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