Any proposal in the Uluru Statement which affects the Constitution affects all Australians, and so should have input from 'all Australians' as well. Treaty, for example: since it's our treaty too, between 'us' and our Indigenous fellow-citizens, don't all Australians have some right to have input ? The right to ask what should be in one (or many) ?

Of course, there is the difficulty of proposing a Treaty between all Australians, represented by their federal government, and a SECTION of the Australian people. How can a people be represented on both sides ? But for all that, if it's OUR treaty too, then what do Australians should be in it (or them) ?

A Truth and Reconciliation process would be very welcome, and wouldn't need any Constitutional change, only relatively easy legislation. Hopefully, then, the truth of Indigenous policy throughout our history could be analysed: supposed massacre sites could be investigated; cases of 'Stolen Generation' children could be examined and recommended for determination by courts; evidence of people being driven off land and of being herded onto Missions, could be presented if and when they occurred.

But in relation to a Treaty - or as Warren Mundine has indicated, treaties with each of the Indigenous 'nations' - such a document (or documents) should not be yet another illusory Magic Bullet, ultimately betraying the hopes of its proposers. Of course, to have any teeth, it has to have something in it: a Treaty is an agreement, as South Australian Minister Kayam Maher, himself of Indigenous descent, has pointed out. So a Treaty has to contain more than what is already 'agreed' in relation to Indigenous Australians by current legislation in terms of equal rights and opportunities.

So what do people think should be in OUR Treaty ? Can I propose a succinct, one-clause statement:

* That the equal rights of all people in Australia are hereby reaffirmed.

Aborigines are Australians. It is my understanding that a country cannot make a treaty with itself.

Dear Joe,

Australia is the only Commonwealth country that does
not have a treaty with its Indigenous People. Canada,
the United States, and New Zealand all do. Professor
George Williams, Dean of Law at the University of
New South Wales writes that "It should go without
saying that the starting point should be to ask
Aboriginal people how they would like to be
recognised in the Constitution."

He tells us that "Australia is already in the midst of
a state treaty debate. This must be reflected at the
national level. However, a treaty should not be seen
as an alternative to constitutional recognition.
No treaty can fix the problems with Australia's
Constitution."

"Whether Australia enters into treaties, the document
(Constitution) must be amended to remove clauses that
permit racial discrimination. It also needs to speak
of the full history of this continent, and not only of
British settlement from 1788."

"Over the course of generations Indigenous people have
been denied the vote, had their children removed, been
prevented from marrying, told where they could live,
and had their wages confiscated..."

The following links explains further:

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/australia-needs-a-treaty-and-constitutional-recognition-for-indigenous-people-20160805-ggm0xp.html

And -

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/articles/2017/05/30/indigenous-australians-call-politicians-have-difficult-conversation?cx_navSource=related-side-cx#cxrecs_s

ttbn,

Treaties can exist between the indigenous peoples of a land and the colonisers. The US, Canada, and New Zealand all have one with their indigenous people. Australia is an outlier in this respect.

Please accept my apologies I'm having a problem
with the cited links. I shall try again:

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2017/05/30/indigenous-australians-call-politicians-have-difficult-conversation?cx_navSource+related-side-cx#cxrecs_s

cont'd ...

Here is the other one:

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/australia-needs-a-treaty-and-constitutional-recognition-for-indigenous-people-20160805-ggm0xp.html

Each and every person, Aboriginal or otherwise, should be able to decide whether they want to be part of Australian society or not.

Those who choose to be part of Australian society are to be subject to its laws, rights and obligations.

Those who choose otherwise, should still be able to co-habit this continent, with no rights or obligations. If some of them choose to re-establish their original aboriginal tribes/nations, then so be it.

An optional covenant can and probably should be made between all (or most of) those who live in this continent, be they Australians, Aboriginals or otherwise. Such a covenant would make minimal arrangements to prevent friction and ensure a peaceful relationship between the different people who live in this continent.

I have no sympathy for Aboriginal people who capitulated to the White occupation, intermarried, accepted donations, participate in the economy, speak English and shamefully give themselves English names, yet still ask for special rights: they need to decide!

My third attempt in correcting my typos:

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/australia-needs-a-treaty-and-constitutional-recognition-for-indigenous-people-20160805-gqm0xp.html

When my oldest son went down south to boarding school in his teens, he was required to do " aboriginal studies" as part of the school curriculum. He left home as a young person who had lived a very multicultural life and accepted everyone as equal. He came back very racist.
His bloodline is a half aboriginal father and a white mother and we were living in a remote traditional community in the Kimberley.
One day he was expounding the responsibility of white Australia to pay compensation to the aboriginal inhabitants.
Finally, in disgust, I told him " get your black part to collect payment from your white part" and leave me out of it!

Nothing has changed my opinion in the thirty years since then.

Dear Big Nana,

The following link may be of interest:

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2015/s4451538.htm

HiJoe,

As yet nothing concrete has been put forward as to what should be contained in a treaty. There is no draft, no suggestions, nothing. As to who should be involved in the process, both from a practical and a democratic point of view, that is also debatable.
Obviously the first thing is recognition of sovereignty of the Aboriginal "Nation(s)" over the Australian territory now under the control of the Commonwealth of Australia, otherwise you've got no one to negotiate with. Then it is necessary for the sovereign Aboriginal nation(s) to cede that sovereignty to someone? The head of State for the Commonwealth, the Queen of Australia. Then in return the new sovereign has to offer certain concessions and make certain promises in return. Those concessions and promises depends on the negotiators for both sides. Then ratification must take place, you would assume that there had been much consultation with the various stakeholders all throughout the process. Of course there may well have to be constitutional changes on the side of the Commonwealth as well, the Aboriginal Nation(s) do not have a Constitution to change.
All this is going to be very messy and time consuming, for what result, what changes tomorrow? As i said many times here now, I am ambivalent on the subject of a treaty.

Joe, how do you see it? Do we do a William Hobson and rework some old treaty like the 'Treaty of Versailles' and remove the word German and replace it with Aborigine, that would be a quick solution, but not necessarily effective. Or do we do it just for a laugh.

Oh Foxy, why don't you ask me how to use the Tinyurl.

I prefer Shady URL myself:

http://www.5z8.info/foreign-brides_v0e2tp_how-to-build-a-bomb

Hi Paul,

Thank you for teasing out some of the issues arising from the Uluru Statement. I'm trying to move away from the notion of a Treaty as some sort of Magic Thing, which will do wonders just by being, and towards a document with actual 'things' in it which are significant and practical - AND can muster the support of the great majority of all Australians.

Clearly, anything which hints at some sort of sovereignty of a section of Australians will be out. There has never remotely been any sort of over-arching 'Aboriginal sovereignty' in Australia: if the term refers to land-holding and territory-controlling groups, then it would have to mean clans, extended families, groups of individuals primarily descended from known common ancestors.

Even in the group that I'm most familiar with, many land-holding clans grouped together culturally as dialect groups - i.e. clans speaking more or less the same language in the same way - and eight or nine dialect groups, at one step further removed from 'sovereignty', formed the rather notional 'tribe', with at least some dialect groups at intermittent war with others. Characteristically (as I'm sure anthropologists would agree), the very name of the 'tribe' was that used by other 'tribes', and probably derogatory.

So even within a 'tribe', the notion of 'one people' was more likely to resemble the notion of, say, 'European' than of any specific nationality or ethnic group within Europe. You would be familiar with similar processes within and between iwi, hapu and whanau.

It's difficult to imagine what might be in a Treaty which would satisfy the demands of the Uluru Statement and which doesn't, like it or not, verge towards demanding not just different rights for Indigenous people within Australia, but also towards more and more separateness, perhaps a Treaty now, separate State within Australia a bit later, and a completely separate country a bit later still.

Such demands may not gain the support of the majority of Australians in the majority of States. To put it mildly.

Greg Sheridan has an absolutely brilliant article in today's Australian, p. 12.

Australia has never entered into negotiations with Indigenous people about the taking of their lands or their place in the new nation. And yet, the idea of a treaty in Australia goes back many years. In 1832 the Governor of Van Diemen’s Land remarked that it was “a fatal error...that a treaty was not entered into” with the Tasmanian Aboriginal people. In recent times, Prime Minister Bob Hawke promised to deliver a treaty by 1990. However, the controversial term raised alarm and was changed to a ‘document of reconciliation’, Makarrata* or compact. These discussions were eventually replaced by the push for Constitutional recognition.

What few people seem to be aware of is that all this talk of recognition of aboriginal people as a Separate and unique identity is going to cause massive divisions within families.
Look at my situation, and Joe's. A treaty would separate our place in this country from our children's and grandchildrens. My family would be classed differently to me.
With over 70% of today's indigenous people having a non indigenous partner, does anyone honestly feel that is not going to cause problems within families?

Hi Doog,

It was implicit from the earliest days of the Invasion/Settlement that Indigenous people would have continued use of the land in customary ways, although pretty obviously that principle was breached countless times. Here in SA, it was written into the Pastoral Act 1851, and expressly into every pastoral lease, that Aboriginal people had the right to be on pastoral land, to hunt, fish and gather, carry out ceremonies, camp, etc. 'as if this Lease had not been made' -so clearly on Crown Land as well. It's still the law.

One time, in 1876, the SA Protector was told of a new pastoralist at Cowarie on the Warburton, who intended to drive Aboriginal people off his lease. The Protector immediately wrote to him, advising that he would be in breach of his lease if he did so. He complied: Cowarie was still a ration depot in the 1910s.

Whether or not land usage over thousands of years constitutes land 'ownership' is not explored in textbooks on Land Law, but is obviously the cornerstone of the Mabo Decision: if clans traditionally controlled entry into the lands they were customarily using, then perhaps that constitutes one of the parameters of 'land ownership', i.e. the power to exclude non-clan members. If so, and if people can trace their ancestry back to an Indigenous person, then they have some claim on land somewhere, simply by the recognised common law relating to inheritance: there is nothing 'special' or 'different' about Native Title in that case.

Once difficulties with Native Title are cleared up, then there would be no need to mention it in any 'Treaty', it's already Australian law. So what SHOULD be in a Treaty ? It's driving me even more nuts than usual that people wave it around but put nothing in it. Surely a Treaty is important solely because of what is in it ? That it's not just a flash bit of blank paper ?

Joe

Professor George Williams, Dean of the Law Faculty at
the University of New South Wales writes:

"It should come as no surprise that the settlers who
came to this continent never entered into one or more
treaties with Aboriginal people. The question today
is how to end this pattern of exclusion and discrimination.
Constitutional change is certainly part of the answer but
so is a treaty. These are separate debates but they are
two things that need to be done."

"...the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation identified a
treaty as an aspect of unfinished business of the
reconciliation process. It recommended -

That the Commonwealth Parliament enact legislation
to put in place a process which will unite a ALL
Australians by way of an agreement, or treaty, through which
unresolved issues of reconciliation can be resolved."

"By a treaty, I mean an agreement between governments and
Aboriginal peoples. Such an agreement could involve 3 things:

1) A starting point of acknowledgement.

2) A process of negotiation.

3) Outcomes in the form of rights, obligations and
opportunities.

A treaty about such matters could recognise the history and
prior occupation of Aboriginal peoples in this continent,
as well as their long standing grievances. It could also
be a means of negotiating redress for those grievances and
of helping to establish a path forward based upon mutual
goals rather than ones imposed upon Aboriginal people."

"At the heart of the idea is the notion that a place in the
Australian nation cannot be forced upon Aboriginal people.
It needs to be discussed and negotiated through a process based
upon mutual respect that recognises the sovereignty of
Aboriginal peoples."

"By contrast what we tend to see today at best is only
consultation with Aboriginal people. This is worthwhile
but it is not enough."

"Change must be built on the genuine partnership between
Indigenous peoples and governments that can arise through
the making of a treaty."

cont'd ...

cont'd ...

"Treaties are accepted around the world as the means
of reaching settlement between Indigenous peoples and
those who have come to settle their lands. Canada and
the US have hundreds of treaties that date back to
the 1600s."

"The evidence in the US and Australia shows time and time
again - that redressing disadvantage over the longer term
depends upon Indigenous people having the power to make
decisions that affect them."

"They must be responsible for the programs designed to meet
their needs and must be accountable for the successes and
failures that follow."

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/IndigLawB/2014/1.pdf

Maybe the saceked Triggs could chair the 'truth' commission. Oh dear!

"They must be responsible for the programs designed to meet
their needs and must be accountable for the successes and
failures that follow."

Some people must have been living on another planet for years.

For decades the ANAO, the federal government's own auditor has been tabling reports in the federal Parliament that advise of widespread, systemic abuses, misappropriations and sheer lack of accountability for the many hundreds of millions of taxpayers' dollars allocated to indigenous annually. Further, the ANAO has made recommendations and produced best practice guides, most to no avail.

The problem has always been that ALL politicians and all political parties find indigenous politics toxic to their continued political life.

I have been hoping and waiting for a groundswell of indigenous women and to assist them the support of ordinary women - NOT the Emily's Lister feminists who are part of the 'Joke' and cannot be relied upon - to finally challenge and overthrow the corrupt, entrenched interests that have always rolled logs to block change and are directly and indirectly responsible for the awful abuses affecting indigenous women and children that continue, as this thread continues its predictable path.

Hi Leoj,

You mention " .... widespread, systemic abuses, misappropriations and sheer lack of accountability .... "

There have been 'representative bodies' for Indigenous people since the NACC in 1973, then the NAC, then the Aboriginal Development Corporation (the ADC) (or Commission, I forget which).

In the mid-eighties, somehow I got hold of a Report on the activities of the ADC. Its main powers were to give out funds to Indigenous enterprises. It had a board of about a dozen Indigenous people. Almost all board-members were given ADC loans (probably after much hard deliberation, and I presume for 'enterprises'), some for houses, a couple for motor launches. Almost every one of those debts went 'bad' and may never have been re-paid.

And we are aware of the activities and fortunes of the elected members of ATSIC, and why it was abolished.

Let's have another one. Gosh, it might turn out to be completely different, it might get real and start to put bread on the tables of kids in remote communities and stop women getting belted and kids getting abused. Yeah, that might work.

Joe

The reason the Aboriginal Activists & their Left Wing Socialist supporters is so they can take Australia to the International Court. They are after a monetary gain, that's all.

They will want a Treaty so worded that it will be easy to break, even down to one single word. That would mean years & years in Courts for nothing, only for the benefit of the Legal Classes.

We already have a Treaty. It's called "The Australian Constitution." It encompasses all Australians regardless of Race, Colour or Creed, There is no need to especially single out Aboriginals, that would be discrimination.

A treaty could provide, among other things:
• a symbolic recognition of Indigenous sovereignty and prior occupation of this land
• a redefinition and restructuring of the relationship between Indigenous people and wider Australia
• better protection of Indigenous rights
• a basis for regional self-government
• guidelines for local or regional treaties
• structures and systems for local and regional decision-making processes (3)
• Many Indigenous people in Australia claim sovereignty on the grounds that Indigenous people have never surrendered to the government. Therefore, they claim that their sovereignty, their authority to govern their own lives, has never been extinguished.
• Sovereignty is a means for Indigenous people to seek greater control over their lives and limited government interference in Indigenous affairs (4). Indigenous sovereignty in Australia includes concepts such as self-government, autonomy and the recognition of cultural distinctiveness, though not the creation of a new country (5).

I tried an experiment with a few of my adult grandchildren, all of whom are obviously aboriginal and all of whom have close connections with their tribal land and in most cases, have lived at times on that tribal land.
I posed a situation where Australia was split up into two physical nations, indigenous and white, both self supporting, with their own laws, government etc.
I then asked the kids to choose which nation they would live in, given they had rights to both.
Joe will immediately know which one they chose. Do the rest of you know, and why?

Doog, your post just confused me more than ever.
Just exactly what is it that aboriginal people wish to do with regards controlling their lives that they cannot do now?
Do they want to have 10 year old promised wives? Do they want to be able to spear someone in the leg rather than put them in prison for three months? Do they want to put deceased people up in trees or on burial platforms rather than burying them?
Perhaps they don't want to be obliged to sent their kids to school, or wear seat belts. Who knows, because I certainly don't. I cannot imagine anything that complies with human rights that aboriginal people can't do now.

No Nana I do not know. Anything I say would be a guess.

However I am going to do the equivalent of swearing in Church.
How would we define what is an aborigine ?

Not so simple a question I think considering it has to be in force
for perhaps a thousand years.
After just 229 years it has already caused arguments about blue eyed aborigines !
This point is already a legal description for people claiming to be
of aboriginal decent. Has anyone been convicted of making a false claim ?
Are we going to insist on DNA tests before someone could sit in the
aboriginal assembly or whatever it is called ?
Is there even a way to determine what percentage aboriginal a person
is by their DNA ?
Should aboriginal descent be above 50% or perhaps 66.666% ?

See what a mess you are generating !

Thanks Big Nana,

Doog, do you ever read what other people have posted ? Do you ever think through what you have posted ? Ideally, before you post it, but I suppose we can't have everything ?

Here's a probably-dumb idea: before any proposals are put to the Australian people as a whole, why not - once a full list of demands have been put together - run them past the Australian Indigenous population in a plebiscite ? Then, whatever demands gain, say, a 50 % support from the TOTAL Indigenous electorate, i.e. a majority of all Indigenous people on the electoral roll, can be put to the Australian people as a whole ?

Then the Australian population can decide: whether they agree to a path of separation for Indigenous people, or to the notion of an inclusive, single Australia, with equal rights and opportunities for all ?

After all, seriously, what could be in a 'Treaty' that Indigenous people don't have the benefit of already (and therefore be somewhat redundant and pointless), because otherwise wouldn't a 'Treaty', enunciating different rights and presumably demanding 'sovereignty', etc., lead inexorably towards separatism, a separate State at first, then a separate country ?

Again: who would go there ? 80% of Indigenous people live across our towns and cities, 70% inter-marry, including the elites: would they leave for the bush ? Christ, for some of them, have they ever seen the bush except from the air ?

Joe

And Joe, how would you define who was an aborigine ?

Hi Bazz,

Very simply, anybody who can demonstrate a link to an Indigenous ancestor, ideally an unbroken link, i.e. mother or father or grandparent who knows them and has cared for them, i.e. a family-cultural link. Not a distant genetic link before living memory, but ideally a 'living' link.

Ideally also, someone who has known of their Indigenous status all their lives, not just since they were a teenager or, worse, an adult: if it was up to me in my absolute-dictator role, such people should do an 'apprenticeship' equal to the time they didn't know of such links. Wearing a black hat even with the colours, growing a ruly-ruly long beard (and that goes for men too), taking an Indigenous name, or wearing a dot-painting shirt, won't cut it.

I have no problems whatsoever with very pale, blue-eyed, blonde Indigenous people who have been raised by their Indigenous mother and so on, way back before living memory: after all, who else would they be able to count as an ancestor ? In their honest view, what else can they be ?

Cheers,

Joe

Bazz,

Anyone with a leg in with those aboriginal mobs in those 'representative' indigenous bodies.

As long as the said 'indigenous' doesn't chance his arm with Qld Fisheries. But even then the feds will continue to recognise him, despite what Fisheries has proved.

Hi Leoj,

It used to be, and probably still is, the practice that anybody who waltzed up to an Indigenous agency and claimed to be Indigenous was signed in, since that meant one more to their case-load, and therefore a bigger budget next year.

Anybody who worked earlier in a university Indigenous support unit would be familiar with blow-ins trying to get into a university course 'the easy way', and using this method of 'validating' their Indigenous status. When my wife was in charge of Indigenous student support at one uni, she queried one student's Indigenous status who told her that if my wife asked that again, she would take her to court. She's now in a very senior position in education policy. She was probably at Uluru :)

So bullying and bullsh!t certainly work.

Joe

Yuyutsu: "I have no sympathy for Aboriginal people who capitulated to the White occupation, intermarried, accepted donations, participate in the economy, speak English and shamefully give themselves English names, yet still ask for special rights: they need to decide!"

You reckon if they had done none of those things, not capitulated, not intermarried, not accepted donations, not participated in the economy, not learnt English, and not taken English names, we'd be sympathetic to them asking for special rights? I reckon if they or their descendants had actually survived without capitulating or doing all those things, we'd say firmly no! Look at you, you haven't contributed anything to the economy, and you haven't bothered to learn English!! (After all that's what we say to refugees.) ,

Dear Cossomby,

Had that been the case, then they wouldn't need any rights from you, nor would you be able to give them anything that is not theirs anyway - rather, if you were a gentleman (unlike your ancestors which grabbed whatever they wanted by force) then you would be the one asking them for rights.

