Dear Suse,

You are bursting into an open door:

When I wrote that "anyone can CLAIM that a land was bestowed on them by God", I did not mean that such claims would be true. Nothing stops you for example from CLAIMING that you are queen Nefertiti, so what?

In the context of writing the above statement, Joe (Loudmouth) claimed that "states hold the land from God", so I replied telling him that God did NOT bestow the continent of Australia to the state of Australia. So far, instead of trying to substantiate his original claim, he wrote that I must be 14 years old. If his claim is true, then I joined this forum at the age of 3 - what a little genius I must have been!

<<Aboriginals managed to exist quite well for thousands of years without any one 'true' god at all. Isn't that a miracle...>>

Yes. The miracle as I see it, which makes them better than the "white-man", is that despite living here for about 70,000 years, they did not misuse the name of God in vain to claim some divine ownership over this whole continent.

Yuyutsu

God has nothing to do with it.
Armies determine who controls countries.

Whatever ethnicity the majority of soldiers are, then that's who controls
The country.

Let's deal with the present, the fact that we have 23million people here
Who all have to get along. With societal rule of law to keep the
Peace on our streets.
All are equal in the sense that they can go to school, then get a job,
And work decades to buy land and a home.
Nobody in modern Australia is just handed land and a home.
That is the modern equality for all.

The Aborigines need to accept this modern equality of opportunity
They can no longer siit around all day and expect someone else to
Support them and give them everything for free.

Nobody gets anything for free, they work for it.
That applies to every other ethnic group in modern Australia.
Except the Aborigines apparently.
I bet they run to the dentist, paid for by welfare when
They get an infected tooth.

That tooth would kill them without the White mans medicine.
They just use the Aborignal victim hood to gain everything they
Can for free. That's what it's really all about.

It's known as the Aboriginal industry.

Cherful, if someone said they would pay all your medical, grocery and household bills with no need to pay them back, I am sure you would agree.
So whose fault is it that there is a sense of entitlement with some Indigenous people?
It is perhaps the various governments?

If the government then said no, we won't be paying welfare payments to unemployed Indigenous people anymore, and they would have to go out and work, who would employ them? Anyone?

To be fair, they would have to extend this denial of welfare to ALL the unemployed.
I am not sure where their children would find food and shelter, given that none of these welfare problems were caused by the kids.
So where would they get what they need? By crime of course.

What do you think is the answer then?

Dear Cherful,

I appreciate your perfectly-legitimate wish to keep the peace on our streets.

However, the societal rule of law is not the only way to achieve this goal: it's just a lazy solution because that's how the problem of keeping-the-peace was handled in the West for the last several centuries.

But this specific solution is immoral.

I don't know how long it will take, but eventually, future generations will look at this "rule of law" in the same manner for example as we look back at slavery: once it was acceptable to do this and enslave other people, but not any more, once it was thought that society cannot survive without slaves, but that already changed. It is currently considered acceptable to force other people into your group without their consent and enforce your laws over them - but eventually everyone will recognise that this is wrong and wonder "how could our ancestors possibly done so?".

Sadly, as you say, armies determine who controls countries:
Do we need to maintain these Neanderthal standards?

As for aborigines, there is no reason why they should be different from anyone else: they should not be able to have the cake and eat it too, but they should at least be given that choice - and so should everyone else! Currently we are not given this choice - to be or not to be part of Australian society and its state (including both duties and privileges).

You state that "All are equal in the sense that they can go to school, then get a job", but what about those who do-not want to go to school and get a job? Also all (theoretically) may equally receive dental-treatments - but what about those who do not want to receive dental-treatments and are even prepared to die young as a result?

What you have is a sort of "equality" for all those who aspire to have your own particular life-style: but there's no equality or respect for those who are not interested in your particular life-style. The last thing you can call this is "fair".

My vote (and my family as well) will be a definite "NO"
Once you give then constitutional recognition you give them the right to charge you rent for what they see as their property, the whole of Australia including your home.
It is time we started stripping back what we give them especially social security.
A six bed 'Queenslander' home, fitted out with white goods and air conditioners overlooking the northern oceans for a weekly rent of around $50.
They cost $2,000,000 to build and we maintain them.

Hi Suse,

Last Thursday, you suggested: ".... I would vote for recognition of the Indigenous peoples as a whole .... "

But what does that mean ? 'Recognition' in the preamble or the body of the Constitution ? What impact might that have on the health or education of people in remote areas, apart from zip ? What is it that anybody has to recognise that might give anybody a reason to bother ?

More than forty years ago, my wife and I were making Aboriginal Flags, and I still get a buzz from seeing in in the city or at high schools or council chambers: it is, after all, an official Australian flag. I would have thought that that was a form of recognition, and of the unity of the Aboriginal Cause.

There are thousands of Indigenous organisations across the country, funded by various governments. There is a designated quota for positions in various public services. Indigenous Studies is taught in many schools, sometimes by Indigenous people who know a little of what they are talking about. There are Indigenous units at every university.

So what else might constitute 'recognition' ? Perhaps as you suggest,

"Unless we recognise our first Australians as the original custodians of this land, and give them more say in our future direction, we are denying Australia's history."

In SA, and probably other States, the right of Aboriginal people to use the land as they always had, was recognised from the outset (at least in SA: King George's Letters Patent, 1837, authorised the right to 'occupy or enjoy' the land). But I suspect that that right is very seldom used these days.

To ".... give them more say in our future direction ...." ? How ? Via Noel Pearson's suggestion ? Or via some other 'advisory' body, such as the NAAC, NACC, NAC, ADF, ATSIC, or the current bodies ? What has been the brilliantly successful history of such bodies to date ?

In any case, let's wait and see what those meetings of Indigenous people around the country come up with.

Cheers,

Joe