never admit the unforeseen negative consequences of their idealism, lobbying, political blackmail and interference. -Not to mention the $$ from the guvvy careers and grants, the lifeblood of these unethical leftists and diverted from indigenous projects and services.

Wow - what a revelation!

And such a simple solution to solving all of our problems.

Mr Abbott, Mr Murdoch, take note:

It's the arrogant, uninformed, ideology-driven,
ego-centric (left out self-loathing), leftists,
marxists, anarchists, with their lawlessness
and secondary agendas, that are the root of
all the problems.

Perhaps if we stopped giving them those high-paying
jobs and perks, they might have less influence and do less
damage.

Why not give the humble, informed, not ideology-driven,
idealistic,fully transparent, right-wingers, a chance.
They all march in step after all.

They're not arrogant, uninformed or ideology-driven
or even ego-centric and they certainly do not have secondary
agendas - as this country's history has shown.

The Solution is therefore simple -
all we need do is elect a Prime
Minister of that ilk and see what kind of a job he and
his team can do.

Wait ...

Hi OTB,

I know where you're coming from. As a life-member of the left, however, I have to defend some of us from your charges. Like some others, such as Dr Phillip Nitschke, we went up to a settlement in the early seventies, full of very different aspirations from those you describe - as fervent believers in economic self-determination as the cornerstone of any genuine self-determination, my wife as a volunteer to open and run the pre-school centre there, me as a fruit-picker to bring in some income, and getting a vegetable garden going.

But soon enough, we found what you described. Within ten years, a fairly healthy economic base had been wound down to almost nothing, and the last I saw of the place, three years ago or so, there was only one family still there: after CDEP was closed by the Howard government in about 2006, there was no point to staying out there if it was merely the principal means of getting unemployment benefit for nothing, so it appears that people have simply scattered into the various Riverland towns, to pick up the new version of CDEP/UB in more congenial surroundings. The orchard which had been planted in about 1982, at the expense of everything else, employing two instead of an earlier twenty, and funded by a loan-turned-grant (of course), was dead. It's a heart-wrenching thing to see 300 acres of trees, all dead.

Would I put my faith in the God of Self-Determination ever again ? Don't even bother asking.

Joe

otb,

Charming?

I'm so glad that I've been able to
"charm" you into considering your
world in a different way.

One of the many dilemmas for the 'progressives'

Aussie of the year wants harder penalties for domestic violence.
Amnesty wants less Indigeneous in prison.
Progressives wants culture to be respected and encouraged.

Dear runner,

So heartening to see you spreading the
love around as a self-proclaimed Christian.

Onya!

Loudmouth (Joe), "As a life-member of the left"

Fair enough.

My main interests are accountability and obtaining value for (taxpayers') money.

Those are not popular subjects.

If I must be categorised, I would put myself as moderate left and moderate right, since on the major issues such as freedom of speech, individual freedom and equality there is (or should be) little difference.

Hi OTB,

Life-member, yeah, although I think I'm on indefinite leave at the moment :)

Hi Runner,

Your irresolvable conundrum:

1. Aussie of the year wants harder penalties for domestic violence.
2. Amnesty wants fewer Indigenous felons in prison.
3. Progressives wants culture to be respected and encouraged.

For once, I agree with Adam Goodes on this one.

Dearest Foxy,

Charm ?

I'd crawl over a mile and a half of broken glass just to hear you spit into an empty jam tin.

Love,

Joe

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

Save the crawling over glass.

I don't spit into jam jars or tins.
I might drink from them later.

//Aussie of the year wants harder penalties for domestic violence.//

Seems fair. Let's give harder penalties for domestic violence.

//Amnesty wants less Indigeneous in prison.//

Seems fair. They're over-represented in the prison population and it wasn't blackfellas who coward-punched me the other night. It was people of my own culture.

//Progressives wants culture to be respected and encouraged.//

Not when it involves them expressing 'their culture' by coward-punching other whitefellas. If expressing 'their culture' means rituals devoted to the worship of spirits I don't believe in, that is fine.