In the 70s I was beginning to meet Aboriginal people, and hear the stories of their families. It wasn't till I started working with them in the early 80s that I ran into trouble with the police and racists. I don't actually remember a lot of social workers and activists around at the time.

In spite of (or because of?) those evil professionals, there has been a lot of change for the better in my region - more young people in work, more self-confidence etc. But still too many youth suicides and a fair bit of racism still.

It's good to know you lived in a place where you saw no difference between Aborigines and non-Aborigines. But I wonder did you have any close Aboriginal friends? Visit or play at any Aboriginal homes? And are you sure that they really had 'complete freedom of movement' across all properties?

We could go on all day swapping anecdotes: my story is better than your story - whitefeller perspective.

What you need to do is to read or hear the Aboriginal perspective: to understand what was happening underneath (complete freedom of movement, or complete being moved on?) Start with Stan Grant's book, and I can recommend many others.

Cossomby,

The fact that you had trouble with the police suggests problems in your role and the way it was being exercised.

Your 'whitefeller perspective' sledging is also problematic.

-That was to take a couple of examples.

As for my relations with Aboriginals, the builder who did a fine job on my home might say to you that neither of us saw culture as at all relevant in that decision or in the management of the contract. He is just one of many who don't define themselves by ethnicity or colour.

He sees himself a good earnest man, a great husband and father, a competent builder and a solid friend and citizen, ahead of the black activist stuff borrowed from the US that you and others muck around with and use to earn your daily bread. It is incidental that he is indigenous or that I might come from the very mixed cultures that make up 'whites'. On the construction sites workers are judged by their skills and performance and as always by what manner of a man they are.

From your post it is YOU and others who are creating divisions. You are stereotyping and you are the problem.

Cossomby & OTB,

I listened to Stan Grant on Margaret Throsby's program yesterday and I have to say that I was astonished at his lack of knowledge, and misinformation. I'm not sure where to start.

First, 'terra nullius didn't mean that there were no people here, just that there didn't seem to be a recognisable system of land ownership - 'terra', relationship to land - 'nullius' no recognisable system. OF COURSE every visitor or explorer and his dog recognised that there were people here, from the Dutch to Dampier to Cook.

Right or wrong, pick up any textbook on the history of land tenure and it usually begins - post-hunter-gatherer - at cultivation, famers, agricultural societies, while usufructuary rights, the rights to hunting and foraging on land, is sort of an add-on. Use-rights and ownership rights seem to relate to quite different systems.

And - at least in SA - Aboriginal people were considered to be British subjects from the outset of colonisation - right or wrong - with only the qualification that, since they weren't Christians, they usually couldn't bear witness in courts, not being able to swear on the Bible. Aboriginal men could vote in SA as soon as universal male suffrage was introduced, and Aboriginal women could vote (in 1894) when the suffrage was extended to women in SA, more than twenty years before women got the vote in Britain. So my wife's Aboriginal great-grandmother could vote before my English grandmother.

And so on.

Joe

Commonwealth divides Australians racial tags their measure.

Commonwealth keeps to the Goebbels principle:

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."

-- Joseph Goebbels, German Minister of Propaganda, 1933-1945

In their 1967 Constitutional Referenda Australians cast huge majority, voting overwhelmingly to eliminate government(s) racism from Commonwealth, States and Territories, end racism segregating Australian families.

Commonwealth claims pre 1967 Referenda lack of authority to legislate for Aborigines, did NOT stop Commonwealth doing so, banning Aborigines from entering town, consuming alcohol, receiving wages and equal pay, taking children from families, segregating families, all using word "Aborigine"...

Commonwealth still promotes apartheid with segregation of Australian families.

NOT working for equality of opportunity, Commonwealth wastes billion$ chasing illusions with negligible significant change.

Changes have occurred, more despite Commonwealth than by Commonwealth.

Commonwealth campaigns for one reason, to promote its' ability to divide Australians using racist filters.

Commonwealth NOT about addressing practical issues of disadvantage, rather distracting from these issues, to justify expansion of Commonwealth power...

Commonwealth defends its claim to segregate, separate families using racial identification.

IF Commonwealth serious about addressing practical issues of disadvantage, Commonwealth by now could have High Court determination of the issues.

Commonwealth denies legal aid to prevent judicial determinations, while maintains segregation and separation of families.

Income management is never a stand-alone solution to fixing the underlying problems like alcohol, drug and gambling addictions, poor budgeting skills and financial harassment.

This income management is Commonwealth qualification of our basic rights as Australians using racial identification as the measure, IF not why is income management not starting in Bankstown ?

.

Onthebeach: it wasn't a matter of "problems in my role and the way it was being exercised".

In the late 90s, working in rural NSW, I visited an Aboriginal community. My son, back in my Sydney house, phoned me one night: 'Mum, are you alright?' A couple of cops had come to the house looking for me; my car had been seen in the Aboriginal part of the country town and the licence plate check gave the Sydney address. But they gave my son no explanation and he was understandably concerned. Next day I went to the relevant police station and introduced myself. Until then, they had no idea of my 'role' or 'the way it was being exercised'. [In this case, they said they checked out the car to see if it was stolen, which I accept.]

I could go though a long list of other examples, where my role was not known to the police, but the surveillance just seemed to be because I was a white woman visiting Aborigines or travelling with Aborigines (I'm keeping a degree of anonymity about why, but it wasn't social work). Initially I was totally surprised that it happened - naïve - but when I commented, Aboriginal people just said 'happens all the time, you'll get used to it."

I've recently been working with early 20C (1900-1940) archives including Police 'extraneous duty books' (which survive for a few NSW country towns). These were logs of 'extra' police duties such as collector of stock tallies, electoral registrar, and in NSW, Inspector of Aboriginal Camps. The Police logged the movement of Aboriginal people through town: name, age, date, where from, where to, and reason. The police had responsibilities under the Aborigines protection acts and issued rations.

But it must have been like living in a police state, something most ordinary white Australians did not experience (unless they were very poor, or crooks, or striking unionists, etc.). And my personal experience from the 80s and 90s and stories I heard from Aboriginal people, indicate that it has been on-going and so is a multi-generation issue.

Onthebeach(cont.) As I said originally, I have no quarrel with your positive story about your builder. I have worked with and for quite a while now, often for Aboriginal people, and there's no doubt things have improved out of sight.

My comment about whitefeller perspective was not intended to stereotype anyone, but to point out that while we might have had bad or good experiences and stories to tell, we don't have the family or personal depth of experience that Aboriginal people who lived it have.

Finally,
1. re those 'who don't define themselves by ethnicity or colour', in this area, you may wish not to define yourself as an Aborigine, but you are defined as such by others.

2. 'you and others muck around with activist stuff and use to earn your daily bread.' Who's stereotyping now? You know nothing about me, and in fact you are quite wrong. (Ironically I've been called out by 'activists' for 'sitting on the fence - that is, for being even-handed).