Joe (Loudmouth), Bazz,

This is of interest, the tip of a very large iceberg one assumes,

<Universities warned on ‘flimsy evidence’ of Aboriginality
A national register of indigenous people has been proposed by academic and activist Stephen Hagan.

Indigenous ­specific enrolments and scholarships at Australian universities are being awarded to students with “flimsy evidence’’ of their heritage, according to one of the nation’s leading Aboriginal academics.

Bob Morgan, head of the University of Newcastle’s indigenous Wollotuka Institute, has joined a push for tougher checks across the community of claims to
Aboriginality and benefits, which in some cases are given on the back of a single
statutory declaration.

A forum of native title holders, indigenous leaders and regulators in Sydney has
been told of suspected rorting at universities, in the public service and in gaining
access to government grants.

A national register of indigenous people was proposed by academic and activist
Stephen Hagan and backed by the chairman of the Prime Minister’s Indigenous
Advisory Council, Warren Mundine. Dr Hagan said the register was needed to stop “the problem of fake Aboriginals’’, which could include people on Federal Court vetted records of native title claimants>

http://tacinc.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Universities-warned-on-%E2%80%98flimsy-evidence%E2%80%99-of-Aboriginality.pdf

However that only addresses one form of corruption in a system that is rife with it. Where there is money there is graft. And hundreds of millions of taxpayers' dollars have been poured into indigenous for decades. I referred earlier to the reports of the Australian National Audit Office that have been tabled in the federal Parliament and there are many other reports, papers and whistleblowers's accounts.

The politicians cower before the political correctness of the ABC and others.

Dear Joel,

This is quite easy to test: If you go by an English name, then you are not an aboriginal.

Yuyutsu,

That is close to the most ignorant comment I've ever heard. Of course, it was common even in the earliest days for Aboriginal people - what you might call 'full-blood', but were known as 'Aboriginal natives' in those days, to take the name of a white farmer or pastoralist who they worked for. Blokes who weren't even related sometimes took the same surname from the farmer they worked for: this is confusing even now because people think they are related when they may not be, and therefore are quite able to marry, for example.

In most southern communities, the great majority of people would have what you call English names. It doesn't necessarily indicate non-Aboriginal ancestry at all. Even if it does, so what ?

Stephen Hagan's suggestion of a national register is long, long overdue. Back after Mabo, and the Native Title Act, I knocked up an article suggesting that people might have to register across Australia in accordance with their 'national' or clan groups if they could find them out, in order to be identified as entitled to make Native Title claims.

In case any Indigenous people are reading, and interested, get in touch with the SA Museum Indigenous Collections Unit on (08) 8207 7375: back in 1938-1941, Norman Tindale visited every community in Australia, photographed whoever he could, took down their family trees, etc. There would be a mountain, certainly a room-full of information there. This Collection is now in the SA Museum: so ask - and don't let them fob you off, keep ringing and asking - how you can apply to see your grandparents' family tree and other details. A goldmine ! I can't do it because I'm not Indigenous, so no relations there. Good luck ! Keep Trying !

Joe

Dear Joe,

History is history, but if a contemporary person of aboriginal ancestry, regardless how s/he was called at birth, continues to go by an English name, especially as their first name, that implies that they prefer the English/Western culture and shows contempt for their aboriginal heritage. They are no longer aboriginal because they defected and took sides with their conquerors. If they regret that decision, then the first thing they need to do is to relinquish their English name and choose a traditional one instead.

Hi Joe,

One area of common ground we share is that any individual assistance should be needs based, and not racially based, as it applies to society in general. That is not to say umbrella organisations or some particular indigenous groups should not receive assistance to future good social objectives.
The welfare hand out still has to be in place to support those who are unsupported, but should not be the primary focus of assistance. In the past government made the mistake, and it was easy for them to do, of handing out welfare without any goal of self improvement for indigenous people.

cont

cont,

I know what you are saying about names, my partners surname is that of an English government official from the 1840's. not actually a relation, there is some confusion as an American whaler had the same surname, and he was involved with Maori women, maybe the official was getting a bit on the side as well. Some in the family spell it as in English, others use a te reo version She has two first names, an English name, given by her school teachers at age five, and her real Maori name. Anything Maori, language, names etc was not acceptable in schools in the early 1950's, a smack on the legs from school teachers (including Maori teachers) for speaking Maori which was a no no. My partner could legally have four different names. And to confuse even more he first name in Maori is two words. When she came home from school the first day upset that the teacher had given her a new name, and pinned it on her chest, and told her to wear her new name everyday. All her mother said in Maori to her was "(Maori Name) we will call you (English name) from now on, that is the way of things, and your English name is a very nice name, now go get the firewood." There is always an up side "T" sometimes swapped her school lunch of takakau bread and jam, with one pf the few white children for a corn beef sandwich, a real wheeler and dealer in those days.
Bread making is still common today. takakau bread, fry bread, yeast bread, as is boil up, raw fish, smoked fish and hangi (special occasions only).

Yuyutsu,

Ah, the bloke at the back of the stand, yelling out advice to the umpie - that's you, is it ? I wondered who could be such an idiot.

Hi Paul,

Yes, welfare is necessary until people get on their feet, Black or White. I was just discussing this very point with a friend, that in the early days (at least in SA) able-bodied people were expected to take advantage of the law protecting their rights to hunt and fish and gather, and were provided with fishing gear, boats, etc to make it easier, so that they would not depend on rations - welfare - all their lives. Somehow, that sensible principle got lost, around mid-20th-century.

Yeah, I've a couple of lovely Maori nieces and each of them have a two- or three-word first name - that's Ngapuhi for you, always got to be bigger. I'm not sure if one's name - English, Aboriginal or Maori - makes all that much difference to one's identity: as you say, people often have many more than one name, especially women for some reason. I have a brother-in-law who is called by five different names, depending on which sibling or relation, or stranger, is talking to him. And all equally valid, of course, that's who he is.

Often Aboriginal people have a nickname and it can take a while to discover their 'real' name, perhaps even some of their close friends don't know it. I had a wonderful brother-in-law who was called Jack, but his 'real' name was Robert - of course, some siblings called him Rob Roy, or Bob. Or Jackeroo :) Lovely, lovely bloke, taken far too young.

In the early days,

[TBC]

The most important thing to go into the treaty is a worded passage that this is the end no more extra anything, no more apologies, no more land grabs.

[continued]

In the early days, authorities were often confused when encountering a person by one name in one place, and by another name in another place. One Ngarrindjeri girl, born about 1855 and known as Agnes, lived with one bloke until he drowned, lived with another bloke until he was accidentally shot, moved to another place and changed her name to Mary and married another bloke, divorced him and lived with another bloke - and took different names each time. Maddening for authorities, but fascinating for historians, I suppose !

I wonder what sort of mentality it takes to think that people are no more than their names, and therefore, if they have an 'English' name, they must be 'English'. Weird.

Back to topic: there is a terrific letter in today's Australian, from Anthony Dillon at the Australian Catholic University, Strathfield:

"The quest for recognition assumes Aborigines have different needs to the rest:

"Driving the treaty agenda is an us-and-them mentality. This is underpinned by the questionable belief that the needs of Aboriginal people are fundamentally different from those of non-Aboriginal people. If this popular, though unsubstantiated belief was true, then requests for an elected Indigenous consultative body would be sensible. However, their needs are not fundamentally different.

"Before we have further discussion on constitutional recognition, treaties and elected bodies, let's have a public recognition that the needs of Aborigines are a good education, job opportunities, fresh food, clean water, and safe , clean living environments."

Spot-on: when will Indigenous 'leaders' ever get real ?

Cheers,

Joe

It can confidently be expected that as soon as the rug is lifted on corruption in the 'Aboriginal Industry' (and it IS an industry that is said to directly consume over $30 billions per annum from the trough of taxpayer dollars and an un-estimated amount indirectly and at cost to private industry), that there will be political interests like the Greens and others who apparently must benefit from this corruption, who step up immediately to first, divert and block public discussion and where that fails, wield s18c through the brutish Human Rights Commission.

As if by magic, Paul1405 has dutifully obliged on behalf of the NSW Greens 'Eastern Bloc' and with stories of (often from!) hand puppet 'T' to put all to sleep, but importantly, to hijack the thread. He is not the only usual suspect. Next the '-isms' insults and other BS. But anything, anything at all to block any truth telling where it really matters and for balance.

How can the federal Parliament possibly be considering a 'Treaty' where there may be doubt about the aboriginality of those involved and where whistleblowers, independent inquiries, its own federal agencies and the ANAO have continually reported on corruption and wastage of public money and assets, but these matters remain unresolved and continue to be swept under the carpet?

If the 'Treaty' is about anything at all it is about a grab for the billions of taxpayer dollars and for the indigenous bodies and individuals involved to pull down a curtain of secrecy to escape even the mildest scrutiny and accountability.

Dissent
KERRYN PHOLI - Silencing Dissent Inside the Aboriginal Industry
http://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2012/12/silencing-dissent-inside-the-aboriginal-industry/

Allegations of corruption
The Net is rife with allegations that will remain allegations (that will never go away) while the threat of s18c exists. However the federal Parliament already has reports it has not resolved.

What "recognition" for so-called "aboriginals" who do not recognise themselves?

If you belonged to some conquered people and believed yourself to be living under a cruel occupation, if you truly felt that humiliation, surely you wouldn't encourage others to address you by a name taken from the oppressor's culture, surely you would feel hurt and insulted if they do so.

If I were a Maori child in the 1950's then I would carry the stripes on my legs with pride.

But alas, those spineless people are not ashamed to name themselves and their children "Agnes" or "Mary", thus they do not deserve to be treated any different to other Agneses and Marys.

People who identify themselves as ‘Aboriginal’ range from dark-skinned, broad-nosed to blond-haired, blue-eyed people.
Aboriginal people define Originality not by skin colour but by relationships.
Light-skinned Aboriginal people often face challenges on their Aboriginal identity because of stereotyping.
• a ‘full-blood’ as a person who had no white blood,
• a ‘half-caste’ as someone with one white parent,
• a ‘squadron’ or ‘quarter-caste’ as someone with an Aboriginal grandfather or grandmother,
• a ‘octoroon’ as someone whose great-grandfather or great-grandmother was Aboriginal.

These “one-dimensional models of Aboriginality” [41] pervaded literature of that time. Today these words are considered offensive and racist. In fact, racism lies just beneath the surface and it “bubbles out” when Aboriginal identity is discussed [40].
Use of these terms stopped in the 1960s. Instead, authorities tried to find alternate definitions of Aboriginal identity, which, however, were still influenced by colonial thinking. Since legislation for Indigenous people was a state matter, each state found its own definition for ‘Aboriginal’. Examples [1]:
• Western Australia: a person with more than a quarter of Aboriginal blood.
• Victoria: any person of Aboriginal descent.
The Commonwealth Parliament defined an Aboriginal person as “a person who is a member of the Aboriginal race of Australia”, a definition which was still in use in the early 1990s [2].

Personally I think that before any decisions are made about anything, the question of aboriginality has to be settled.

I disagree with you on this one Joe. I believe that someone with a small amount of aboriginal blood, who has been raised in a totally European lifestyle, with a white parent, even if the other part has some aboriginal blood, should not be legally classed as aboriginal for the right to benefits. They can call themselves what they want but for all legal matters, including ticking forms, they should be identified with their majority blood and culture. Because genetically and culturally they are white.

Should they be raised in a more traditional aboriginal community away from European life then that's different, but that situation can apply to even white kids who have been born and raised into aboriginal communities due to their parents working there for decades. Culturally these people would be more aboriginal than white, regardless of
DNA.

The reasons for this are threefold. Firstly, children raised in an urban society with access to the same amenities as everyone else, are not disadvantaged, especially if they don't look aboriginal, because they can't even claim racism as an issue. The end result of this is vast amounts of funding is diverted away from the areas it is most needed.

The second reason is that including that specific group in data regarding health, education, housing, employment etc totally distorts the true picture of what is happening with the aboriginal people who do live remote and are disadvantaged.

And thirdly, the huge numbers of those fairskinned urban aboriginal people gives them an unfair advantage in issues that require a vote, especially on issues that affect the more traditional people, and whose lifestyle and culture is totally unfamiliar to these urban representatives.

As I said, I have no issue with people identifying as aboriginal and certainly would hope they take pride in their portion of aboriginal heritage and celebrate that along with their other heritage but for legal purposes, no

doog,

You are wise to give that widespread and systemic corruption in the aboriginal industry a wide berth. Lash that tarp down, eh?

Concerning claims of aboriginal birthright, why would proof be more rigorous for possession of undersize and female mud crabs than for changing the Constitution of Australia or for deciding (and not being fully accountable for) the expenditure of millions of dollars compulsorily taken as taxes from the Aussie workers, many young who are trying to get a start in life?

Those mud crabs, scroll down to the Appo family,
http://www.kooriweb.org/foley/news/2006/aust20mar06.html

Big Nana,

What you have written resonates with what I have heard from the many decent self-respecting and proud Aborigines (they did not like 'indigenous' either) working on farms in the country and living in remote areas.

For myself, I believe that DNA should decide, a simple swab that is non-invasive and voluntary, where 'positive' discrimination is imagined necessary, such as for jobs and secondly, yes, there should be a fairly high bar set where benefits are being claimed from the taxpayer, or representative status sought.

After all, private companies are obliged to concern themselves with truth in advertising and their product/services claims, lest they suffer heavy penalties. Sauce for the goose..

The ideal however is for all to be treated equally. But politicians have editors to please and that 24 hr news cycle, particularly where the taxpayer-funded national broadcaster (and its 'Progressive' social policies) is concerned.

overall problems impede recognition of Aboriginality:
• Organisations do not recognise each other’s paperwork.
• There appears to be a lack of consistency between agencies (some have accepted statutory declarations).
• There is no governing body regarding Aboriginality. It is left up to the individual organisations to interpret government rules.
• No national register or directory of Aboriginal people exists.

Aboriginal family life has been irreversibly changed in most of Australia. Many of the changes have come about merely by the presence of Europeans; others are attributable directly to the colonisers' actions, which were aimed at taking control of the land, thus destroying family life as it existed in pre-colonial Aboriginal society.

Dear Joel,

«I believe that DNA should decide»

I'm afraid otherwise, for what could prevent the aboriginal people from accepting new blood into their ranks over the years?

On the other hand, you could have a full-blooded person of aboriginal ancestry who is but a traitor, deeply immersed in the Western culture and habits, who speaks English and goes by an English name - such people do not deserve to benefit from the people and culture they have betrayed.

doog,

By all means mire it up in more jobs for the chosen rellies and mates of mates and only then if the stars align - hold it, make that 'secret business' - there might there be some indications eh, doog?

Queensland's Fisheries Inspectors don't seem to have much problem where illegal jennies and under-sized muddies are concerned. They must be smarter than all of the fed's expensive (hundreds of millions of dollars worth) 'indigenous' experts in Canberra, huh?

Hi Big Nana,

I don't disagree - people can honestly call themselves whatever they prefer, but unless they are experiencing deprivation, or materially have done so in the recent past, they may access benefits in the same way and to the same extent as other Australians.

Yuyusu,

If by Joel, you mean me, I didn't make that comment, Leoj did. As it happens, no, I don't agree with it, unless recombinant DNA is meant.

With my limited understanding of the genetics involved, it may be possible for an Indigenous person, say a male, not to have inherited any Indigenous DNA from their father - whose mother may well have been Indigenous - and also not from his mother, if his Indigenous father marries a non-Indigenous woman.

In that case, neither Indigenous Y chromosomes nor Indigenous mitochondrial DNA is passed on to the child - and yet they can be Indigenous through and through, culturally, socially and economically.

It's a complicated world, Yuyutsu, and pronouncements from your lofty throne mean nothing.

Joe

Dear Joe,

Thank you for drawing my attention to the similarities of your name with that of Joel (Leoj): I simply haven't noticed it and my post was certainly directed to Joel (Leoj).

What I meant is that no genetic test can establish or deny aboriginality, for two reasons, even without the extra supporting factors that you just mentioned:

1. If you agree that the aboriginal people were sovereign all along, then they could have at any time (and still can) adopt and embrace new people of any race.
2. Those who betrayed their aboriginal culture and adopted the ways of their conquerors, may no longer refer to themselves as "aboriginal" no matter what DNA runs in their body.

Yuyutsu,

1. No.

2. No.

All of Australia's Aboriginals were semi-nomadic hunters and gatherers, with each clan having its own territory from which they 'made their living'. These territories or 'traditional lands' were defined by geographic boundaries such as rivers, lakes and mountains. They understood and cared for their different environments, and adapted to them.

We cultivated our land, but in a way different from the white man. We endeavored to live with the land. I was taught to preserve, never to destroy.

Dear Joe,

How typical for White Chauvinist British Pigs to think that everywhere they set their foot is theirs or at best, also of those who follow their culture.

Joe,
There are only two objectives coming out of the conference at ularu.

1. More money

2. More power

Your opening post was correct. We require only one set of laws and one parliament for all Australians.

doog,

Disney too, do you swallow that as well?

Yuyutsu,

Do you ever take notice of what you write ? That last statement is precisely what a 'White Chauvinist British Pig' would use as his/her excuse to deny the right of Indigenous people to define themselves - to assume, in the bog-standard imperialist way, that only YOU define who people are, not they themselves, and they should be grateful.

Indigenous people, on the whole, as far as I'm aware, honestly know who they are, who their parents and siblings are, and who their relations are, whether they are coal-black or bony-white. And frankly, it's none of your business to dictate who is and who isn't anything.

Joe

Doog,

Cultivated the land ? Where ? What sort of plants ? And did what with the crops ? Harvested them with what ? Stored them where ? Built fences around them, to protect them from kangaroos and emus, and neighbouring groups ? Patrolled those fences ? Organised teams of harvesters, usually women ? Do you have a shred of evidence for any of that ?

Cared for the environment - how ? By dancing, and singing secret songs ? Fair enough, but have you tried that lately ? While women were out there with their digging sticks, ripping up entire bushes for grubs ? Fair enough, people have to do that to survive, but don't call it 'environmental care'.

One of my Conservation management students reported about a field trip down the Coorong - one of the Aboriginal rangers finished his cigarette packet and threw it on the ground, but luckily a student picked it up. Etc. etc. Tell me about environmental care.

Joe

Making Room for Circles.

Australian's need to start reading Aboriginal books written by Aboriginal authors. It is not the responsiblity of Aboriginal People to fill-in the large-gaps of knowledge we have carried in our nations historical narratives.

There are things about our history that we need to urgently discuss. Historical documents which reflect the original instructions given to Cook that have NOT been properly disclosed. ie: He was instructed 'not to interfer with local inhabitants'. (See Denise Walkers and Michael Andersons research material at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy.)

Then we ought to address the fact that there IS a 'bullet hole' found in the Gweagal Shield. It is evidence of hostility rather then our nations version of peaceful settlement.

Frankly creating Treaty is a process. We as a whole nation have homework to do IF we want to catch-up with our First Nations people on Why or What ought to be inside a Treaty.

https://www.telethonkids.org.au/our-research/early-environment/developmental-origins-of-child-health/aboriginal-maternal-health-and-child-development/working-together-second-edition/

Rather then Consitutional Reform, I wonder WHY we need to rush the authenticc process of Treaty since our nations Constitution will need to be re-written surely once we become a Republic. The fact that we need a process helps to develop steps that address the necessary conditions from a level-headed constitution based on a number of agreements.

For me I want a Treaty first. I want a process that gives space to the steps required to learn the full truth. We as Australians ALL need to de-colonise.

https://www.miacat.com

Hi Joe,

Something you might comment on is; I have found with my own indigenous connection, the cuzzy bro's, some over compensation in some people when it comes to identifying with who they are. They seem to be overly concerned that the culture is being negated by some, particularly young people, as they embrace the modern world. For my better half she sees it as of the utmost importance that language, protocols and practices be maintained within the younger generation.
To give you an example, a couple of the younger ones have started, and I can't spell it, a 'whanka whanau nga tanga' (family gathering group) for get together's once a month, at the beach, at someones home etc, a social gathering more or less. She moans they are more for the social aspect than following the protocols associated with such gatherings. I said "No it's the way they want things to be and you should accept that they are trying to do a cultural thing but in their way, which includes Facebook and Iphone's" I believe culture is forever changing.

