Aidan, "More damage has been inflicted on the men than the women in many Aboriginal tribes, both by violence by settlers in the 19th century and by alcohol more recently"

Patronising indigenous does more harm. Choosing self-defeating behaviours is up to the individual.

However women, especially young mothers and children, are limited in their choices and cannot easily evade the ongoing abuses they suffer in the here and now.

Aidan
King Abbott the Captain knows about coups and ABC agrees:
Gillard ousts Rudd in bloodless coup - ABC News ...
Julia Gillard., seizing power in a bloodless Parliament House coup ..
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There can be violence verbally and by false pretences , just as there is violence done to the meaning of my post by you . This is a cyber bully threat from me to you and non-violence will prevail.

Hi Nicknick,

No, I don't agree with you: in Australia, women's rights, including Indigenous women's rights, are supposed to be equal to those of men. Get used to it.

I've just been re-indexing the journals of the Rev. Taplin, at Point MacLeay from 1859-1879 (on my website: www.fitrstsources.info) and I have to say that I wasn't impressed by the number of traditional women traditionally beaten, sometimes to death, by traditional men in their idyllic traditional surroundings. Plus ca change, .....

The number of Indigenous annual births, from the 1996 Census to the 2011 Census, rose only 9.3 %, adjusted, or barely 0.6 % p.a. This is above ZPG but below the world average. o.6 % p.a. is perhaps not enough to offset the effects of high and unnecessary mortality in adult years. So the Indigenous population is not only NOT booming but is in danger of stagnating in this next generation, and even falling in a couple of generations.

Then there is the identification factor: from the 1971 Census to 2011, this added perhaps two-thirds of the total Indigenous population, as people chose to identify. But identity can be a fairly fluid choice: what can be done, can be undone. If people find no real benefit from identifying, then they may well de-identify. I suppose we'll see, in the next couple of Censuses.

By the way, the 2015 higher education statistics are due out in a week or two - more successes :)

Joe

Hi Nicknick,

Here's something to think about, from a Canadian Native American:

Aboriginals’ unhealthy focus on the federal government has further developed a deeply ingrained “culture expectancy.” In short, this is an expectation that all means for ordinary existence (social assistance, housing, education, medical and dental care, community infrastructure finance, and finance for operation of community governments, etc.) will be provided externally, with no expectation that effort must be expended or such items earned.

Our Aboriginal ancestors of antiquity would find such an expectation utterly astonishing. How could they have built the beautiful, sophisticated societies that endured for so long with such an expectation? The question that my grandmother and grandfather might ask is, “What moral right does anyone have to something which they have done nothing for?”

As a youth, if I were to suggest to my father, a hardworking commercial fisherman, that I deserved a fishing trip crew share when I had not done any of the work to earn it, I would quickly have been introduced to the business end of his gumboot. (p. 116)

While the creation of sustainable forms of wealth is part of the solution, education, obtainable with or without wealth is the key to long-term self-reliance.

In the end, our grandparents would tell all of us that the way to feel better about ourselves is to engage in old-fashioned hard work. Their counsel suggests that we are not only social animals but social animals who have been hardwired to work in order to maintain our social balance and dignity as people. (p. 126)

Calvin Helin (2006), from Dances with Dependency: Out of poverty through self-reliance.

Cheers,

Joe