From what I understand from my family's history, they didn't always get their kids registered.

I'm willing to give the vast majority of stories the benefit of the doubt on face value, and though I will admit that stories can be mistold over time (this book I have was written from memory apparently and it has a lot of detail) I also believe it's reasonable to think that a lot of things done to them would never have been recorded.

We can't just have a new flag, and start a new slate with a fresh new rebranded face without firstly washing all the dirt off, or at least trying to.

Maybe we should stop referring to them as Aboriginal or Indigenous (This infers they're not the same as us)
- And simply refer to them as 'First Australians'

I can't argue with Is Mise that the laws need to be the same for everyone, but maybe we have to find a sensitive and respectful way to enforce them, one that works for and helps everyone.

Joe,
What is the child abuse situation in SA? Is it similar in extent to that in NT and QLD? What is your knowledge of child abuse in other states.

I notice that you advocate prosecution of the perpetrators in your first post here. I also notice that the reason given by one mayor for delay in tabling the report was to prevent retribution to the informants, how can that be contained.

Personally, I question what has the communities and government done over the past 3 years to alter the situation. Any reason to think the situation has changed for better? Or don't they care?

Hi Banjo,

Any information I have is very much second-hand these days, as well as what I read in the media.

As in other 'communities' where nobody has much positive or constructive to do all day (or all night), where frankly out-moded authority structures legitimate male excess, where grog and drugs are shipped in regardless of rules or the law, where children are safer on the streets at two in the morning than in their own homes, where sexualised behaviour is normal, child abuse is probably no more prevalent in SA 'communities' than elsewhere in Australia.

Justice Mulligan (lovely man) handed down his Report on child abuse in the North-West some years ago and has passed away since then, while little seems to have been done in the meantime. Perhaps the problems are so widespread - since the underlying factors producing them seem to remain unchanged - that nothing less than some sort of revolution is required. The tragedy is constantly compounded by the dismal fact that there are no practical ingredients for one.

Back in the fifties and sixties, when the last government settlements were being set up, following the last of the missions of the thirties and forties, bringing people in to settled life, with all the trappings of welfare services, national conferences of welfare officers touched delicately on the problems of 'what next' - and moved quickly onto other issues.

But what were the options then ?

* Leave people where they were, and even deny them access to the outside world ?

* Move people as quickly as possible from settlement life (without any employment whatever) on to experience in small nearby towns and beyond, and the need to sustain themselves economically in radically different circumstances - and thereby to come to understand the need for their children to educate themselves ?

* Or maintain welfare 'communities', effectively for ever, regardless ?

God must be weeping.

Joe

Armchair Critic it has recently been found that about 20% of us have some Neanderthal DNA in our genes. That is great, but it doesn't mean any of us have any Neanderthal heritage.

I suggest, if you just discovered you have some aboriginal DNA, that does not indicate any aboriginal heritage, that requires living in the culture.

Suse,
I am a sceptic of hand-me-down family stories and have been since I did my family history some years ago.

I grew up in a large family well before TV when family gatherings occurred, usually with card nights or other occasions, and after supper there would be talk about family and local interest matters.

My family history searches found that nearly all the stories we were told had errors ranging from minor mistakes to marked distortions and some outright fabrications. For example, my GGGrandfather, according to his Obituary, was a Crimean War veteran, but no record of that can be found and the birth of some of his kids shows he was home when the war was on. A Great Aunt told immigration that she could read and write, yet a few years later she signed her husbands death certificate with a large X. I could list a whole series of errors.

I encourage everyone to do their family history as all sorts of interesting information can be found these days with many records available on line. But do not rely on family stories.

@Suseonline, Tuesday, 5 April 2016 1:13:12 AM

How do you explain the lack of documentary proof for the alleged 'stolen generation', yet there were meticulous records kept at the time? As evidenced for instance by the documentary trail concerning wards of the State and the many hundreds of babies taken from mothers in the general mainstream population who were deemed unable to support them?

In the mainstream population there is plenty of documentary evidence from involved organisations, State and private, of the forced adoption of children from unwed mothers and from families who could not support them. See here,

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2012/02/23/3438175.htm

However you wouldn't be saying anything about those children now would you? But why not?