To give you an example of protocol, If you stand up and say something, at the end of your speech you are expected to sing a traditional song. Aunty said several spoke and didn't do the song. "I said so what, be thankful some cam speak the language even if the can't sing!.

When explorer and surveyor Major Thomas Mitchell ventured into Australia’s inland in the early 1800s, he recorded in his journals his impressions of the landscape. Around him he noted expanses of bright yellow herbs, nine miles of grain-like grass, cut and stooped, and earthen clods that had been turned up, resembling ‘ground broken by the hoe’.
Mitchell, like other early explorers, noted what many white Australians would later overlook: there was evidence everywhere on this vast continent that Aboriginal Australians managed the land.
As I read these early journals, I came across repeated references to people building dams and wells, planting, irrigating and harvesting seed, preserving the surplus and storing it in houses, sheds or secure vessels ... and manipulating the landscape.
BRUCE PASCOE, WRITER
Historians, writers and academics are now rethinking Australia's perception of Indigenous land management. They argue that the first Australians had complex systems of agriculture that went far beyond the hunter-gatherer tag. They were, in fact, our first farmers, whose intimate knowledge of managing native plants and animals sustained them for thousands of years.
Indigenous writer Bruce Pascoe has recently published a book called Dark Emu: Black seeds, agriculture or accident? that challenges the popular perception of our Indigenous past.
He argues that the economy and culture of Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander people has been 'grossly undervalued' for the past 200 hundred years. The early writings of white explorers and settlers are central to his argument; they described the cultivated way Indigenous people managed the land.

Hi Paul,

Whakawhanaungatanga: http://maoridictionary.co.nz/word/12711

(noun) process of establishing relationships, relating well to others.
"Kei te whakapapa ng&#257; t&#257;tai, ng&#257; k&#333;rero r&#257;nei m&#333; te ao katoa, n&#257; reira ko ng&#257; whakapapa he whakawhanaungatanga ki te ao, ki te iwi, ki te taiao an&#333; hoki" (Te Ara 2011). / Whakapapa is the recitation of genealogies or stories about the world, so whakapapa are ways by which people come into relationship with the world, with people, and with life.

Where would we be without Google ?

I think this is a brilliant idea and Maori people are extraordinarily lucky that they have more or less the one language, and close genealogical ties. I wish it could work here, especially in the 'south'. Perhaps the difference with NZ is due paradoxically to the length of time Aboriginal groups have been evolving in Australia, while Maori have been in NZ for less than a thousand years (AND, perhaps because they were/are cultivators, not solely foragers). So language here is a divisive factor, not a unifying one.

So a process like this might work for specific groups, e.g. the Ngarrindjeri, Adnyamathana, Barkindji, Bunganditj, etc., but something else, some other unifying process, would have to be used to pull people together from different groups.

Yes, I agree that culture is always changing: I've never understood the boast that "Aboriginal culture is the oldest in the world" - what did people mean, that distinct from other contemporaneous societies sixty or a hundred thousand years ago, the ancestors of today's Aboriginal people were the only society with culture ? That's such bullsh!t, not to mention that it's quite racist. What do they think, that the ancestors of everybody else were sitting around with the gorillas ?

OK, they may mean "the most unchanging culture in the world". But what on earth is so laudable about that ? If anything, it is the catchcry of extreme conservatism, hidebound, reactionary conservatism. And of course, it wouldn't even be true: Aboriginal culture has changed - it had to change during the last Ice Age, from thirty down to ten thousand years

[TBC]

[continued]

ago, if only because the entire landscape changed, from very lush to very rugged and half-way back again.

Anyway, the bottom line is that, from the earliest days, 'Southern' people became bilingual - original languages for discussing aspects of traditional/foraging life, English for discussing aspects of 'modern' life. 'Modern' life discussion gradually displaced 'traditional life' discussions. The Protector here reported in 1845 (seven years after 'settlement') that people from different groups, exploiting the massively increased means of mobility, spoke in English to each other. That's how it was: English became the common language, while for Maori, te reo remained the common language.

Sociolinguistics is fascinating !

One factor in Aboriginal society that has hindered the transmission of protocol, etc. is the degree of secrecy, of the power over cultural knowledge wielded by the old men: when they either passed on, or if younger people discounted the value of their secrets in a modern society, then that knowledge vanished. Gone. Kaput. Forever (god, I hate that word).

Even initiation ceremonies were drastically abridged, perhaps removing their perceived function, and reducing them to something like a 21st party: my wife's gr-grandfather participated in the last known initiation ceremony in about 1882, an overnight affair of burning off all body hair. Previously, this had to be done three times, at six-month intervals, not by burning it off but by pulling it out.

And in that group, the last speaker of the full language, born at about that time, died in the early sixties. Full language gone. It's now reduced to a dictionary on a bookshelf, and the odd couple of hundred 'kitchen' words.

So the dilemma is: culture and language may not be the unifying factors that they may be for Maori, not in Australia's 'South'. So of curse, the Narrative has to invent events and processes as a means of unifying Indigenous people now. This seems to be certainly working, but of course is only as valid as the Narrative itself :)

Cheers,

Joe

Doog,

Yes, kangaroo grass, notoriously low in nutrients (at least the seed is, the leaf is good for cattle-raising) and growing everywhere in Australia naturally, even in Tasmania.

So if you turned your brain on, Doog, you might ask: WHY ? Why grow the bloody stuff deliberately if it's everywhere AND has no food value to humans ?

Also, for god's sake, think of

* the pre-requisite factors: who did the work, what tools, did they need fences, how many men to patrol nine+nine+?one?nine+?one?nine miles of fencing (say, anything from twenty miles to thirty six miles of fence, made how ?; - and

* the consequent factors: who harvested, where was the crop stored (nine miles of 'crop' would produce quite a few thousand tonnes to transport, so where was it stored and who by ?)

Do you ever actually think through a crazy yarn like this one ? Don't waste people's time.

Joe

Doog, I was amazed by that quote about storage of seed in houses and buildings, in secure vessels!
What houses? Bark lean to'S? Aboriginal people didn't have houses, they had temporary shelters that were vulnerable to all the weather and none of which survived very long.
Secure vessels? Built with what? There is absolutely no evidence of pottery or any other type of storage ability recorded anywhere that I have read.
I don't know where this is supposed to have occurred but I have read dozens of letters from settlers to Governor La Trobe in the early 1800s in Victoria and never any mention of any type of agriculture was mentioned. In fact, most reporting was about violence, both towards the settlers and other aboriginal tribes, including women and children.
Ive been living in the Kimberley for 50 years with aboriginal people and certainly never heard of anything beyond hunter gathering, even from my father in law who was raised in one of the most remote missions in the country, with all full blood people.
Joe has spent years studying the records of South Australia, perhaps he has heard where this farming occurred.

"..perhaps he has heard where this farming occurred"

It comes from the sloppy science popularised by feminists. Where the scientific basis of research is disregarded and only the indications that might build towards the already determined result are chosen to be publicised as 'evidence'.

Guvvy grant driven, where a virtue is being made of sloppy research methods and biased interpretations of the data, and even other researchers in the other 'hard' disciplines say nothing lest the academic institution lose favour and those grants.

The 'truth-telling' that the indigenous leaders and spokespeople propose is anything but. That is the joke. Queenslanders would be familiar with that concept [Fitzgerald Inquiry].

No, sorry Big Nana :)

I'm getting to think that there is usually a very high correlation between Loyalty (to a Great man [Stalin, Mao, Ho, Castro - yes, I plead guilty], or a religion, or to a Narrative) and a sort of imbecility, in which the most ridiculous notions are entertained, and the most idiotic fabrications are cooked up, to bolster the cherished Loyalty.

Hence, in spite of the British early on recognising the rights of Indigenous people here to hunt, fish, gather and generally forage, etc., this has to b denied, in order to bolster the notion that the British always rode roughshod over people's systems of land ownership, with a perverse and sadistic glee;

Hence, the fabrication of a 'Stolen generation': how many cases proven in court ? One. Say so in some places and you'll get torn limb from limb.

Any evidence of massacres ? Probably, if ever an investigation were to be carried out. Probably many. But not much actual evidence.

People being driven off their land ? Probably, but again ........ In any case, it would have been illegal, pastoralists would have lost their leases by breaching their lease conditions.

People being herded onto Missions? Perhaps in Queensland ? But certainly not in South Australia. Quite the reverse: even David Unaipon (the bloke on the $50 note) was thrown off Pt McLeay Mission for attempting to molest a young girl; being truly-ruly clever, he camped just a few feet outside the Mission boundary. And often, Missions were reluctant to take people. As well, people came and went, came and went, as they pleased, for ceremonies, and often in great numbers.

Starving people ? Not in SA, with its ration system. Yes, authorities realised quickly that able-bodied people could forage or work, so they were denied rations except during droughts: they were expected to implement their rights to

[TBC]

The Murray river is a living museum of aboriginal aquaculture, with stone fish traps. In the days when the Murray flow was seasonal. The river would recede into holes.
The whole occupation of the aboriginal was to be aware of where his next feed was coming from. So it would have made good sense that after rain you live at your river abode.
Your idea of stumbling around until you tripped over something that you can eat never happened.
kangaroo was plentiful but never hunted to extinction, It doesn't take much to know seeds turn into more seeds, you plant seeds and you know when those seeds will be ready for harvest, with a growing tribe food supply had to be expanded on a never ending cycle.
You take only what is necessary to sustain life for a while before moving on to your summer residence where you know the macadamia's and quandongs are in season.

doog,

Black Disney again.

It must have been a hellish life and especially so for women and children.

Hey, what about number one being a Treaty for aboriginal women? Seems like they need one. Those hundreds of millions, billions of Taxpayer dollars every year since the year dot don't seem to have improved their lot.

Meanwhile, Rosie Batty is talking about 'financial violence' against women.

Which ones matter?

The 'Treaty' is about politics. Politics is about power and money. Most of all, about those 'Oxford scholars', millions of them, the real 'Stolen', constantly being extracted from workers, often from young couples who put off children until too late because they cannot afford the family they worked and planned for, and because of (wait for it!) those taxes that are being wasted in their hundreds of millions each and every year.

The politics of Treaty and the Indigenous Industry need to be unpacked. There is far, far too much fast talking by motor-mouths, some of whom may not even be indigenous. But first, where have all of the dollars gone over all of those years and what about those ANAO reports? But 'they' are not saying and want more $ and even less accountability?

Any treaty should consist of 2 blank paged. The second one in case the significance of the first one being blank is missed by the bureaucrats & the bleeding hearts.

[continued]

use the land for foraging.

Now, imagine if even able-bodied people had got rations: how much use of the land do you reckon they would have made ? And in time, nobody would have gone foraging, except out of boredom. People would, over time, have forgotten their land, how to use it, how to forage, etc. Maybe like now, in the North ? I couldn't possibly comment.

Authorities in SA also gave the able-bodied fishing gear, boats, and guns so that they could use the land as traditionally, but with better technology, with repairs done free for older people. I'm not saying how wonderful or how dreadful, simply describing as it was.

Yes, Indigenous people weren't supposed to drink: anybody supplying them with alcohol could do time, a publican would lose his licence. So imagine if there had been no resrictions on grog: does anybody honestly think that anybody would have been left after, say, twenty years ?

Doog,

Do you understand the difference between food-gathering, and cultivation ? Fish traps are a method of fish-gathering: nobody would have had fish-farms. In fact, ordinary fishermen these days would readily admit that they are gatherers rather than farmers.
In a sense, pastoralists, pasturing sheep or cattle, are partly gatherers: they may need to select animals for breeding, vaccinate animals, provide watering-points, stock-yards, fences, etc., and draft steers and heifers, etc., and in that way plan way ahead, but basically they are glorified gatherers.

On the other hand, farmers have to prepare the ground, cultivate, sometimes two or three times before they plant, then spray for disease, etc., then harvest and transport their crop to silos, etc., and do the whole lot over again, every year. Planning well ahead, not just responding to now.

Get hold of 'First Farmers' by Peter Bellwood: brilliant.

Joe

What would an Aboriginal treaty be about?

Aboriginal demands for what should be included in a treaty are as diverse as Aboriginal nations and individuals. Here are some of the main ideas.
Sovereignty. Acknowledge that Aboriginal people have at no time ceded, relinquished or acquiesced any part of their sovereign existence and status. They want a “a space of our own, free from influence of government”.
Land rights. Recognition that Aboriginal people have always maintained a property right in land and the natural resources according to their law and customs. They want an acknowledgement that Australia has not been settled. They want freehold, not native title. People who cannot reconnect to their traditional lands need to be included.
Shared power. A sharing of power with non-Aboriginal people through allocated seats.
Representation. A permanent national Aboriginal body.
Guaranteed consideration of interests. Too often governments don’t consider Aboriginal interests in their decisions. A treaty could be an “insurance policy” that puts Aboriginal interests at the forefront of Aboriginal policy.
Recognition. Recognition of Aboriginal people as the First Peoples of Australia and the distinct rights that flow from this. (This is not referring to the governments ‘Recognise’ campaign which many Aboriginal people reject outright.) But also recognising the past, the need to first acknowledge what has happened to Aboriginal people. For many it’s about recognising that Australia was invaded and not colonised.
Reforms. Agreements on the reforms required to reach a more just society and account for Aboriginal dispossession.
Statutory entitlements. This can include reparation, compensation and benefit sharing.

Loudmouth: I have no problems whatsoever with very pale, blue-eyed, blonde Indigenous people who have been raised by their Indigenous mother and so on, way back before living memory: after all, who else would they be able to count as an ancestor?

I have no problems with Blond, Blue eyed Aboriginals. After all, when it comes down to it. Australian Aboriginal: Race, Caucasian, Sub race, Australoid. So really, they are just darker skinned White People.

Loudmouth: what could be in a 'Treaty' that Indigenous people don't have the benefit of already (and therefore be somewhat redundant and pointless), because otherwise wouldn't a 'Treaty', enunciating different rights and presumably demanding 'sovereignty', etc., lead inexorably towards separatism, a separate State at first, then a separate country?

Exactly. It’s the Socialistically educated Aboriginal CEO fantasists that want to stir up trouble that want a Treaty. They want a Treaty so they can push Court Actions all the time for monetary gain. They will push for a Treaty that is impossible to fulfil & always be before a Court. This Treaty thing is a Scam.

These Aboriginal (Shite Stirrers) go to Aboriginal Schools & spread their tails of Woe & Misery caused by White men 200 years ago. The kids come home angry at White people then pick on white kids, people & property & end up in jail then the Stirrers have a field day pointing out how badly Aboriginal kids are treated.

My wife plays cards, a lot, one of the ladies she plays with is part aboriginal & her Grand Kids come around after their Saturday Classes at the Aboriginal Centre. They always come in, angry, with stories about how badly treated aboriginal people are treated by white people, now. When I asked who told them these stories, they tell me it’s their Aboriginal Teacher or some man talked to them. So these people are going around stirring up trouble on purpose, mostly so they can keep their lucrative jobs.

Hi Jayb,

I'm getting to think (I'm a very, veeeery slow learner) that much of the Conventional Indigenous Narrative is paranoid, overlooking precisely what rights Indigenous people already have - and have had since Year One - in order to paint a sh!tty picture of loss and suffering, etc., in order to foster a 'them' and 'us' dichotomy, which gives rise to people like Doog.

Hi Doog,

Do you ever read what anybody else has been writing ? We've gone over much of what you seem to think is amazingly original. No, it ain't. But what it is, is crap.

Joe

Jayb: "These Aboriginal (Shite Stirrers) go to Aboriginal Schools & spread their tails of Woe & Misery caused by White men 200 years ago. The kids come home angry at White people then pick on white kids, people & property & end up in jail then the Stirrers have a field day pointing out how badly Aboriginal kids are treated."

Some kinds of woe and misery were inflicted less than 200 years ago. I've recently been looking at the NSW Aboriginal Protection Board records for the first half of the 20th century. I know a fair bit about Australian history, including Aboriginal history, but I was taken aback at some of the language used. There was a practice of sending young girls (13-15 years) whose families lived on the government Aboriginal stations to work as servants on pastoral properties. The records note when a request for a girl came in from Mr so-and-so from such-and-such a pastoral station or farm. The records then state "(name of girl) disposed of" - like second-hand furniture, or unwanted kittens - to that station or farm. These girls were effectively slaves, if they ran away they were not allowed back on the Aboriginal station where their families were, but were sent back or to another place, and unsurprisingly, many got pregnant. This was the 1920s and 30s; some of these 'disposed of' girls could still be alive, certainly their children and grandchildren are. They didn't learn about their mothers' or grandmothers' experiences at school, but within their own family. However contrary to your negative stereotype, the Aboriginal descendants I know are warm and generous people, who want the world to know what happened to stop similar things happening again.

Re Aboriginal plant cultivation. Bruce Pascoe's book 'Dark Emu' has been mentioned, but an earlier one was Sylvia Hallam's 1975 book 'Fire and Hearth: A study of Aboriginal usage and European usurpation in south-western Australia.' (This has recently been reprinted by the University of WA Publishing, with an update afterword by Sylvia.) The book was the first work to focus on Aboriginal burning practices, but it also contains many historical observation of Aboriginal planting and harvesting practices. Bill Gammage's 2011 'The Biggest Estate on Earth:How Aborigines made Australia' also discusses this.

There's also Harry Lourandos' 1997 book 'Continent of Hunter-Gatherers: New Perspectives in Australian Prehistory', which discusses the economic intensification (fish and eel traps, plant cultivation) that occurred in Australia roughly parallel in time to the development of agriculture elsewhere in the world. It's likely there was a parallel increase in population, sedentism and social organisation here as well (though of course not the same extent as with fully fledged agriculture). Some of the evidence for this is the start of large cemeteries (nomads don't need these!) and large infrastructure works, such as Victorian eel-traps. You don't put community effort into such works unless you have more mouths to feed, but when you produce more food, you have more kids, so you need to keep maintaining the infrastructure (and more of other resources) which means you have to hang around - presumably in the stone huts associated with the eel traps (there's also some evidence that the eels were smoked for storage). Given all this it's intriguing that there's some historic evidence for a very complex system of clan leaders or 'chieftains' in western Victoria (Diane Barwick's work), which makes sense if a society needs to marshall its labour-force into building public works.

(Joe: Your comment about who patrolled the fences is a red herring. Fencing is primarily for controlling domesticated herding animals, even so, fences in pastoral SE Australia didn't really come in until the late 1860s, 20-30 years after the squatters arrived; before that shepherds were used, as they still are in some parts of the world.)

Dear Cossomby,

Thank You so much for your posts and the information
that you provide. Please keep on posting. I learn
so much from you.

@doog

After World War II, the rest of the world decided that they would not be concerned about re-drawing borders or seeking compensation for historical events. The concept of right of conquest was invented to stop future Hitlers. As you point out, sovereignty was never ceded. However, under international law, sovereignty over he overwhelming majority of the Australian landmass was extinguished when the land was invaded and occupied.

The Mabo and Wik cases dealt with the exceptional cases of a few, isolated pieces of land, which had either never been occupied (Mabo), or where the Crown had ceded sovereignty, when pastoralists had walked off the land (Wik).

From a legal standpoint, there is no need for handouts. Chosing to close the gap, for social justice reasons, is another matter.

cossomby: This was the 1920s and 30s;

Yep, this was in the 1920. almost 100 years ago, eh. Times have moved on. Those girls, at least, got an education instead of gathering nuts in May.

Cossomby: However contrary to your negative stereotype, the Aboriginal descendants I know are warm and generous people.

Yep, most I know are too. But I do know some very educated shite stirring nutters.

Cossomby: who want the world to know what happened to stop similar things happening again.

We have all moved on from 100 years ago, except the shite stirrers driven by their Socialist Left Wing shite stirring friends.

Jayb: "Yep, this was in the 1920. almost 100 years ago, eh. Times have moved on. Those girls, at least, got an education instead of gathering nuts in May."

1. 1920s until around 1950s.
2. Your original comment said that Aboriginal kids only heard about 200 year old past mistreatment in school, then went stirring. What I described was in living memory of people still alive, and known to their families.
3. 'Got an education'? In what? Trying to avoid the boss's unwelcome attentions?

