Hi Paul,

You're kidding :) Anybody in the business, or recently exiting the business, knows who they are. Throw up a prominent name, check what they have done recently, and if you notice that comes to "nothing", then you've got yourself one of the elite.

Joe

Hi Joe,

If you. or Leo know these Elites, name them, you're constantly referring to them. a bit of naming and shaming. Leo, is forever banging on about left wing Elites, but never actually names any.

You're in the business, Leo's in every business.

I'll try your formula; Throw up a prominent name, LEO aka onthebeach

Check what they have done recently; I read all his posts, Answer; NOTHING.

Conclusion; LEO IS AN ELITE.

Next name Joe,,,,

G'day Paul,

No, thanks, I've got kids who have to make a living.

And I wasn't aware that Leo was on a good salary for doing nothing in the Aboriginal Industry :) If he's not getting paid at all, why should he do anything apart from show some civil concern about the welfare of our fellow-Australians and where our country is going ?

Any body in the business know what I'm talking about. I suppose it's not that different from what goes on in New Zealand, really.

Anyway, back to reality: the Uluru Statement seems to put any demands on for constitutional change on the back-burner. They ask for a blank-sheet 'Treaty', with the thorny issue of a Treaty with every Indigenous nation left for future, bitter dispute.

So what should be in a Treaty ? In 2017 and beyond ? A Treaty usually comes 'before', not 'long after', and it has clauses, teeth. As you would know, the Treaty of Waitangi ceded Maori sovereignty (but not land ownership) in return for British protection. At the time, New Zealand was claimed as a part of New South Wales, so it could, at a stretch, be claimed that at least one Australian Province was involved in Treaty-making with Indigenous people. But even the Waitangi Treat was pro-active: I'm puzzled how any 'Treaty' can be otherwise, that it can be retroactive.

So, again, what should be in a 'Treaty' that isn't just more time-wasting ? I'm concerned that the Indigenous Entity doesn't have that much more to waste.

Joe

Hi Joe,

There may well be people on high salaries who do bugger all, or worse still incompetent, that happens in all businesses. Those in question would not agree of course. For example under your criteria I can't brand Tony Abbott as an elitist. I might not agree with his politics but the bloke earns his pay, as do most politicians I have met from all sides and parties.

"Any body in the business know what I'm talking about. I suppose it's not that different from what goes on in New Zealand, really." There is that perception at times, but no proof, the elites are obviously in the business, so they should know what you are talking about . Some of it might stem from jealousy, some of it may be well founded. We have to be careful that we are not simply dreaming up things about others, simply because we don't agree with them.

On this issue of a treaty I'll have to read a bit more, as I have said previously, I am ambivalent on the idea of treaties in general. Si I'll get back later.

Joe,

Is there even an Indigenous entity beyond the groups pushing this agenda who don't represent unity of Indigenous in any way, just a small group of activists, most of whom are so minimally Aboriginal in ancestry they are Aborigine Lites.

It all comes down to the bottom line that any Recognition or Treaty demolishes democracy in Australia and sets up a two-tier system of citizenship where a tiny, tiny, tiny minority of the 24 million Australians get higher ranking because they can supposedly trace some of their ancestry, no matter how minimal, back further than others.

The flow-on effect from that is we have a ranking of Australianess beginning at the lowest level in those who become citizens today, laddering back to those who have some ancestry going back centuries and then to those who have some ancestry going back, so it is claimed, tens of thousands of years.

That is racist, undemocratic and I believe, unconstitutional.

If non-indigenous can get over the traumas of the past, convict ancestors, those fleeing persecution, poverty, starvation and wars vastly more horrible than anything Aborigines experienced at the hands of the British, then so can anyone.

We are enabling Indigenous to be pathetic, money-hungry victims.

Hi Rhross,

My wife and I used to play a little game - if we saw some bloke (usually a bloke) on TV, with his black hat all decorated with the colours, and especially if he had adopted an Aboriginal name, we used to race to call out 'Wnaker !' first. Almost always, sooner or later, it would turn out that he had just discovered that his gr-gr-grandfather might have been a Native, perhaps even an Aboriginal Native.

Well, yes, his ancestor might even have been a member of the Australian Natives' Association, set up in 1871, for all native-born whites, those defiantly antagonistic to all those Pommy bastards coming out and taking the best jobs. But I think they had an all-white policy.

Even in the early days, many Aboriginal people worked hard and did all right, as well as any white man. Some families are still on land that was leased more than a century ago. So perhaps their descendants might have to be barred from putting their hands out these days, if that's the criterion ?

Identifying people is fascinating: genuine Indigenous people waste no time in telling you who they are related to, a matter of seconds. Phonies hum and ha, equivocate, find reasons why their mother or father can't be checked: 'They were part of the Stolen Generation' is a good one for this purpose. My rule of thumb was that if you can't find out who someone was related to, year after year, they probably were phonies.

And guess what ? So often, they're in charge. They work their way up pretty quickly. They seem to look after each other. They know early which jobs or scholarships to apply for. Oops, Andrew Bolt territory :)

Cheers,

Joe