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).