The women in my family since 1900 got a real education - my grandmother was a teacher, my mother didn't work (4 kids) but brought us up to value books and education, I have a uni degree, and my grand-daughter is at uni now. I have a huge respect for young Aboriginal women I know who are uni graduates, in spite of the fact that their 20th century female ancestors never had access to the education and opportunities I and mine did.

Hi Joe, back on the subject of treaty.

With 70% of Aboriginals being categorized as 'Urban' and with a demographic that is as complex as the rest of Australia. How do you formulate a meaningful treaty, i stress the word meaningful, that accommodates all the aspirations required to be contained in such a treaty. I am looking forward to reading the wording of any proposed treaty.

p/s In my view, if there is to be a treaty, there can be but one treaty for all, no multiple treaties. there is the rub, how do you formulate a treaty that fits the aspirations of an Aboriginal living in Redfern, and at the same time accommodate the same for a native of Arnhem Land. without simply using a load of meaningless vague platitudes. Maybe it is possible.

p/s/s In any treaty the recognition of sovereignty in the first instance is paramount ie the recognition of the sovereignty over Australia of Aboriginal people. Then the transference of that sovereignty to the second party ie The Commonwealth of Australia. Then in return The C of A has to make certain promises and undertakings that satisfy the first party. Agree. simple, not!

Enough of this nonsense! The only way to solve this unnecessary problem, forced on us by people playing at 'aborigines', and a small minority of white renegades trying to tear the country down, is not to have a referendum at all; but, if we have to suffer such rubbish, we should vote NO to any chance of changing the Constitution just to please a bunch of black racists and Left wreckers of democracy.

The genocidal practices perpetrated against Australian Aborigines were the outcome of policies adopted and implemented by all Australian governments from British settlement in 1788 until the present. A people who had virtually no contact with the outside world, were suddenly confronted with a hostile and alien force. Aborigines were forced out of their traditional homes, hunted like wild animals, poisoned or shot, and confined to the harshest and most desolate climes. The effect of British settlement upon these people led to near extinction within 120 years.
Since the Northern Territory Intervention began in 2007, the rate of child removals in the NT has increased by 80 percent. In Queensland the number of children removed from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island families has increased by 42 percent since 2007.
Nearly half of these children taken by the Department of Community Services have been placed with non-Indigenous foster families or carers. In the NT, nearly two-thirds of the children removed have been placed with non-Indigenous foster families.

Why is that, Doog?

Doog, firstly, no aboriginal people were poisoned, that's one of those urban myths thrown around, like aboriginal people being managed under the Flora and Fauna Act.
I won't go into all your misconceptions of the past but I will speak of child removals in the present.
I was a paediatric nurse in the north, both Darwin and the Kimberley, for thirty years. I had a lot of interaction with child protection agencies, as many of the children had been in hospital for neglect or abuse. I have also been a foster carer for some of my aboriginal grandchildren.
The reason so many aboriginal children are placed with white couples is simply because there are nowhere near enough black families who are willing, or suitable to take these children.
Welfare workers ask parents to provide names of suitable relatives who could take the children. But when investigated most of these families have very poor records themselves, either in child raising or with violence and drug and alcohol issues.
Other families refuse, for reasons of their own. And I have found that years later, some of these families deny that they refused, they claim they were never approached, I presume to ease their own conscience.
So agencies are forced to place children with white families. But when they do, that family has to sign an agreement that they will attempt to maintain a connection between the child and their indigenous culture. That they will facilitate visits with family to keep the bond alive. And most try hard to do this, but unfortunately the children's families are less than reliable when it comes to turning up for meetings or outings, or if they do turn up, frequently are drunk or stoned.
It's so bad in some cases that visiting parents have to be drug tested before each visit!
Very few people in Australia understand the level of squalor, neglect and violence some kids live with and whilst it's natural to feel horrified at the rate of removal, but if you knew what these kids go through, you would understand better.

Joe is correct in that eel traps are not farming. Aboriginal coastal groups in the north had fish traps, it's a basic, primitive way to catch fish. No different than using a net, which they also did.
But that's not farming, that's gathering and hunting.
And there is no evidence, in the north at least, that any method of food preservation was discovered, not even salting fish, which would have been easy for coastal people.
Food preservation and water storage would have been the two most important discoveries to help people survive in hard times and would have reduced the necessity of killing off unwanted children to keep the population alive.
I'm in the Kimberley, in a very fertile, productive coastal area, 90% untouched by white hands, and it's obvious that the amount bush food, both in tubers and fruit, could only sustain a small population, particularly as bush fruit is always seasonal and it's also generally small with only a tiny amount of pulp so you would need huge amounts to provide enough for a decent feed if you couldn't catch live meat or fish.
I find it strange that the numerous first hand accounts of the early settlers and missionaries made no mention of organised farming yet suddenly 200 years after the event so called experts are finding evidence of it

The arrival of Lt James Cook in 1770 marked the beginning of the end for this ancient way of life. Cook’s voyage of exploration had sailed under instructions to take possession of the Southern Continent if it was uninhabited, or with the consent of the natives if it was occupied. Either way, it was to be taken. Upon his arrival, Lt Cook declared the land he called New South Wales to be the property of Britain’s King George III, and ignored the inconvenient fact that the land was already well populated. His failure to even attempt to gain the consent of the natives began the legal fiction that Australia was waste and unoccupied.

cossomby: I have a huge respect for young Aboriginal women I know who are uni graduates, in spite of the fact that their 20th century female ancestors never had access to the education and opportunities I and mine did.

& just what do they use that Uni Education for? To spread dissention in the Community.

Just think, if the Whites didn't take Aboriginal kids, who were at risk of being physically & sexually assaulted, they wouldn't had received an education. Your Grandparents & Parents received an education curtesy of the White man. If they hadn't, they & you would still be running around in the Bush, naked, chasing Wallabies with a spear.

If the Spanish, Portuguese or French had arrived in Australia before the British, Aboriginals would all be slaves even now, or worse, dead.

I have no problem in admitting that some bad things happened from 250 to 80 years ago. A number of my Great Uncles were involved in one incident at Ravenswood. & went to jail for it. That is not now & will never happen again. Since 1967 Aboriginals have been treated as equals. In fact they have had the benefit of "Catch Up Funds" for the past 64 years & are further behind then they were in the 70's

Just because I have a different opinion doesn't make me Racist or Bigoted. I really could say the same about your attitude towards White people & I'd be right. Think about it.

Doog, what happened in this country was far less traumatic than any other invasions in other countries. The Romans, Vikings, Monguls, Turks etc committed mass slaughter and torture on a scale never seen in this country.
They certainly didn't feed, clothe and educate the indigenous people they conquered.
It's time to put grievances to bed and celebrate the fact that aboriginal people advanced from Stone Age to the age of technology in four generations, something that should recognised as the huge achievement it is.

Although the 1967 referendum is considered one of the
most "successful" amendments to the Constitution, it
did not adequately address the issues of recognition of
Indigenous Australians and their legal and constitutional
protection.

To start with, a new preamble to the Constitution is needed.
It should embrace the true history and the special culture
of Indigenous Australians and their unique contribution to
Australia.

Section 25 which allows states to disqualify people from
voting because of their race - I believe is still in there,
and is now an antiquated, redundant section that reflects
past discrimination. It should be deleted.

Also,we need to change Section 51 "races power" which allows
discrimination on the basis of race or ethnic origin.

A general "equality clause" would be desirable. Equal
treatment under the law and equal protection and benefit of
the law without discrimination.

cont'd ...

For those interested - there is an interesting
article by Jeff McMullen that although
quite long, is really well worth a read:

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/JlIndigP/2012/4.pdf

Hi Cossomby,

My, how times change. Back a hundred years ago, kids left school as young as twelve. It was common, especially in the country, for kids to go out working at 12,13, 14. My grand-dad went out at nine. No mysteries, no special unique evil.

In NSW, girls were housed and trained in the former Cootamundra Nurses' Home: a nurses' home - what sort of accommodation do you reckon that might have provided ? But it did have a swimming pool :)

Servants: my wife went out as a servant in 1965, at fifteen. Until then, especially in the countryside, what else could girls do, apart from get married as quick as possible ? In fact, until the fifties, what sort of work could any working-class girls do ? Seamstress (yes, my wife did that too), governess if she had some education, nurse or teacher if she had a lot more education. But not much else, except ply a trade on the streets. My nanna, a workhouse 'orphan', was also a serving girl back in England, at twelve.

Pregnancy: as far as I know, if a serving girl escaped the eagle eye of the boss's wife, and somehow got pregnant, she was brought back to the Mission/Reserve quick-smart. After all, the State had to then support that single mother and child: we forget also that there was no single mother's benefit until the McMahon Government brought it in in 1971. At which time - lo and behold ! - an end to the 'Stolen Generation'.

Where do you get this idea that girls weren't allowed back on the Reserve/Mission ? Is that in the Protector's letters or reports ?

As for Pascoe's moronic claims, please try to think them through. But I expect we'll be revisiting this one. But bear in mind that harvesting natural-standing grain is not cultivating it, it's 'gathering' it. That's what hunter-gatherers do.

Joe

Hi again Cossomby,

Fish-traps: that's called 'gathering'. People settled long-term in some areas ? Of course, especially around lakes and rivers. I used to look at a hill near one Mission where we lived, in a bend of the Murray, and think to myself that people would have lived here uninterrupted for ten thousand years it was so productive, with the old fellas up on that hill every day, deliberating importantly.

Farming was initiated in incredibly few laces around the world: maybe four - Mexico, Syria-Turkey, China and Papua-New Guinea. Perhaps nowhere else. It's an incredibly difficult leap to go from foraging to farming, a totally different mind-set is needed, from responding to the environment to planning to modify it over many months or years. Why do people think it was piss-easy ? Check out Peter Bellwood's book, 'First Farmers', it's all there.

Doog,

Gathering macadamias and quandongs is called 'gathering'. Hopefully, one day, an archaeologist will find a petrified quandong and you can run off in your imagination that it's evidence of a large-scale quandong-drying industry, and perhaps one group out west of Ceduna exchanged dried wild-tomatoes with the people from Witjira, and that they did it at the market town, city really, of Coober Pedy.

AND - get this - two flat stone have been found sort of near Coober Pedy - obviously evidence of a broad road and where ? Get this too ! Sort of between Ceduna and Witjira ! How coincidental is THAT ?!

Christ protect us from idiots.

Joe

Hi Paul,

I've never, in all its manifestations, supported the notion of a treaty. Never. My position on it is to assume a null hypothesis: i.e. THAT a Treaty is utterly pointless.

Apart , of course, from the fact that nobody has yet - it seems - even thought about what should be in one, and on top of that, long after the event. What rights would be written into a Treaty that people don't already have ? And please, please, don't say 'special rights' because Australians will never, ever support different rights for different groups [are you listening, HuT ?]. I'm starting to doubt the intelligence of many Indigenous people. Such dumb-arse ideas.

Sovereignty: people ceded their 'sovereignty' i.e. as clans and family groups, when they accepted that, perhaps after some sort of statutory period like fifteen years, their sustenance would be continually provided totally by 'the British'. Groups 'transferred' their claims to the sustaining authority. End of. Therefore no legal basis to contemplate some idiotic seventh state. By the way, where would that be, and without a majority NON-Indigenous population ? i.e. no towns ? Jesus, do people ever think through their brilliant new thought-bubbles ?

So what promises would the Commonwealth have to make, i.e. what rights would they have to grant, that people don't already have ? Too ridiculous.

Doog: genocide - prove it. Get SOME evidence, and please not out of your arse either. [Well, I AM from Bankstown]

Joe

Dear Joe,

«Sovereignty: people ceded their 'sovereignty' i.e. as clans and family groups, when they accepted that, perhaps after some sort of statutory period like fifteen years, their sustenance would be continually provided totally by 'the British'.»

So we seem to agree after all!

There is no need for a treaty between between urban traitors of aboriginal ancestry with their neighbouring urban Australians of no aboriginal ancestry. Those who eat the white-man's bread have indeed ceded their sovereignty - but not the others.

«By the way, where would that be, and without a majority NON-Indigenous population ? i.e. no towns ?»

Why assume that people can only desert the aboriginal flock but none can join in their place? Surely just as traitors can forsake the aboriginal people, others can also be accepted and embraced into their flock, thus a majority is still possible.

«So what promises would the Commonwealth have to make, i.e. what rights would they have to grant, that people don't already have ?»

No Australian jurisdiction - total freedom from the invaders' laws and regulations!

Yuyutsu,

Tell most Indigenous people they are traitors and then stand back. It's none of your damn business what people call themselves.

Joe

Hi Joe,

What a treaty should not do: Just my opinion.

1. Provide for "special" rights for Aboriginal people.
2. Cede land for the purpose of forming a separate state.
3. Give additional voting rights, which creates Aboriginal parliamentary seats.
4. Provide monetary compensation or other forms of compensation for past injustices.

"the fact that nobody has yet - it seems - even thought about what should be in one,"

What I said before was a treaty is not a freewheeling document, there are some basic parameters that a treaty between peoples has to follow.

A treaty firstly must start with a preamble setting out why a treaty is necessary, how it will be formulated. and formerly naming those to be included, The preamble should finish with a general explanation as to what will be achieved by its application.

Then comes the nitty gritty, point by point, the articles contained within, stating what one group will give up, for what the other group will give in return, in the form of compensation (not to be confused with monetary compensation).

Finally if both parties are satisfied the treaty meets their needs and objectives as far as possible, then its signed into law. End of story, very simple. It can be a voluminous document like The Treaty of Versailles. or a one pager like The Treaty of Waitangi. But above all it has to be fair to both parties, if it is not, or it is not properly enforced, its doomed to failure.

I will keep an open mind on the subject until its shown that a treaty is not the way to go. However I am not confident that a worthwhile treaty will ever see the light of day.

Yutsie: what rights would they have to grant, that people don't already have ?» No Australian jurisdiction - total freedom from the invaders' laws and regulations!

& just how would that work Yutsie. Are you saying that all Aboriginals would have immunity from Australian Law. Like if an Aboriginal come & steels my Car then that's fine. If one come & bashes my kids then he has immunity. Hmmm... they have special rooms for people that think like that. (Shakes head in wonder)

Actually, I take that back. I suggested that some time back. You know; A special State. once in the Special State they can't come out. There will be no food, medical or any white Man material good provided. No manufactured clothes are to be worn. No guns, boats, rifles , alcohol, tobacco & fishing lines & no contact with White Man under pain of being removed from their Aboriginal Utopia. Once removed they have to make their own way in a White Mans World with the same rights as any white Man. No more, no less & subject to Australian Laws without privilege.

Hi Paul,

Then why have one at all ? Sounds fine to me. What, another ten years of uselessly farting around ? Great for many committee members, sitting fees, overseas conferences, etc. But for the vast majority of Indigenous people, useless. No, not just useless, but diverting attention away from the real, crucial issues.

Hi Jayb,

If any such idiocy was ever inflicted on the Indigenous people, surely they should have the choice of where they want to live ? After all, they're Australians like you and me, and we have the freedom to live where we like, so why not them ? 80 % of Indigenous people live in our/THEIR towns and cities.

Of course, this is the point - that any demand for a separate state, to which Indigenous people have to move, is surely Apartheid at its worst ? [Indigenous 'leaders': look 'Apartheid' up on Wikipedia, or get a small South African child to explain it to you].

My bet is that almost no Indigenous would want to pack up and move out to Yalata, or Balgo, or Aurukun. Why should they ?

A confession: up to late 1972,I believed in the idea of a separate State. I put it to a visiting Native Canadian singer, and she looked at me like I was an idiot (she got that right) and asked, 'And who would leave their own country to go there ? And whose country would they be on ?' That dumb idea died in the arse, then and there.

Joe

Hi again Jayb,

The crack-pot notion of a separate Aboriginal State is not new: back in the early 1920s, Colonel Genders, a retired Adelaide accountant, proposed just that, based on Arnhem Land. it was to be (hello, Yuyutsu, didn't see you there) only for 'full-bloods', with a 'full-blood' Premier. He canvassed the idea with David Unaipon, who thought it was a great idea (since he was himself 'full-blood' and saw himself as leading it, and for life).

Unaipon was paid to tout the idea in southern Aboriginal communities, and received what you might call 'minimal' support: who would leave their own country to go up to the NT, they asked. So another idea died a well-deserved death.

Only to be revived by truly-ruly 'radical' Indigenous people fifty years later, with Mansell's half-witted ideas (God, hasn't he wasted his entire one-and-only life touting the same pipe-dream: some thought bubbles last longer than others, depending on the intelligence of the 'thinker').

So let a handful of squeaky wheels push their wobbly barrow out into the deserts. It will keep them out of the Sensible People's way for another few decades.

Joe

Dear Joe,

«It's none of your damn business what people call themselves.»

They can call themselves whatever they want, they can even call themselves swans if they like and try to fly, but if they betray their heritage and behave like white British/Australian people then they deserve no more and no less than white British/Australian people.

---

Dear Jayb,

Yes, a special State is a possibility if that's what they want.
This doesn't necessarily mean that they would have no "white Man material" there - that's completely up to them. Why, they could even invite some white people to join them, on their own terms and conditions.

However, if they do not choose to have a special State and they come and steal your car, bash your kids, etc. then you do what you need to do in self-defence. Think dingoes: if they steal/damage your property/stock or threaten your children, then what do you do? Do what is necessary, anything but subjecting them to Australian laws - you wouldn't do this to dingoes, right?

Besides the above, they have two more choices:

3. Have no special state, but live their life peacefully without bothering you either. If that's their preference then they should be able to do that (think kangaroos).
4. Assimilate in Australian society, in which case as you correctly stated, they should have the same rights as any white Man. No more, no less & subject to Australian Laws without privilege.

Yuyutsu,

If WHO wants ? Have the 'spokespeople, 'the usual suspects', asked the Indigenous people what THEY want ?

So maybe that has to be the next step, after the 'leaders' sort themselves out and agree on a coherent wish-list - then they demand a plebiscite of all Indigenous people, to vote on the chosen issues, and really demonstrate what they want.

And, of course, what they decide they want - that's what can be put to the Australian people for their decision.

As for your comment, " .... if they betray their heritage and behave like white British/Australian people then they deserve no more and no less than white British/Australian people..... "

perhaps you didn't put much thought into it and didn't really mean it, but on its face, that is so contemptibly racist, it doesn't rate a comment.

Joe

'Farming' covers growing crops or raising livestock (or birds, fish etc.) Agriculture also means growing crops, but includes the technical meaning of changing the species by selective breeding. (Pascoe comments that some academics reject his use of the term agriculture, because they believe there was no selection).

So, did Aborigines 'farm' plants or animals? There's several levels to this: increasing productivity, expanding range, and genetic selection.

Example 1. Cultivation of the yam daisy. The tuber was collected but the top of the plant and roots left, the soil was cultivated by hand around the plants. The huge extent, the location and the intensive hand cultivation of the yam fields (plenty of historic records) indicate that the plant was propagated into new areas.

Example 2. Fruit trees grown around long-term campsites in northern Australia. The range distribution of species indicates that fruit was collected elsewhere and grown from seed at campsites, good locations with compost from ash and food waste. Seed germination would have happened accidently, but the trees would have need care to grow to maturity at campsites. The pattern of siting of different species of trees at campsites (ie relative to water, sun, shade) suggests human agency.

Example 3. Extension of range of eels by digging channels that enabled eels to move into catchments that didn't flow direct to the sea (they migrate from salt to fresh water to breed). Also building mazes of channels and ponds would have increased productivity, as well as make them easier to catch.

Examples 1 and 2 could have easily led to genetic change by selection of plants with larger tubers, or trees with preferred fruit, to plant. Genetic selection of eels would be harder, because of other selective factors in their life cycle.

So why don't we know whether there was any genetic change on plants like these? The yam fields were wiped out by introduced stock very quickly (sheep eat them preferentially), though it might still be possible to study fruit tree stands round old campsites. Basically no-one has really looked, because of the underlying assumption that Aborigines didn't farm things.

The well-documented harvesting of grass seeds has been poo-pooed here as 'just gathering'.

Here is Thomas Mitchell: the native millet..'was pulled, to a very great extent, and piled in hay-ricks, so that the aspect of the desert was softened into the agreeable semblance of a hay-field. The grass had evidently been laid up by the natives, but for what purpose we could not imagine .. .we found the ricks, or hat-cocks, extending for miles'. On the Narren River (N NSW) 'grass had been pulled for the express purpose of gathering the seed.. I counted nine miles along the river'.

