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.