It's pretty clear Mitchell wasn't a farmer, or he would have known that there are two reasons to store grain: first, for future consumption and second, as a seed bank.

On the Finke, Giles recorded: 'discovered a native granary... a rude platform in a tree, about 7 or 8 feet from the ground, on this... in a heap a number of bags made of close netting. .. astonished to find that they contained different kinds of grain, stored up for the winter, or rather the dry season'.

This is a classic grain store, high in a tree, away from rodents and ants, tightly bound to protect from birds and rain.

There are many more accounts like these. (to be continued).

Yuitsie: This doesn't necessarily mean that they would have no "white Man material" there - that's completely up to them.

Hey! It's them that always go on about reviving their heritage, & that's their heritage. Isn't it.

Coss: The tuber was collected but the top of the plant and roots left.

The Tuber is the root. They were nomadic & would know not to completely deplete everything in that spot.

Coss: Fruit trees grown around long-term campsites in northern Australia. The range distribution of species indicates that fruit was collected elsewhere and grown from seed at campsites.

Yep, when you collect the fruit, eat it then spit the seeds out. It's called seed dispersal. Birds & animals do it too. Nothing special there.

Coss: Extension of range of eels.

Got news for you. Did you know that some Eels on the East & Southern Coast travel to Fiji to mate & return to the River Systems they left. They travel overland during flood times & bury deep in the ground during the Dry, waiting for the next wet. The ones in Western Australia travel across to the African Coast. Learnt something to-day, that's a good thing, eh.

Coss: because of the underlying assumption that Aborigines didn't farm things.

They didn't. All you have said is an assumption on your part, nothing more. (Could have, maybe.) My neighbour is a Plant Scientist & he looks specifically for rare & endangered plants all over Australia & New Guinea. That is his specific area of expertise.

Oh, I forgot. They did farm animals, in & around the Palmer Gold fields. In fact they used to catch this particular animal & hang it by it Top Not from the branches of trees, then kill it & eat it when they wanted a feed. In fact this particular type of animal husbandry was noted by eminent scientists at the time. It was also told to me by my Grandfather who was there at the time. Grain fed too, rice mainly, as they were Chinese Gold Prospectors, you see. So you are right on that point.

continued: So was this 'farming'? I think it was. Harvesting and storage were so extensive, seeds for future growth would be removed from the landscape. Although there are no records, some of this must have been resown for later crops.

Why no records? 1. The assumption that Aborigines didn't farm, 2. a lack of awareness by men from rainy Britain that grain-growing in semi-arid conditions works differently. In dry farwest NSW, Qld, and northern SA, rains are unreliable, good seasons alternate with years of drought. Grain cultivation here has to be opportunist; you need a seed bank to sow when the ground is wet, especially if you removed all the grass seed over miles of country last time there was a crop.

Opportunistic cropping is exactly what we do now beyond the zone of reliable rain. Along the Murray/Darling, this happens on dry lake beds after they have had a soaking during floods, not just wheat, but chick peas etc. I've seen some of this personally over the years - once went to a harvest party on a lake bed, another time brought home a sack of chick peas. There's a historic record (ca 1890s) of opportunistic wheat cropping on the bed of the Murray River at low water level.

As with the daisy yam (murnong), this Aboriginal farming practice was wiped out very fast when sheep were introduced to these areas.

We still seem to be stuck in this mind-set of agriculture as we know it in wetter climates, or dry climates where reliable rivers could provide irrigation. We were able to do a lot in Australia with introduced, already domesticated plants and animals in areas that were suitable. But we should give credit to Aboriginal people for learning how to produce anything in a land with such irregular rainfall and river flow (even today with high tech irrigation on the Murray, droughts can have a big impact) and very few plants and no animals suitable for domestication.

PS I've eaten bread made out of native millet flour, contrary to other comments (including Mitchell's!) I found it very tasty.

Jayb,

'Macon' and other protein,

Some Notes on Cannibalism
Among Queensland Aborigines, 1824-1900

http://tinyurl.com/yallf9lu

However I don't believe I have ever come across evidence I found credible. Not that I have looked for any though.

It may be that many of the stories about indigenous 'cannibalism' were fanciful and bear a lot in common with the myths about the dangers of the bush, which some Europeans found very threatening, even alien, it being so unlike what they were used to, even the colours.

What we are afraid of can become the source of myth-making to 'cope'. Blending Aboriginals and Chinese in a horrific, nightmarish tale (where one was eating the other) would also have served the purpose of negatively stereotyping the Chinese who were not well accepted as competitors on the gold fields and were also accused of shipping any gold found back to China.

Hi Joe,

It looks like you and I are somewhat in agreement on this subject. if there was ever to be a treaty it should have been the 'Treaty of Bennelong' signed in 1817 not 2017, So the boat has well and truly sailed on that one. Besides the European, given his track record with indigenous treaties, would never have respected any bloody treaty anyway.

From an Aboriginal point of view, I would see the new country of Aboalia, with its capital city of Namatjira (formally Sydney) consisting of the former Australian states of Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland, minus any crappy bits. along with a few external territories located in parts of what is now the diminished country of Australia, in South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory, good bits only. I would send our ambassador ASAP to the new Australian capital of Oodnadatta to establish diplomatic relations.
Unfortunately our capital, Namatjira, is looking more like the capital of Somalia, Mogadishu, than what it once did, the transformation of Aboalia to a third world state should be complete in about 12 months, we are working on it. That is the reality.

Just a question, what do you suggest I do for a feed, now all the Supermarkets in Aboalia are empty, I took the last can of beans on Wednesday, also none of the electric lights are working, did someone forget to pay the bill, and I couldn't fill my car at the servo, nothing was coming out of the pump. I checked the big tank, but it seems someone forgot to fill it with petrol. Why is that?

To Mansell, Indigenous people face a fundamental question — are they "Australian Aboriginals" or "Aboriginal Australians"?
It is a question I have wrestled with all my life.
I recall as a boy at school in the early 1970's, how uncomfortable I felt reciting the oath: I honour my god, I serve my Queen, I salute the flag.
Australia did not feel like mine — from where my family lived on the margins, clinging to the fringes of town, Australia was for other people.
What would Indigenous people get? Return of lands, compensation, and more control over their affairs.
Opponents maintain that a treaty divides Australia, creates an us-and-them. As former prime minister John Howard used to say, a nation can't have a treaty with itself.
Mansell acknowledges this is a big stumbling block to winning political support. Australians, he says, think "just as immigrants want to be absorbed within Australian society, so too should Aboriginals".
But Mansell resists assimilation. He is wary of efforts to recognise Indigenous people within the constitution, because it accepts that "whites have a right to govern, and Aboriginals a right to be governed".
Mansell sees Australian democracy as one where we all contest power and Indigenous peoples have a voice that protects their unique position and rights.
"If Australia is to be a country of peoples of many backgrounds sharing a vision of living together in peace and prosperity, then a treaty is a mechanism for achieving it," he writes.

Hi Cossomby,

Harvesting already-grown seed is called ' gathering'. It's what hunter-gatherers do, or at least the women do. Pastoralism is not farming, either, it involve pasturing animals across large areas of pasture. Farming involves some form of cultivating the soil: clearing ground, cultivating, planting, weeding, waiting. In foraging societies, people simply respond to what the environment provides, and starving when it doesn't (as happened in almost every environment at times, usually winter and/or very dry conditions, even the most productive). Check out 'First Farmers', by Peter Bellwood.

Re-planting tops of tubers may have been something people on the Cape learnt by diffusion of the technique from the highlands of Papua-New Guinea. After all, Papua-New Guineans have been doing o for maybe thirty thousand years, and had/have much more advanced societies than traditional Indigenous Australians. It probably represents the very beginnings of 'agriculture' - and of course was carried out by women. I have a crack-pot theory that women were the first farmers :)

Interestingly, more than thirty years ago, Annette Hamilton wrote that, in most traditional Aboriginal societies, women provided around 90 % of all food for groups, while the men were involved in their incredibly important deliberations over secret knowledge and ritual: after all, as they saw it, nature/the environment responded to secret knowledge and ritual and song, not to any 'careful management of the environment' which is obviously a Western concept.

Cheers,

Joe

Jayb.
1. Tubers ain't tubers. Harvest a carrot, and you pull out the whole root. Harvest a potato or a daisy yam and you can collect lots of tubers but leave the green plant above and lots of fine roots below. You can encourage more to grow by cultivating around the plants as you harvest them, leaving some tubers there, or planting or scattering loose tubers elsewhere (or in the case of potatoes, sprouting sections of tubers). The point I was making is that it wasn't just about not depleting everything in one spot, but spreading the plant into new spots.

2. Yes, I said that fruit seeding started accidentally, but once you see it happen accidentally, you can help it along, as some of the evidence suggests.

3. Yes, eels do amazing migrations, but not exactly new 'news'.

4. 'They didn't (farm)'. My post listed the things that characterise farming: increased productivity, increased geographic range, genetic selection. These things can be done without the need for neat fenced fields or 'farms'. The first two definitely happened in Australia, the last is unknown but could be studied. So, they didn't farm in the Eurasian way - fenced fields, horse and plough, etc., nor indeed in the tropical slash and burn subsistence farming (though Aboriginal burning had a similar effect), but in a way adapted to the environment in Australia.

5. 'So you are right on that point'. Well, I realise that you are being facetious, but it's good to know that after 50 years research in this and related fields, I can say something that meets your high standards.

Joe

You missed my point. Harvest all the already-grown seed (from the historic descriptions it was thorough) and there won't be enough left to produce another crop. The care taken with seed storage was likely for future sowing as well as consumption. It wasn't just a matter of wandering along and gathering a few seeds, and coming back after the next rains in the hope of finding some again. It was a substantial labour-intensive exercise requiring planning, and quite a few people.

Farming may or may not include not 'clearing ground, cultivating, planting, weeding, waiting'- less intensive techniques may be sufficient. If deliberate techniques were used, and increased productivity, distribution and selected for better varieties, then it's farming.

I omitted another regular observation in early records: burning the grass, basically stubble burning as used today. Last year I toured a wheat farm in NW Victoria whose owner pioneered no-till farming about 15 years ago. The seeding and harvesting is of course a modern mechanised process, but the dramatic benefits of minimal cultivation to the soil and productivity were impressive.

I think this has become a semantic argument, you and others are hung up on the word farming. You note that 'pastoralism' is not 'farming'; you're probably aware that land usage in Australia was much influenced by the belief that crop agriculture was more civilised than pastoralism, leading to many often failed attempts to break up big pastoral stations into small 'yeoman' farms. Some of the comments made here could be lifted from the 19th century. (See Joe Powell's 1973 book 'Yeomen and Bureaucrats').

Whatever words used, the evidence indicates that Aboriginal people used deliberate strategies to improve the soil, increase production, and spread the range of some food plants. (Similarly with eels). These strategies probably increased the human population and led to semi-sedentary behaviours in some places.

Cossomby,

You would still have seen large machinery on the farms you visited. Because 'no till' or 'low till' is about saving diesel by not ploughing all of the ground before planting. Cut a narrow furrow or seed drill - which is what usually happens when planting except that all of the soil have been overturned, mainly to clear of existing vegetation and later weed regrowth by burying it below.

Whether it is better to plow humus in or leave it to rot down, the debate continues and farmers are always trying to produce more with less.

C: "Harvest all the already-grown seed (from the historic descriptions it was thorough) and there won't be enough left to produce another crop"

That is unlikely. Even with highly efficient mechanisation there is still some loss of seed to the ground.

C: "stubble burning"
Wouldn't that defeat the whole idea of retaining humus in the soil? Apart from other problems.

While of indigenous being 'intentional land carers' through burning off bush, what that did was dramatically hasten the encroachment of eucalyptus on rain forest, destroying forever the existing and far more productive and soil retaining rain forest and its flora and fauna.

As for indigenous being able to manage fire to selected postage stamp sized patches (postage stamp where Aus is concerned), exactly what technology, data and manpower did they have that was superior to and should be informing present day management? I am being sarcastic regrettably, but I believe understandably in the circumstances and particularly where the same 'environmental experts' who support indigenous bushfires are adamantly opposed to fire breaks and other management strategies.

I submit that the reason Aborigines used fire was to incapacitate and reveal animals, par-cooked as many would be. It wasn't for any understood land, fauna and flora management.

There is a plenty of sloppy 'science' where government gives grants, jobs and careers that encourage it.

To be blunt, you see what you are intent upon seeing, which is not how science , good science, works.

Dear Jayb,

«Hey! It's them that always go on about reviving their heritage, & that's their heritage. Isn't it.»

Yes, but whether and to what extent they will do so is completely up to them.

Nothing should prevent aboriginals from selecting and hand-picking new customs, technologies and/or people and to do so at their own suitable and convenient pace. After all, this is their land.

---

Dear Doog,

Thank you for your touching comment.

Cossomby, firstly, if you think ants don't climb trees then you obviously haven't much experience with them. No seed stored in trees would be safe from ants, or possums, or Native rats. And I have a problem accepting that kangaroo grass seed could be confined in any type of mesh bag anyway because it is tiny, much smaller than wheat or barley and would just trickle out through the mesh. What platforms in trees were for was bodies. When someone died, in most tribes the body was stored in a tree or on a platform to keep it safe from dingoes whilst the flesh was removed from the bones by ants and the weather. Once clean and dry the bones were generally wrapped in paperbark and put into caves, or crevasses or buried under a mound of rocks. I have a photo of a body platform in the Kimberley, including the body.
As far as the spread of native fruit trees around camp sites, well that's an easy one. Most bush fruit is full of seeds and most got swallowed, then, due to the practise of burying faeces to prevent it getting into the hands of enemies for purposes of sorcery, seeds were buried with the faeces, providing it with instant fertiliser.
Beyond that no care could be given because aboriginal people had enough problems carting and storing water for drinking purposes, certainly they wouldn't be carting water for plants.

Hi Paul,

Yes,a treaty is an agreement between two distinct entities: at Waitangi, those entities were the Chiefs on one side and the British on the other, and they agreed on something very substantial: the transfer of sovereignty to the British in exchange for protection, mostly from each other.

I firmly believe that Indigenous Australians are Australians, and that they have every right to participate in all aspects of Australian life, live where they like and marry who they damn-well like. The great majority of Indigenous people live in our towns and cities, THEIR towns and cities, and they have every right to stay there and build their lives and careers there, regardless of whatever racist directive is ever imposed on them by their 'leaders' in the name of 'recognition'.

Yes, in the very unlikely event of a separate State being created - and with the above proviso - who would go there ? What would its boundaries be that allowed an Indigenous majority to rule over others ? That would mean, no towns, since (unless we count large Aboriginal settlements like Wadeye and Yuendumu) almost all 'large' population centres have non-Indigenous majorities, who surely would have voting rights.

Even trying to identify such boundaries would end up with an entity impossible to govern, even from Wadeye (or somewhere similar, Mutitjulu perhaps) where of course all the elite would move to, to be near Uluru.

I respectfully suggest that such a higgledy-piggledy 'State' would have maybe fifty thousand residents, almost all of whom (except of course the elites - no, even the elites) would have to be supported on welfare, in the station to which they have become accustomed, and to which they are accustoming their children and grandchildren. Which brings us to financing .........

Of course, everybody trapped in this Brand New State can always re-learn the techniques necessary for foraging, to offset the decline in funds from the Canberra money trees :) Perhaps Canberra could fund only standard welfare payments and major cultural-economic re-training activities, and no more: everything else could be funded out of any GST collected.

Hi Doog,

I read today that the annual Indigenous budget was around $ 55 billion. I can't believe it's that much, so I'll stick with only $ 30 billion. Could that be called 'compensation' I wonder how much would be enough annually ?

As for Mansell's jibe about 'assimilation', Indigenous people are currently allowed to live where they like, work where they like and marry who they like. Until they are stopped from doing that, and have their equal rights as Australians diminished accordingly, perhaps by some clause in a Treaty, then I suggest that Indigenous people will continue to do what they damn-well like.

As for Mansell's snide remark about 'the right to be governed', we all have the same rights, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, to participate in 'how we are governed', and yes, we all have the right to be governed by those WE ALL choose to form our governments, which currently include five federal parliamentarians, and Indigenous ministers in five state and territory governments. One certainty is that Indigenous people will never be governed by Michael Mansell.

To repeat yet again: a treaty is an agreement, nothing more. It's not Magic. So what rights and responsibilities can NOT be agreed to already in standard negotiations, to the extent that 'therefore' there must be a need for a treaty ? Farting over pebbles.

But I'm very interested in the idea of a 'Truth and Teconciliation' Commission: I would love to hound it from my web-site: www.firstsources.info - that would be right up my alley :)

Joe

Loudmouth: I respectfully suggest that such a higgledy-piggledy 'State' would have maybe fifty thousand residents, almost all of whom (except of course the elites - no, even the elites) would have to be supported on welfare,

OH no! Once a separate State has been granted (Separate entity from Australia) Then they should receive no assistance from Our Australian Government. That means no welfare. There wouldn't be anything to spend it on anyway as all White Man accoutrements would be removed.

Back to Hunter Gathering & Foraging I'm afraid. After all that's what they keep demanding us to respect their Culture, & that's their Culture. As I said before; no clothes, shoes, housing, blankets, fishing gear, rifles, tinnies, metal knives, Plagons, slabs, money, TV, Phones, Radios, Cars, pushbikes, aircraft or white man religion.

They can dig for Yams, gather seeds & eat the native fruit that Cossey points out they are so good at cultivating. There's plenty of Echidna, Wallaby, Snake, Kangaroo Rat. They wouldn't starve. They could re-enact their old Tribal Laws (Spearing, etc.) All the Cattle, Donkeys, Camels & Wild Pigs would have to be removed, of course. They didn't have those things 200 years ago. Then they would be happy, living in their utopia, eh.

Hi Cossomby,

Evidence of any of that would be nice. Any whatsoever.

Seed-gathering probably always results in some seed dropped, whether it's in foraging societies or by modern harvester: even with grain developed specifically NOT to shed seed, there would be shedding.

The point about those vast fields of kangaroo-grass is two-fold: no matter how you collect any seed, some will always be dropped, or shed; and why bother planting if there is what seems unlimited amounts of it ? Well, three-fold: what evidence is there that people actually planted the seed, no-till or not ? Okay: (4), why bother with a plant which has bugger-all nutrient value ?

Inappropriate farming in areas suited only for pasturing animals: a bit of a red herring, Cossomby. In South Australia, we would be well aware of the push up into the Flinders in the 1860s and 1870s ("within the Goyder Line"), and what a disaster that was.

No-till usually requires SOME till: when you drive past a farm next time, and the poor bloke is going around and around and around his vast block, stop and observe what he's doing. Or of course, ask him, he'll be very glad of the break.

And just because, lo and behold, hunter-gatherers DIDN'T till the soil just like no-till or low-till farmers DIDN'T, doesn't make them farmers.

Firing may have had some other purpose besides 'careful management of the pedological horizon, attention to growing cycles, improvement in the available carbon and enzyme content in the soil and protection of the water table' ('all of which Indigenous people knew about tens of thousands or years ago') - or whatever BS anyone wants to make up, thumb smugly up arse.

Cheers,

Joe

Joe, my husband told me exactly why burning off was done and is still done in some places.
After rains, grass and shrubs grow tall and thick and make hunting of animals like kangaroos difficult. You need a fairly open space to throw a boomerang in. And spearing isn't that easy without a clear shot either.
So a burn off was arranged, sometimes in conjunction with neighbouring tribes, when the grass and bush got to unmanageable condition.
During the fire Men and women would surround the area with clubs and spears ready and kill all the wildlife that came running out. Kangaroos, koalas, goannas, snakes, wombats emus etc.
after the fire, when it had cooled down they went and retrieved all the burnt animals that didn't get out, sort of Stone Age MacDonalds.
Next, after a few weeks, there would be small green shoots coming up all through the burnt area and that would attract insects, like grasshoppers. Once the insects arrived, bush turkey, goanas and small rodents would appear, to eat them. This provided easy targets because the area was clear and the animals easily seen.
Finally, the grass would be tall enough to bring back kangaroos and wallabies and still the area would be clear enough to easily see the prey and to use both spear and boomerang.
One or two years later, repeat the whole process.
Absolutely nothing to do with land management unless you call harvesting animals land management.

The ABC reports that Noel Pearson has again referred to people who don't agree with his version of aboriginal politics as c...ts; black or white, it makes no difference to Noel.

The other big reason for lighting bushfires (well, they weren't controlled burns by any means) was the prevalence of poisonous snakes.

dozens of aboriginal elders have been charged for paedophile over the last week in the Kimberleys. Almost silence from your abc. I suppose the possiblity that Pell committed and offence 40 years ago needs to take precendence over what is going on in front of our noses.

30 accused of child sex abuse
http://www.pressreader.com/australia/the-west-australian/20170603/281578060625597

A mining magnate was a whistleblower in 2011 - Roebourne. Reportedly a group of local indigenous women said they would take him to the Australian Human Rights Commission for a 'racial slur'.

as I said earlier real historical truth telling might not be very pretty.

The Victorian Government will begin talks to work out Australia's first treaty with Indigenous people within weeks.

Aim of Victoria's First Nations Treaty:

Recognition of past injustices
Recognition of all 39 First Nations and their Clans Authority
Recognition of and respect for country, traditions and customs
A futures fund to implement and establish the treaty
Establishment of a democratic treaty commission
Land Rights and Land Acquisition Legislation and Funding
Fresh Water and Sea Water Rights
(From the Victorian Traditional Land Owner Justice Group)
A meeting with First Nations representatives, convened by the State Government earlier this month, firmly rejected Constitutional recognition in favour of self-determination and a treaty.

The treaty would be a legal document over Aboriginal affairs and services and addressing past injustices.

It would be the first such agreement in Australia and follow similar arrangements with First Peoples in Canada, the US and New Zealand.

Victoria's Aboriginal Affairs Minister Natalie Hutchins told Lateline the Government was committed to making it happen.

"At the end of the day it's pretty disappointing that we, in the year 2016, don't have a treaty or a national arrangement with our First Peoples," she said.

Ms Hutchins said Victoria will look at treaty examples in other Commonwealth countries.

"In fact, Canada have been doing it for a long time, New Zealand has successfully done it, so it's time for Australia to step up," she said.

I guess I'm leery of a 'treaty' partly

* because it would be so unnecessary in 2017, since Indigenous Australians have pretty much all the same rights of other Australians, except some tidying up of the Native Title Act, and I don't think that any Australians should have any more rights than any other Australians;

* but mainly because it is so patently open-ended:

- a 'treaty' today (or fruitlessly fought over, over the next decade or more), morphing into demands for

- a separate state next (or in the next ten or twenty years), linking together all of the tiny bits of Indigenous communities across Australia to somehow form a majority-Indigenous entity; and then the Big One,

- a separate country, perhaps linking up with a Grand Indigenous World-State (just trying to help things along).

And all for what ? For the current fifty-odd thousand poor buggers out in the sticks, utterly welfare-dependent, usually skill-less, and waiting for yet more of the Cargo to drop out of the skies, and nobody brave enough to tell them that it won't happen, that they should get off their arses (cf. the current ABC radio ad) and that self-determination means that they do for themselves what others have been doing for them.

Meanwhile, enormous real problems confront Indigenous communities, now, today, that the Magic in the world won't resolve.

If I'm wrong, I'd love to know where and why :)

Joe

Hi Doog,

So back we come to Square One, not an unusual outcome in Indigenous affairs. As I suggested in the first post,

"So what do people think should be in OUR Treaty ? Can I propose a succinct, one-clause statement:

* That the equal rights of all people in Australia are hereby reaffirmed."

What more will the Victorian Agreement do, really, when all the rhetoric is boiled down ?

Joe

The Victorian Government would be far better off signing a treaty with the Sudanese gangs that are car jacking, home invading and raping at a very high rate in Melbourne.

If they are going to divide the nation by race you would think they would have the decency to put it to the people.

But there will be magic.

-For the elites, black and white, that have been and will continue to do very well out of those billions of dollars of gold that spill from the trough of taxpayers money.

The real magic will be in getting the VIP aircraft. - OK so new Cessna Delani, seating four very comfortably if women and children walk, would be the minimum, to go with those chauffeur driven aircon limos.

The ACT voted against government but they got it anyhow and thankfully since then the political classes and their hangers-on have done well. Maybe model the entitlements on them plus the aircraft and extra international travelling allowances, heh?

It is important first-up to get the agreement on what the elites are going to get out of it, yes? Oh, and don't be forgetting those Cessnas with special lockers for outlandish possum skin coats for those ceremonial occasions when white & black F*Bleep*ing C*bleeps* need a reminder of who's boss cocky now.

What about this?
30 accused of child sex abuse
http://www.pressreader.com/australia/the-west-australian/20170603/281578060625597

Racism, obviously. Now, all up for the Courgette Restaurant nosh-up tonight? Taxpayer not going but paying of course.

leoj,

Just read the link, unbelievable; we all know that these sorts of things don't happen in Australia, particularly among the Indigenous.

I'd put it all down to a media beat-up; of course, I might be wrong.

There is no precedent for this sort of thing, is there?

Seems to be a few pages on the subject on Wikipedia, obviously all biased??

Is Mise,

Your heart goes out to those women. They are constantly extending themselves to protect their children, while being shamed by the circumstances they find themselves in and by the SOBs who would beat the living daylights out of them for getting in their way, or for lifting the black curtain.

Not a priority for the 'Progressives' though. There are those on OLO who would make every excuse and try to shift the blame.

'Your heart goes out to those women'
true leoj however given the abc response you can see they care little. Imagine it was 30 Catholic Priests.

The women may think they are protecting the girls but in reality their actions do little.
I have lived in a community and I have grandchildren currently living in communities. The most common protective gesture is teaching girls to wear several layers of clothes, especially bottom half.
A little girl will wear a pair of knickers, covered by cycle shorts, covered by leggings or jeans or floppy shorts. The girls don't know why, it's just always been told to them.
Some mothers do put a lock on a door but that's a worry in case of fire when the women are gone playIng cards all night.
What the women don't do is report the men. Neither do many of the girls report what is happening because the first time they tried it they got slapped for speaking up or got told to learn to live with it, it's normal.
You can't even raise the issue in public sessions because the aboriginal people who hate that this happens also are terrified they are going to be labelled the same so all they want to do is bury the information.
Small efforts to make change will not work. We need a " rip the bandaide off quickly" approach. Communities should have been included in the recent Royal Commission.

Anyway: What should be in our (note the all-inclusive use of 'our') Treaty ?

Since it is proposed to be a Treaty for all of us, if anybody DOES think there ought to be one, then what should be some of the clauses that we all agree to ?

None at all ? This seems to be the preferred option of the people promoting it. So, they want a blank piece of paper, but at least it'll be a Magic Bit of Paper. What do YOU want, if anything ?

Personally, I don't think one is remotely necessary. But the dreadful and life-threatening problems afflicting Indigenous communities DO need urgent attention, now.

Jo

Hi Big Nana,

I always learn so much from your posts :)

In my very limited experience, in what were really very small communities, especially down here in the south, those populations are cut off from the outside society as if they're in a different world. of course, they go shopping or to the pubs in local towns, but for social life, the community may be all they have, and all they ever will have. Even sporting activities for young people are not possible for that reason.

So to fall out with it, or be cast out from it, can be very literally life-determining. Say something to a foreigner/stranger/enemy, is to commit a horrific crime, even if, say, a girl has been raped, by a community bloke - well, especially if they have been raped by a community bloke.

Why ? Because not only are they drawing attention to something vile and dreadful to an outsider but they are accusing one of the families, in communities in which there seem to always be two blocs of allied and closely related families. So such an accusation is an accusation against maybe half the community - and usually the most dominant half of the community. So the girl has only one option, as she sees it: suicide.

So, dear reader, when you hear of a young girl (or boy, for that matter)who has suicided, 90 % of the time you can conclude that she/he has been raped.

I'm not sure how a Treaty would fix that.

Thanks, Big nana, you're a beacon of truth and experience in a sea of BS.

Cheers,

Joe

"Thanks, Big nana, you're a beacon of truth and experience in a sea of BS"

+1 to that!

You have both added to my understanding and convinced me how little I do know. Thanks.

Q: What should be in the Treaty?
A: Equality for all.

Dear Joe,

The following link may be of interest to you:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-08/stolen-generations-oldest-surviving-member-harry-bennett/8598856

Hi Foxy,

Have you read the post yourself ? That Harry Bennett could have been killed by his mother or grandmother at birth ? That his mother was obviously unable to look after him (how DOES any young single mother care for kids if there are no benefits, as there weren't back in 1917).

So he was taken into care. What's your point ?

I was daydreaming this morning, staying in bed as long as possible in Adelaide's 3 degrees, and suddenly realised (as you do) that Rudd's Apology - before a single 'Stolen Generation' case had ever been determined - actually signified that many people think that not a single Indigenous child should have ever been taken into care, no matter what the circumstances. Neglect ? Didn't matter. Abandonment ? Didn't matter. Single parent, i.e. mother, died ? Didn't matter. Let them die.

And so it should be , many seem to think, with any Indigenous kids who are neglected, abandoned or abused. Let 'em die.

So Harry Bennett survived. Who should he be thanking ?

Joe

Joe (Loudmouth),

I thought that this information would be of interest
to you from someone who's actually part of the
Stolen Generations and remembers things rather well.
You always ask for evidence. Well here's living proof
in the form of Mr Bennett who's reached 100.

His mother had him despite the existing laws of that
time, despite the advice she'd been given. Despite the
obstacles she undoubtedly had to overcome. And as Mr
Bennett relates - mothers were forced to protect
their children from the police troops looking
for Aboriginal children of mixed descent by hiding
them in the loose sands. Mr Bennett survived until he was 4
under his mother's care. Then he was taken from her
and never saw her again.

You make the assumption that Mr Bennett's mother
could not take care of her son as a single mother.

Well she seemed to have
done all right for the first four years of Mr Bennett's
life.

And when they did take her son from her Mr Bennett
clearly remembers how his mum hung onto that truck and
how she was dragged for quite a few miles in the dirt
until she couldn't hold on anymore. The entire time she
was wailing and screaming for her child.

You ask what's my point?

It should be obvious.

You always want "evidence" (just one example of a Stolen Generation
member - you said previously).
I thought that surely living proof would do it for you.

Apparently I was wrong.

Foxy, "The following link may be of interest.."

...of interest as a red herring to draw discussion away from this, that was being discussed,

"30 accused of child sex abuse"
http://www.pressreader.com/australia/the-west-australian/20170603/281578060625597

Foxy,

Yes, it all should be in his file. Do you know anything at all about single others ? And why do you believe every yarn that you hear ? Evidence is more than yarns. Let's see his file.

And please don't 'explain' that there isn't one: of course there would be, and in any case, if not, how do you know anything except the yarns ? Not good enough.

Joe

Joe (Loudmouth),

We've covered all of this in past discussions
giving you names, links and so on. None were
acceptable to you so I won't re-hash it all here.
I thought that this time however when you have
media focus on this 100 year old Stolen Generations
survivor who recalls his own experiences you may
just accept the man's word for what happened to
him.

You asked me why do I accept "yarns?"

Well "yarns" as you call them go far back in the
reaches of time. They are part of our oral tradition.
As man, in whatever habitat, developed the art of
speech, he began to explore his environment and to
penetrate beyond the immediately observable in an
attempt to give meaning to life.

These "yarns" include a vast multitude of narratives
which have their origin in an oral tradition,
were handed down and ultimately transferred to stone, or
clay, parchment, papyrus, or paper. They came from
every settled spot on earth at the dawn of man's imagination.
They are timeless and universal and therefore a fit
heritage for us all.

Taken all together, they offer, in their oft-repeated
and constantly varying examination of human vicissitudes,
a general explanation of life.

People believe in the Bible and other Holy
Books - Which also could qualify as "yarns."
Others need "evidence" before they believe.

Each to their own

Foxy,

It has been explained to you and ors many times before that memory is nothing like a tape recorder. What happens each time something is 'recalled' is that it is reconstructed. Bluntly, what was 'seen' or 'experienced' at the time was interpreted through the senses and experience (incl values for example) of the receiver. Over years, what happens to us overlays and redefines what is 'stored'.

That is what happened to Hilary Clinton where she 'remembered' a version of a dangerous landing and reception in Europe and related it in detail as such. But news videos became immediately available that proved to her obvious shock and utter disbelief that her clear and faultless memory (of that event anyhow) as entirely wrong, the opposite of what happened. Hers was a normal human failing, a natural flaw where the brain reconstructs history. Remember too that Hilary is intelligent and a highly trained lawyer and should be far better at accessing 'memory'.

What is 'remembered' may bear little relationship to what happened at the time. Where there were traumatic events, such as rejection and problems in families, the accounts of children especially who had fragile, developing egos to protect would need corroboration.

However, where there are exact documents from the time and easily available, for what possible reason would you and activists be so determined to deny their existence and reject them out of hand? Journalists are slovenly where they do not refer to and prefer documentary evidence that is available, if only they might heave their spreading rear end down to the public desk and ask.

I suppose I could have added the obvious, that activists (religious fundamentalists like Islam too) go to great pains to school children in their particular view of history, and are always out to create false memories by repeating their narrative and mantras over and over.

Even where messages are obviously false and are countered by facts, the activists' propaganda is still successful because the target remembers the was some 'problem' or 'truth' or 'something'.

So, trumpet 'Stolen Generations' often, and the taxpayer-funded national broadcaster has been most obliging in that respect and has provided many, many forums and mentions by 'authoritative' figures (such as the smug Jones on Q&A) and there WILL be many coming forward who earnestly believe that they were 'Stolen' or their rellies were or thousands of others were. The ABC has talking heads in sinecures all paid for by the taxpayer, who have specialised in spruiking 'anti-' messages for decades. They even teach it in (Play)school.

The fact-making ABC has plenty to answer for. Come to think of it, if one tireless researcher who posts to OLO can find 'first sources' information for South Australia, where the bloody hell were all of those very well paid 'fact-finding'(what a joke!) ABC celebrity journalists? Yeah I know, leftist whinging is easier. It is fact-free for a start.

Foxy,

Surely you're not that stupid. As Leoj points out, oral memory is extremely faulty. I'm not sure what a four-year-old would remember accurately 96 years later, but I can't remember anything at all before I was about seven, and a lot of that, between say seven and twelve, was probably reconstructed much later.

Rumours are not evidence. Hearsay is not evidence on its own. Yarns are not evidence. Grievances are not evidence. Stories are not evidence on their own. Fairy tales are not evidence. Bar-fly accounts may not be evidence.

Files may be pretty solid evidence. Correspondence may provide a backing for evidence. Records from hospitals, police, schools, social workers, etc. may provide pretty solid evidence, even after a century. It will be there. Put it all together and you might have a case. Somebody has to have the integrity and the courage to look for it.

He's a nice-looking old fella, but he does look to me like what they used to call a 'quarter-caste', i.e. his mother was what they called a 'half-caste', probably cast out from the local patriarchal society, a prey to every man in all the local groups, so probably staying around Tennant Creek. Living and working in Tennant Creek. Where there would have been extremely few work opportunities for young 'half-caste' women, except the obvious. A hundred years ago. No single-mother benefits back in 1917-1921, not until 1971, when - lo ! - the 'Stolen Generation' ceased.

And his mother could have married that white bloke: that wasn't illegal - what was frowned upon was 'consorting', casual liaisons, as they were called politely. I was accused of 'consorting' in the early sixties, I wasn't actually, just good friends, and anyway it was legal by then.

Try to think issues through, Foxy, don't believe every sob-story you hear.

Joe

Joe (Loudmouth),

I've been described as a lot of things - but "stupid"
has not been one of them - until now.

Hi Foxy,

Surely you would be aware that memory, oral recollection, is - as Leoj points out beautifully - not particularly reliable. Haven't you ever had disputes with siblings, etc., about something that you or they were SURE had happened and in a certain way, only for them to disagree ? Surely you, like the rest of us, have embroidered stories from the past, only to find independently that the realities were somewhat different ? We all do it.

Imagine this going before a court: any judge would suggest that oral testimony, based on memory , is nowhere near enough as far as evidence goes. IF it is backed up by some independent evidence, say written records, and especially evidence from different and independent sources, then maybe the whole package could constitute evidence. But not oral memory on its own.

We've surely witnessed how difficult this is in the cases of Rolf Harris and Bill Cosby ? Yeah, I think those bastards are guilty as hell, BUT I'm not the judge, and emotion very much creeps in there, a sense of betrayal of their public images by a couple of sleaze-bags.

But I think I'm wasting my time.

Joe

Joe (Loudmouth),

On 26 May 1997 the landmark "Bringing Them Home"
Report was tabled in Federal Parliament. The Report
was the result of a national inquiry that investigated
the forced removal of Aboriginal children from
their families.

The Report was a vital step in the healing journey of
many Stolen Generation members. It was the first time
their stories were publicly acknowledged.

It was also the first time it was formally reported
that what governments did to these children
was inhumane and the impact has been life-long.

A 1994 survey by the Australian Bureau of Statistics
stated that one in every ten (10%) Aboriginal people
aged over 25 had been removed from their families in
childhood. A figure which seems to be confirmed by
research since the "Bringing Them Home Report."
Australian numbers are in the tens of thousands.

I suggest that you try to get hold of that Report.

It just may clarify things for you.

Although I suspect I am wasting my time.

Foxy,

Do you understand what self-reporting is? How did the ABS get its data?

That inquiry, how did it get its data? Did anyone ever cross-check with the damned reliable government records?

If not, why not? -Since it must have been obvious that the records exist.

Questions that anyone who is at all interested in balance, make that the facts, would be demanding answers to.

Hi Foxy,

The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission was given specific terms of reference by the Attorney General to thoroughly investigate all the relevant material and I quote "past laws, practices and policies which resulted in the separation of Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander children from their families by compulsion, duress or undue influence, and the effects of those laws, practices and policies;"

It was not a speculative fishing expedition, as some try to suggest, but a properly conducted inquiry. If the findings had suited the mind set of the "deniers" they would have accepted it with gusto, but since it did not go their way, they now try to denigrate it as nothing but useless nonsense.

On this thread Joe and Leo, using the words of Leo, its unacceptable "self-reporting". Yet on the Andrew Bolt thread the same pair were quick to accept, without evidence, Bolt's self-reporting of his so called assault by in Bolts words "left wing Fascists". Maybe they only accept self-reporting, which btw was not the only basis for the report, when it suits their mind set on the particular issue.

Dear Paul,

There's not much more to say.

We know that few records of stolen children were kept,
that some were deliberately destroyed or lost.
That some administrators tried to tout their
"successful assimilation" of Aboriginal people by
deliberately understating the Aboriginal children's
numbers thus distorting data.

Between 1883 and 1969
we're told that more than 6,200 children were stolen
in NSW alone.

I'll repeat again that the 1994 survey by the ABS
stated that one in every ten (10%) Aboriginal people
aged over 25 had been removed from their families
in childhood. This figure which
seems to be confirmed by research since the "Bringing Them
Home" Report.
Australia wide numbers are in the tens of thousands.

Anyway, I have no wish to argue any further.
There's no point. Before I go I shall leave on a more
positive note by giving you the link of a speech that
the famous journalist Jeff McMullen made.
It lifted my spirits - hopefully it will do the same
for yours. It's worth a read:

http://newmatilda.com/2017/06/04/after-mabo-koikis-vision-for-a-new-great-society/

Foxy,

Need I ever wonder again how hack journalists ever got away with that 'null hypothesis' tripe.

The reason why there are no records of pixies at the bottom of pixy claimants' gardens is that pixies don't exist. Honestly now, how does one keep records of nothing?

However, there is overwhelming evidence that my Victorian friend's garden gnome deters those panthers that are claimed to be roaming the countryside. We have waited for hours with chicks, drinks and tasty ribs and no panthers crept onto his property. But panthers released by those departing WW2 Yank troops do prowl the countryside 'they' say and the meeja gleefully report. If it is in the meeja it IS fact, right?

Honestly Foxy, you and Paul1405 may need kind volunteers to assist you outside of your abode.

The leftists earn their reputation as dogged opponents of science!

Foxy,

Yes, I read that 'Report' when it came out, twenty years ago. I noticed that not a single case was tested in any court, nor was any evidence ever presented. Some of the stories were incredibly heart-rending, beautifully composed, almost believable. Pity about the lack of any back-up evidence.

But feel free to believe in whatever you like without evidence: I suppose we all need some sort of fairyland belief, like the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy. They provide some enduring illusory consolation.

Keep believing without evidence, Foxy, and only through your faith in the Conventional Narrative. That sort of unquestioning belief has kept many religious people going for thousands of years, so why not you ?

Joe

Hi Paul,

There would be copious files on very single child ever taken into care anywhere in Australia. I look forward to their presentation in court. Lordy, am I what ?

As far as I know, there were many witnesses to what happened to Bolt. Of course, in due course we may see the video of it all. Some people may have been familiar with the turds who tried to intimidate him. I hope they are still hobbling :)

Joe

Joe (Loudmouth),

What a disappointment you turned out to be.

Dearest Foxy,

Well, I suppose we differ over the importance of evidence over belief. I can sympathise with people who believe fervently in something without any evidence - after all, I was raised in a communist household which refused to believe anything bad about Stalin until I was, maybe, thirty. Since then, I've been very wary of any ideology which didn't promote two things:

* have the interests of 'ordinary' people genuinely at its heart;

and

* build its strength on reality, evidence, some sort of empirical backing.

Yes, it gets a bit lonely NOT believing if you can't find quite enough evidence, but at least one can maintain some skerrick of integrity. And of course, it forces you to keep learning. And you discover many surprises :)

Keep learning, dear Foxy. Don't believe every sob-story you hear.

Love,

Joe

While they make their ignorance and hatred of science obvious, leftists are not always naive Polyannas.

Nor are leftists 'do gooders', although they find false pride and convenience in that camouflage, dumping on others from their elevated moral platforms.

Leftists adhere to their self-loathing and hatred of 'whites' (who arguably have the most diverse and complex cultural inheritance of all), and particularly those dear settlers who came from the UK and brought their traditions of freedom of speech, democracy and tolerance with them. Of course it is also a greasy, cringing, grovelling and deference to anything foreign, which by definition, even totalitarian women hating Islam, is always better than the society and even their own selves that they despise.

Philip Adams and ors have lived very comfortably for years off leftists' self-hatred, recycling the same tired and always wrong (but who cares?) 'dissing' of Australia and Australians.

So, trying to convince leftists to at least stop and think, is asking them to review their image of themselves and world values. Impossible!

But what is very nasty about leftists is their unrelenting challenges to science. By research grants to 'research', sloppy science, that from the outset has the findings already written. Feminist 'research discounts and finally ignores evidence that men too might be affected somehow. Indigenous research? Hey, too easy, just have an 'inquiry' by the publicly funded, semi-autonomous and unaccountable body that has the most to gain from perpetual victimhood. Best that by preferring victim statements from people already conditioned to believe they are disempowered, when the evidence for both may be the opposite.

Cock a leg on science is the pastime of the self-appointed experts who strut the public stage and where the ABC is concerned, are applauded (just get the right audience, young Hipsters from inner 'burbs), cosseted and paid for it. Some have been on the public payroll for their entire 'working' careers.

Hi Leoj,

You mention Indigenous 'research'. It's a strange beast, Indigenous 'research'. and very many Indigenous staff at universities are devoting themselves, neglecting their actual duties, throughout their entire careers, once they get a whiff of potential fame, with very few results to date.

It seems to be very different from what people assume is 'research': usually that works something like this:

* a person reads widely around a topic;

* then puts forward a hypothesis, a new idea backed by and coming out of existing findings;

* since the essence of research is to be able to put up something original and rebut any major objections and counter anybody trying to point out defects in the hypothesis, somewhere where the hypothesis falls down or is completely refuted by somebody else - a rigorous research design has to be proposed, using a wide range of statistical techniques, to strengthen the hypothesis and to rebut objections - this is the extremely difficult part, which takes up most of the time spent on the research;

* further relevant reading of all the latest findings on the topic, a process which lasts for the duration;

* enough defensive back-up to be able to rebut any objections by members of an examination committee - which is, after all, their role.

Indigenous 'research' doesn't work like this: it is much more like that 'research' done during the Middle Ages by priests, putting forward an hypothesis and then looking for anything which confirms it, ignoring anything which doesn't. Indigenous 'research' is confirmatory, it avoids having to rebut anything.

Of course, any researcher would immediately recognise that this is not 'research' as such, but merely the first step in the process: identifying an hypothesis. The big work comes later, year after year, rebuttal after rebuttal of all objections.

Indigenous 'researchers' eschew what they call 'non-Indigenous research", with its pesky methodology and stats. I haven't come across such a researcher who can understand stats, or even read a spread sheet - these are, after all, so 'white' and therefore bad. So it goes, interminably, worthlessly.

Joe

It's the values of the far right that incites such criticism. Abbott was a perfect example of a person that far to the right he was encroaching on communism.
The far right have been getting the boot around the world and now they are after Trump. See how the english election went they were after a bigger majority, same as our DD election.
SO TTBN it is you are to blame.

Joe (Loudmouth),

Talking about research, learning and integrity...

A person has to do the full research and not simply
accept what suits one's ideologies or political
agenda:

http://www.themonthly.com.au/nation-reviewed-robert-manne-comment-keith-windschuttle-2256

Foxy,

Would that be this man (Manne)?

http://quadrant.org.au/opinion/michael-connor/2009/03/left-s-war-on-books/

<Robert Manne’s “Hogwash”

Left academics are ideologues first and second, and scholars third.

Left academics are ideologues first and second, and scholars third.

In 2004, John Dawson published Washout: the academic response to The Fabrication of Aboriginal History (Macleay Press).

Dawson examined Whitewash (Black Inc.) – a book edited by Robert Manne which presented a collection of self-interested essays defending academic historians whose work had been criticised by Keith Windschuttle.

Washout is an important book.

Dawson compares the claims by Windschuttle and the responses of the academics. He does so fairly. His approach is clear and interesting. He quotes both sides and suggests who is right. In the Left controlled literary journals, the Left controlled universities and in books from the Left publishing houses he has been ridiculed and misrepresented.

A campaign of denigration was waged to make Washout disappear. It began with unfair book reviews.

Washout was dealt with in the Left’s Australian Book Review in May 2005. The review was destructive and incompetent and completely biased against Washout yet it was highlighted by the journal’s editor. On the front cover its title was given a dramatic and eye-catching presentation in large, bright yellow letters – the reviewer surely not unaware how that colour had been so usefully employed by anti-semites in Hitler’s Germany. It was a single yellow word spelt out in bold capital letters against a rich, red background – “HOGWASH”.

The review of Washout, a book critical of Robert Manne, was written by – Robert Manne. In 1600 words he ridiculed and denigrated an honest book.

The Australian Book Review is a weapon of the Left used to attack books critical of the old historians by passing them for review either to the academics themselves or their friendly colleagues.

The cover of the following edition of the Australian Book Review (June-July 2005) was more friendly. This time it was used to publicise a book and puff its author with a review by Barry Hill. The book was by – Robert Manne.>

Foxy,

Robert Manne's stuff was garbage, assertions, nothing which was worth a damn.

On the other hand, I was massively impressed with Windschuttle's easy rebuttal of Manne's tripe - in fact, I'm impressed by everything that Windschuttle has ever written. Ever. Everything. He digs and digs and finds evidence. Unlike Manne, he doesn't rely on second- and third-hand stuff, he does his own digging.

Perhaps you can find reasons for disagreeing ?

Dear Foxy, please don't send us infantile files of stuff that most of us have seen before and dismissed: don't treat us like bloody children in Grade 2, in our first Ab. Studies class, learning about how all-powerful and all-evil our ancestors were.

Joe

Joe (Loudmouth),

Right. Message received!

So much for research, learning, and integrity.

You only want to read what agrees with your
ideologies.

Got it!

Foxy, pot kettle

Joe (Loudmouth),

You said - "pot, kettle?"

That's the skunk calling the rose stinky. ;-)

The pot is sooty (being placed on a fire) while the
kettle is clean and shiny (being placed on coals only)
and hence the accusation of the kettle being black - its
the pot's own sooty reflection that it sees - the pot
accuses the kettle of a fault that only the pot has rather
than one that they share.

leoj,

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=3320

Pot/kettle?

The problem is that government policy is being advised by shonky research. That is not new of course, after the decades of sloppy feminist 'research' that is still being used to justify well paid careers and more grants from the trough of taxpayers money.

Everyone is wised up to it. It is all bluff and the house could come tumbling down at any minute. There are $billions at stake.

Hence the extreme defensiveness and rush to claim perpetual victimhood and those Gold Life Passes on the guvvy gravy train.

leoj,

As Joe would insist - evidence please.

Where is your evidence for such claims.

Where do you get your information from?

Thanks, Foxy :)

Oh well, back to topic:

Above, Doog touted more land for Indigenous groups. My dear wife came from a community which has twelve thousand acres of beautiful land, bits (like most farms) that aren't that useful or workable, but some areas with topsoil a metre deep (it's right on Lake Alexandrina, after all). What are the people there doing with it ? Vegetable gardens ? NO. Dairy farms ? NO. Chook farms, pigs, orchards, fish farms ? NO. What then ?

200 head of cattle. One person could run that. As well as his own private herd, down in the back paddocks. Not that I'm asserting that's being done.

We lived in another community up the Murray which controlled about eight thousand acres. Unlimited water licence. No rates (it's Aboriginal land, which can't be sold, therefore can't berated). Owned, not being paid off, like most farms. A government-funded employment scheme. So what are they doing with it ? Any of it ? Even one acre ?

Nothing.

So tell me about giving people more land back. Would I ever march again for 'Land Rights' ? Maybe not. Put it in a Referendum ? Not bloody likely.

It may not seem like it, but I'm dedicated totally to the Indigenous Cause. We made Flags for that purpose back in the seventies, and I'm proud of it. But I'll never defend lies, fabrications, mis-truths, rumours, or empty claims, not for a minute. Give me something genuine and solid, and I'll be there. And there are a hell of a lot of people like me, people who want desperately to contribute, but are sick of the corruption, lies and bullsh!t.

Joe

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

Well now you've done it.

You've gone and melted my heart.

I want to give you a big hug!

Any time, Foxy dear :) When's your husband away ?

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

My husband understands the fact that I
am very tactile, especially with people
who I feel could use and need a hug.
I do that all the time in the Dementia
Wing of the Nursing Home in which I work
as a part-time volunteer.

Hu Joe,

Please don't take this as an insult, if what you say is true, and I don't have any reason to doubt it << We made Flags for that purpose back in the seventies, and I'm proud of it.>>

What is it that has turned you 180 degrees, and made you so cynical and often so negative towards Aboriginal people. I understand this bit;
<< But I'll never defend lies, fabrications, mis-truths, rumours, or empty claims, not for a minute. Give me something genuine and solid, and I'll be there>>

I too agree there is some of the former, lies greed etc within the complexity that is Aboriginal Australia, but on the other hand there is much of the latter, the genuine efforts of some. While there is every reason to rile against the wrongs. there is no reason to be totally negative towards the positive as well.

Hi Paul,

It's called experience. Ask Big Nana :)

I don't understand your comment about being cynical. What is cynical about not wanting to defend lies, fabrications, etc. ? Why should one do that ? I would have thought that a cynic, or a person without principles, would defend whatever passes for 'the Indigenous Cause' which included lies, fabrications, etc.?

And I DID write: " ..... Give me something genuine and solid, and I'll be there." What's so wrong about that ?

I'll repeat, for your benefit, look at it closely and compare your own stance:

".... I'll never defend lies, fabrications, mis-truths, rumours, or empty claims, not for a minute. Give me something genuine and solid, and I'll be there."

I don't know what you're referring to with this: " .... there is no reason to be totally negative towards the positive as well."

How can you have anything positive which is based on lies, fabrications, etc.? [See above] I'll certainly be bloody negative about any lies, fabrications, etc. that I come across - what the hell good do they do to the Indigenous Cause ? How on earth can lies help a just cause ? I'll always be positive about the truth as it benefits Indigenous people, such as the forty thousand Indigenous university graduates, and the likelihood that there could be a hundred thousand, one in every four adults, by 2030. I look forward to reading 'positive' comments about that from both the 'Left' and the Indigenous 'leaders, at some distant time in the future.

Paul, I'm getting older every year, like all of us: that 'Cause' better lift its game soon, otherwise when I hit eighty, I'm retiring.

Joe

Dear Foxy,

Oral stories can fascinate: There are quite a few genealogies relating to Ngarrindjeri families from Pt McLeay on lake Alexandrina, and one, the Wilson Genealogy put together by the late Doreen Kartinyeri, describes the patriarch of the family, John Sewsty Wilson, as 'possibly a Russian-Finn.'

This has had me baffled for many years, since, from other sources, it's clear that he was born on Kangaroo island to an Aboriginal mother, possibly from Cape Jervis, in about 1848. Where did this story come from ?

I've just been skimming through a book of early reminiscences written by a bloke called Cawthorne, in the late 1860s. He writes about a shipwreck off Hog Bay (now Penneshaw), in late winter 1860. At Hog Bay, a white bloke named Wilkins had married an Aboriginal woman named Munarto (also later known as Nell), from around the southern Adelaide Plains, perhaps Yankalilla, who had been given a lease of land at Hog Bay (many people still live there with distant Aboriginal ancestry). The Wilkinses had about ten kids. [Stay with me ! ]

Wilkins went out to rescue the crew of the shipwreck. The captain had drowned, but Wilkins rescued the remaining crew members, got pneumonia and died. The wife couldn't look after the land, so came to an arrangement to pass the lease back in exchange for annual payments, amounting to about a third of an annual wage each year. Those payments were still going in 1870.

One of the daughters, Eliza, born about 1854, married Sewsty Wilson.

That's it.

Oh, by the way, the captain of the shipwreck was a Russian-Finn.

So ........ how does the Russian-Finn captain of a ship get confused with an Aboriginal bloke born just a few years before on Kangaroo Island ?

I'm still trying to join the dots on that one. Perhaps later oral accounts first lumped the captain with Wilkins, then instead of the 'Russian-Finn Wilkins' being Eliza's father, he got flipped to being Sewsty's father ? Ergo, both his father and he were Russian-Finns. QED.

Nope, still working on it.

Love,

Joe

[Continued]

People at Pt McLeay won't read the Journals of the missionary there (1859-1879), George Taplin. Why not ? Because he said some terrible things about a woman there, he was a total bastard to her.

Not in his Journal he didn't: he brought her over the Lake with two little kids in 1876, after she had been abandoned by the white fella who had fathered the kids. She then cared for a northern bloke who was dying of throat cancer. Taplin reported how she made the dying man the 'most beautiful little cakes' which he threw on the floor. I think Taplin was a bit sweet on her. After the sick man died, Taplin married the woman and a bloke from Western Australia who had also been looking after the sick man. Taplin put on a wedding reception in his own house, the only time he did so. Then, three years later, Taplin died there, probably in the same room.

So why the oral story ? Okay. Twenty years later, in 1896, a different Superintendent, Thomas Sutton, chided the woman for shagging around with another bloke while her husband was out working and at church and busy looking after their six kids. Sutton warned the pair, but they took off into Adelaide for three days, staying at West's Coffee Palace. When they returned, Sutton gave her a last warning, so the pair shot through to Goolwa and stayed there for the next thirty years, leaving the husband with many young kids. End of story.

In oral accounts, time gets conflated; different 'bastards' are confused, uncomfortable details get left out, favourable but fabricated details - 'honest' fabrications - get put in. A good oral story can change hugely every decade. Thank god for written records.

Joe

What does SCIENCE - that the forum's leftist 'Progressives' (Regressives) are threatened by and constantly reject - say about memory?

How reliable is your memory?
TEDGlobal 2013
http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_loftus_the_fiction_of_memory
"Psychologist Elizabeth Loftus studies memories. More precisely, she studies false memories, when people either remember things that didn't happen or remember them differently from the way they really were. It's more common than you might think, and Loftus shares some startling stories and statistics — and raises some important ethical questions."

- Posted as a service to the many OLO readers with open minds and who want to learn.

Of no use whatsoever to the 'Useful Idiots', the clowns who are always prepared to suspend their own critical faculties and allow others to lead them, who find thinking hard and uncomfortable and 'dangerous', lest it cause some shaking up of their 'politics' (such as they understand politics!).

On another occasion, in about 1842, the SA Protector of Aborigines was informed that there had been a massacre of about thirty Aboriginal people near Burra. As a coroner, off he goes to investigate. By the time he gets to Clare, the number is down to eight. By the time he gets to Burra, it's down to four. He examines the area and finds the site of a couple of shallow graves, and finds a man and a woman had been killed, the man by a sabre cut, the woman by musket shot. The killer is arrested around where Port Pirie is now and tried.

On balance, it appears that the number of Indigenous people and non-Indigenous people killed in this way, 'massacres', was about equal, right up until the 1860s. An entire family as wiped out near Port Lincoln, and five Aboriginal men were killed in the skirmishes that followed.

Rumour exaggerates. That's what it does. And it's so easy to invent one. Probably great fun. But it doesn't make very good history. I suppose it depends what you are searching for, truth or story.

Joe

Hi Joe,

When I said you were cynical, your experience seems to cover, as far I can tell, The 5% of Indigenous who are South Australian's and from that you extrapolate to cover the other 95%.
You said <<Give me something genuine and solid, and I'll be there." What's so wrong about that?>> Nothing, but how often do you accentuate the positive and mitigate the negatives in relation to Indigenous. In your last post is there any possible fiction and/or rumor regarding the white account of those events? You accept it all at face value, as fact, do you not.

Hi Paul,

Well, yes, we each live in one place, more or less, so how can anyone ever understand the 99.9999 % of the world that we're not in ? Quite logical, really. But obviously rubbish. We read papers, we watch the news, we vicariously experience what we see or hear that other people experience. What's your point ?

I don't know much even about most of South Australia. But like you, I have a bit of a grasp of what's happening in the entire world. So again, what's your point ?

As for accentuating the positive, I'll always try to do that, when it arises. But surely, hand in hand with that, we take note of the negatives. We critique what we think is bullsh!t. We examine and dismiss what we think are lies or false information, or incompetence. What mug would suck all the rubbish in and believe it ?

I'm happy to trumpet how Indigenous people are conquering the heights of tertiary education, in ever-growing numbers, and usually on their own. Let me know when you ever see an article, or hear anybody, even mention success at universities, people who ought to. And no, it's not just a few - perhaps half of all urban Indigenous people will, at some time, go to university, two-thirds of all women. Indigenous women are the unsung champions. That sounds pretty 'positive' to me.

What the other half do is up to them - it's called 'self-determination'.

Right: back to topic. What should be a Treaty, a Treaty for all of us ?

Joe

Hi Joe,

I understand what you say, and I understand where you are coming from.

'Stereotyping' is one of the dangers, I'm not making this little story up. Yesterday afternoon my partner and I caught the public bus from the city with a our mate, the old bloke I've mentioned before, who does the clap sticks with the boys, down at the quay entertaining the tourists for a few bob. My partner got on first, tapped her opal card (fare), then me, our mate was a bit slow getting on, then had trouble finding his opal card, fumbling around, the drive in a snarly voice said "just sit down" our mate came back "I pay my fare" he then found his card and tapped on. He came and sat with us said "I always pay my fare, don't that fella know that!" If that had been me, would the driver have spoken to me in that tone, I think not. The facts are 80% or 90% of Aboriginals blokes catching the bus don't pay their fare, our mate always does. But the driver might have simply taken the narrow view, others like you don't pay, you don't need to bother either. Stereotyping, therefore drawing a wrong conclusion at times, would you agree?

Hi Paul,

I fully agree: stereotyping is a vile practice. One objection I get sometimes about the graduate numbers - maybe 44,000 but we'll see when the Census figures come out, + 3,000 more last year, 3,300 this year - is "Yeah, but there're all doing Ab studies, aren't they ?" Pig-ignorant people. But they include University senior management: certainly that brainless, perhaps cynical, assumption destroyed my wife's career. No, for the record, maybe fewer than 5 % of all Indigenous students are now enrolled in Indigenous-oriented courses, and most of those in sub-degree courses.

More scary for the Indigenous 'academic' elites, around half of those graduates go on to higher studies: so how does an elite control the process of re-creating itself, controlling who gets 'in' and who stays 'out', if comparatively vast numbers are coming through, uncontrollable numbers ? They've lost that game, I'm glad to say. But they still have a dreadful influence on university policies.

There are wonderful people in Indigenous communities, and always have been, strong, good people. Most that I knew are now departed. I'm sure that there are honest, principled, hard-working and thoughtful Indigenous staff at universities. And there are loafers and bludgers even in some urban, working families. Life can't be stereotyped :)

Cheers,

Joe

Hi Paul,

Completely off the topic but I came across this article which you might be interested in:

http://caepr.anu.edu.au/Seminars/13/Seminar-Topics%E2%80%94Series-1/20_3_Seminar.php

When we lived in New Zealand in the late sixties/early seventies, my wife came across only one other Indigenous person: she attended a tennis match being played by Evonne Goolagong and introduced herself. She was very inspired, immediately got homesick and was back in SA within a week.

We knew an Aboriginal student who was born in Sweden, her mother had married a Swede: when a professor from Finland came over to give a talk, he was thrilled when she spoke to him in Swedish. Lovely girl, I hope she did well.

I would imagine that an Australian Indigenous diaspora has massively expanded since the eighties, there would be Indigenous Australians all over the world now.

Cheers,

Joe

At the risk of seeming paedophagous, I have to keep asking, that apart from Dorg's wish-list, does anybody have any ideas at all about what should be in a Shiny New Treaty ? What are you going to put your name, or at least your vote, to ?

A brand-new Treaty needs stuff in it to agree or disagree to. So what then ? A blank sheet ? But a very beautiful blank sheet ?

Or is nobody interested enough ? Of course, that's very valuable information in itself, that nobody gives a toss.

So presumably most of us will either not vote at all (I don't think that voting in referendums is compulsory, maybe I'm wrong on that) or vote informal, or vote 'NO'. After all, every poster (hmmm ..... Dorg ?) on OLO would surely be sensible and decent enough not to vote for an empty document, or for an impossible wish-list ?

All I can think of is: "an affirmation of the equal rights of all Australians." And for that, we don't need a Treaty, it's already law, albeit imperfectly applied. [I've always wanted to use 'albeit' in a sentence.].

Meanwhile, kids go hungry out in remote communities. How many women, do you reckon, got belted the daylights out of last night ? Or will, next pension night ? Every night ? How many enterprises will a Treaty set up on the fifth of Australia which is Indigenous-owned ?

If nobody has any suggestions at all, I'll pack this in :)

Cheers,

Joe

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

Professor George Williams, Dean of Law at the
University of New South Wales tells us that a treaty
should involve 3 things:

1) A starting point of acknowledgement.

2) A process of negotiation.

3) Outcomes in the form of rights, obligations and
opportunities.

He then elaborates:

A treaty could provide among other things:

1) A symbolic recognition of Indigenous Sovereignty and
prior occupation of this land.

2) A redefinition and restructuring of the relationship
between Indigenous people and wider Australia.

3) Better protection of Indigenous rights.

4) A basis for regional self-government.

5) Guidelines for local or regional treaties.

6) Structures and systems for local and regional
decision-making processes.

There's quite a bit on the web that you can Google
on this subject.

Dearest Foxy,

Thanks for that sage advice about Google. That's 'G' with a capital G, right ? On the electric computer web thing ? Hey, my shoe laces have come untied, what do I do now ?

That's George Williams, also a bit of a wish-list. But what do 'ordinary' Australians, the highly intelligent posters on OLO, think of all that ?

So what does 'Sovereignty' mean actually ? In the Australian Indigenous context, does it refer to One Big Mob having 'sovereignty', or Warren Mundine's five hundred 'nations', i.e. what use to be called 'tribes' ?

Or does it apply to the ten thousand independent 'land-holding and foreigner-excluding groups', the clans ? After all, it's traditionally been the clans who settle a 'makarrata', i.e. come to an agreement after all the bitterness and feuding and killing and payback has stopped for a time ?

So ten thousand treaties ? Not to mention the inter-group treaties as well ? How long might that all take ? How long has the Indigenous population got before it is completely fragmented by the passing wheels of history in the meantime ?

And what are the 'rules' of sovereignty ? Once people have taken something from another government, and for years, decades, generations, centuries at a time, what is left of 'sovereignty' ? Most people in the south wouldn't know their clans, of even what someone means by the word. Many people wouldn't even know their dialect group, or 'tribe'.

Have clans voluntarily surrendered 'sovdereignty' by taking from the State and then national governments all this time ? i.e. sovereignty is not only clan-centred but it's gone, used up, traded away, swapped for the conveniences of modern living ?

Indigenous people are Australians now and that's how most want to stay. No ? then test it with a pre-referendum Indigenous-only referendum on 'sovereignty' and a Treaty, with a full information campaign setting out what it all means, the good, the bad and the ugly.

Love,

Joe

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

I gave you the following link ages ago - you know
full well what sovereignty means - if you don't
then you really need help tying your shoelaces.

Here's the link again:

http://www.australianstogether.org.au/stories/detail/why-treaty

Dearest Foxy,

With respect, why do you keep posting the most banal, childish URLs ? For God's sake, we're not in primary school.

That URL barely touches in the definition of 'sovereignty', and it certainly slides over the mechanisms and processes by which sovereignty can be surrendered, usually by default and inaction rather than by agreement. Usually, if one group or state takes something very material, such as its complete dependence, from another entity (and perhaps for a statutory time, say seven years or fifteen years) then it has surrendered its sovereignty, if it ever had it.

Jean Bodin, in 1577, initiated a useful definition of it: "Sovereignty is that absolute and perpetual power vested in a Commonwealth." By that crude and early definition, Aboriginal groups, jealously guarding their particular patch of family land (my wife's clan land covered maybe twenty sq. miles), rarely coming together to form anything like a 'Commonwealth', may not have actually possessed 'sovereignty' to begin with. Certainly, the perpetual taking of rations and other supplies for, say, more than a century, when the alternative option of foraging as traditionally done was freely available, may have vitiated any claim to sovereignty.

It's difficult to find any evidence that any social system without group-wide governmental powers and responsibilities, has ever been considered to have possessed sovereignty. In New Zealand, from memory, only representatives of iwi ('tribes'), not hapu (extended clans) or whanau (families), signed the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840. In fact, in that Treaty, the tribes ceded precisely their sovereignty in exchange for British protection, mainly from each other.

So Aboriginal groups have two tasks: (a) to demonstrate that their systems of organisation amounted to sovereignty above the level of clan; and (b) that by accepting outside assistance for so long, from 1788 up to the present, they have not surrendered whatever claim to sovereignty that they may have.

You won't see deliberations of that nature in Primary School material :)

Love,

Joe

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

I was going to reply to you in greater detail but
I've decided not to. I can see that no matter what
references I would cite, you would find fault with
each and every one, as you've done thus far. No matter
what either Paul, Cossomby, or myself may point out it
apparently makes no difference to you.

I entered this discussion in good faith with good
intentions and I took things seriously. I made a mistake.
Still it's not all doom and gloom. You're in good company
with kindred spirits like Big Nana, leoj, and others.

All The Best.

Foxy,

We're probably operating on different planes of understanding. You are happy to dish out the most basic stuff, written for children, and accepting it totally, no questions asked. I think the issues are a bit more complex, especially given that no textbooks on international relations (which is what 'sovereignty' is about) seem to give much attention to such sub-national entities as clans.

Sovereignty, by the way, has little to do with land ownership: I suspect that many activists completely confuse the two. One may LEAD to, or facilitate, the other, but the two concepts are quite distinct, represented by two entirely different bodies of law.

I was looking through a couple of books by the distinguished New Zealand Prof. Hugh Kawharu: one on the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, the other on Maori Land Tenure. There was very little cross-over: one concept or issue did not presuppose the other, as it were. They were clearly, in his view, concerned with two distinctly different bodies of law.

So I hope that confusion has been resolved.

So the questions are: could Aboriginal clans be said to have had 'sovereignty' ? Did they surrender it, by living off a 'foreign' government for more than a century: did that constitute relinquishment of sovereignty, if it had existed ? If so, is it still a relevant concept in most of Australia ?

Joe

Foxy,

If you really must have that win/lose, black and white, adversarial argument that is used by the media (ABC shows like Q&A seem to have a patent on it) to build dumbed-down audiences for ratings, allow me to show you how you can really win. In a real sense, I mean.

All you have to do is question and test knowledgeable people like Big Nana and Loudmouth, but with an OPEN mind, not one that automatically applies the go/no-go filters of PC and inevitably lapsing into default.

That is winning, where you gain knowledge and you get to test it as you go. You win. You have very likely changed your thinking along the way. But that isn't really a loss where the 'information' held was highly contestable to begin with.

That is different to digging in the heels and arguing against, as a matter of principle (make that habit). Where even if you win you lose because the other side (as you have cast them to date), eventually have better things to do and walk away.

Maybe you are not aware that no-one here is trying to make you believe what you don't want to believe and even if they wanted to (and they don't), they couldn't do that anyhow.

For myself, I believe 'treaty' is at best magic that will not improve anything. I struggle to believe that many of the activists, black or white, are concerned about improving the lot of indigenous women in the here and now or are genuinely worried and taking action for the long-term benefit of youth.
tbc..

continued..
Sorry in advance to both veterans and Aborigines, but I am reminded of the stereotypical WW2 entitlements claimant who has resolved to continue smoking to build up his TPI from part- to full-TPI. Do you imagine that anyone could convince him of the enormous advantages to himself, family and the nation, by taking up the available opportunities to get better and enjoy life instead?

There are some very simple choices and actions most 'disadvantaged' indigenous could take up now that would better their lives overnight. What is preventing them from doing so? Clue, it isn't the well-intentioned public who work and hand over their taxes, hoping year after year for some lasting improvements.

How come some communities bloom but others do not?

How come some indigenous, particularly girls it seems, can take up education opportunities and get jobs but others do not?

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

You're right. I am being obstinate and believing
what I read. I should do some more research on the
topic.

leoj,

Your last couple of posts surprised me.

They actually made sense.

I wish that you could post like that - with that kind of
standard, all of the time. I am impressed.

Dearest Foxy,

I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't believe what you read but everybody should 'suspend their belief' unless they have some back-up information to round it out. I suppose a sceptic would say that we shouldn't believe anything 100 %, and certainly not without any back-up, and for any objections to a 'truth' to be satisfactorily dealt with.

So we should stand back and subject any 'new', 'brilliant' idea to careful scrutiny - in fact, the more 'innovative' it seems to be, the more it should be scrutinised. Test it for common sense, weight up its problems and difficulties, its implications and consequences.

For example, the rather innocuous-sounding notion of a separate State: apart from the possibility that the great majority of 'ordinary' Indigenous people won't have a bar of it, many questions surely arise: where would it be ? Who would move there, if they haven't already ? Will Indigenous people be REQUIRED to go there ? How would you draw its boundaries so that it has an Indigenous majority ? Would non-Indigenous Australians have any say ? Sounds like pure apartheid to me :)

It gets even more ridiculous: although its advocates keep their cards, such as they are, close to their chests, it seems that possibly every Indigenous community, perhaps every Indigenous population regardless of where it lives, will be part of this separate State; i.e. an extremely multi-patch 'State'. i.e. an extremely multi-patch Apartheid 'State'.

Have any activists ever thought through this thought-bubble ? Readers of 'Catch-2' will recall Colonel Scheisskopf, moving his men around like pawns on a chess-board, dreaming of how to get them to march exactly in line (a very long, light beam bolted across their shoulders) etc. Have these scheisskopfs ever thought of any implications and consequences ?

Indigenous people can live wherever they like, now. If they haven't chosen to move to some small, outback settlement by now, they never will.

Love,

Joe

How are "They" going to keep the Peace within their own Nation?

My neighbour just came back from Aurukun. The main source of all the problems their is that there are four different tribes pushed into one location. These tribes hate one another. There are Five different languages, one for each Tribe & a Creole of each that they all understand. Aurukun is well known for the troubles with the Police & the Teaching Staff. There are Tribal fights almost every night.

Now some idiot suggest Australia set aside a large parcel of land & put all the Tribes in there. Can I have dibs in the Movie Rights. If they do get Sovereignty over their granted Parcel of Land, What happens then? Does Australia have to provide for them all the Facilities & Services they have access to now? Do they want to go back to their old Traditional Ways?

Foxy posted this;
1) A starting point of acknowledgement.

Yes a Treatey could acknowledge that Aboriginals were here before the coming of the Whiteman.

2) A process of negotiation.

A list of things to be negotiated about. What is on that List?

3) Outcomes in the form of rights, obligations and opportunities.

Theirs & ours (Ours for how long), but mostly in the form of "God helps those who help themselves" because, as a Sovereign Nation they are solely responsible for their own Welfare.
Cont.

Cont.
He then elaborates:

A treaty could provide among other things:

No. That is treating these people with disrespect & as children.

1) A symbolic recognition of Indigenous Sovereignty and prior occupation of this land.

They don't want a Symbolic recognition of Sovereignty, they want Sovereignty.

2) A redefinition and restructuring of the relationship between Indigenous people and wider Australia.

Yes, Normal Diplomatic Relations as granted to any Country.

3) Better protection of Indigenous rights.

Well that would be up to them, it's now their Country.

4) A basis for regional self-government.

How they do that would have nothing to do with Australia.

5) Guidelines for local or regional treaties.

Normal Diplomatic stuff.

6) Structures and systems for local and regional
decision-making processes.

That would be up to them. Australia must not interfere in a Sovereign Nations Internal Affairs.

Hi Jayb,

Curse the English language: does 'State' mean like South Australia or Victoria are States of Australia ? Or does it mean a separate country, like 'the states of Africa ?'

If it means the second, then much of that wish-list would be redundant.

Here's a very crucial question:

Would Australians rather vote

* for a completely separate nation, state, or country apart from the rest of Australia forever, and financing itself ?

* or for a separate state within Australia, spread across the whole of Australia in small pockets everywhere, and financed by other Australians ?

Obviously a completely separate country would have to be more or less in a single bloc, so where ? All of Arnhem Land ? All of the Tri-State territory in the Centre, west of Alice Springs ? The Kimberley (sorry, Big Nana) ?

Would any Indigenous people from elsewhere in Australia go there, wherever it is ? How would it be financed ? What sort of work would people who move there find ? Well, what sort of work would the locals find ? Whose country would everybody be on ? Forever ?

Although I suspect that that first option, of complete independence, might get more support than the second, I suggest that neither option is remotely viable. Clearly, no Indigenous people could be forced to go there, wherever it is, since as Australians, they have rights not to be pushed around the country like that. As well, most would have family and social relations, work, etc., which tie them to their current region.

But I suggest that all those 'radicals' and elites who are pushing the idea be respectfully asked to do it, to go out and live for, say, a short time, five years, ten years, before they try to force this on other Indigenous people.

Maybe there could be a raffle, with each 'radical' or elite supporter putting their name in a hat, someone else pulling the names out according to a list of 'communities': 'You go to Aurukun, you go to Wadeye, etc.'

Joe

Loudmouth: If it means the second, like 'the states of Africa?' then much of that wish-list would be redundant.

Too right it would.

Loudmouth: * for a completely separate nation, state, or country apart from the rest of Australia forever, and financing itself? * or for a separate state within Australia, spread across the whole of Australia in small pockets everywhere, and financed by other Australians?

It would have to be the first option, I think, otherwise they would have to get a Visa form Australia to travel from one pocket to another & back.

Loudmouth: Would any Indigenous people from elsewhere in Australia go there, Clearly,... no Indigenous people could be forced to go there,

They would have too, as they would no longer be Australian Citizens They would have Citizenship of what ever they would call their New Nation.

Loudmouth: How would it be financed? What sort of work would people who move there find? Well, what sort of work would the locals find?

That would no longer be Australia's Problem.

Loudmouth: all those 'radicals' and elites who are pushing the idea be respectfully asked to do it, to go out and live.

They would have to be the first to go. After-all, It's was their idea. Leading from the front & setting a good example. ;-)

Hi Jayb,

Clearly, no Indigenous person would be forced to renounce their Australian citizenship - or would that somehow be required ? I can't imagine too many Indigenous people signing up for that.

No, legally they are Australians, so they would have to be given the option of staying Australian citizens, or voluntarily renouncing their citizenship. That stipulation would have to be written into a Referendum question.

Perhaps that's why there would first have to be an Indigenous-only Referendum, so that we are all - and certainly Indigenous people - clear about what they eventually support. Then that can be taken to an Australian-wide Referendum, if it's at all necessary

I suspect that the great majority of Indigenous people would support a Declaration that "all Australians are entitled to the same range of rights, equally, within the single country of Australia, forever". Something like that.

Joe

Loudmouth: Clearly, no Indigenous person would be forced to renounce their Australian citizenship

In that case they would be required to abide with Australian Law & be entitled to what every other Australian gets or doesn't get. No Special Privileges.

Loudmouth: I suspect that the great majority of Indigenous people would support a Declaration that "all Australians are entitled to the same range of rights, equally, within the single country of Australia, forever".

Seems good. Maybe that should go into the Constitution. Of course, that means that no one would be entitled to Special Privileges, like taxi's to School, Free Medical & Dental, Low Interest Loans or Special Groups like ADSIC, etc,.

Loudmouth: Perhaps that's why there would first have to be an Indigenous-only Referendum,

Would that be seen as Racist? First you would have to get all the Tribes & Clans to agree on what they want. Like that's going to work. Say Cynically.

Hi Jayb,

On that last point: yes, that's what I'm getting at, that it would be up to each individual Indigenous person, to hell with 'tribes' or 'Clans' for the time being, to vote in an Indigenous referendum first, and then whatever they come up with, is put to the Australian people, ALL of the Australian people.

I suspect that most Indigenous people just want to get on with their lives, that they don't much know their 'Tribe' (or Tribes: my wife was related to at least three that she knew of) and certainly not their various 'Clans', and probably couldn't care less.

In any case, since they are not just Indigenous but Australians, they would enjoy all the benefits of Australian law, which says that in any vote or referendum, each individual votes according to their wishes, not according to any dictates of some jumped-up bunch of long-beards and black hats, or some Johnny-come-lately with a new Aboriginal name.

God, I'll be glad when this is all over, when we can all live as Australians, without fear or favour, no special deals, no discrimination - fully equal, no more and no less.

Joe

Dearest Foxy,

Continuing my last post to you, i.e.

"So the questions are: could Aboriginal clans be said to have had 'sovereignty' ? Did they surrender it, by living off a 'foreign' government for more than a century: did that constitute relinquishment of sovereignty, if it had existed ? If so, is it still a relevant concept in most of Australia ?"

I'm sure that, up in the 'North', most people would know not only their 'Tribe', and dialect group, but also their clan, and its traditional name, and its relationship to other clans. Not so, I suspect, in the 'South' where notions of clan and dialect group disappeared perhaps before 1900, given that they were no longer perceived as relevant, or were simply forgotten.

This is quite ironic, because what might have been called 'clans' before 1900, with their particular country, totems (ngatji), etc., have been converted into surnames to a large extent: certainly shorn of almost all of their traditional connotations, but still discernible, and each clan/surname quite distinct.

Actually, people know each other very much (and who they can and can't marry) according to their family name, perhaps being unaware that that denotes their clan name (if they knew it) and therefore their clan country.

It gets complicated because, of course, Aboriginal people are, through their lengthy and diverse ancestry, each related to many clans, even many dialect groups and 'tribes' and countries, and, as time passes, the knowledge of all that passes with it.

But much of this is becoming irrelevant to the majority of Indigenous people. The boundaries of 'tribes' have shifted as people 'shift', or move around regions. For example, the Ngarrindjeri boundary along the Murray didn't quite reach to Murray Bridge, but people right up the Murray to Renmark call themselves Ngarrindjeri, as if neighbouring groups, Ngangaruku, Ngawait, Ngaiawang, (all names forgotten now) along the Murray have been incorporated into that 'tribe'. And most people there now live in the towns.

So what's the total population out there now in remote communities ? Maybe a hundred thousand at most, maybe only

[TBC]

[continued]

fifty thousand (we'll see in a couple of weeks when the Census data comes out). Each community with its petty, little political power-play, the 'big men', and each deeply fearful of the disruptive potential of any blow-in from the cities.

Meanwhile, out there, in real life, what are the issues ? A Separate parliamentary representation ? a separate State ? I don't think so.

Love,

Joe