2016 Census data about university graduate numbers came out last week. So we can compare progress in many dimensions since, say, the 2006 Census, i.e. over ten years. Somebody please pass this official data onto John Bilger and his gullible British audience:

*. Increase in population by 42.7 %, from 454,770 to 648,904; the Indigenous population increased in NSW and Victoria, for example, by 56 % and 58 %, but in the Northern Territory, by only 8.5 % in those ten years;

*. increase in university graduate numbers by 77.4 %, nearly 80 % in New South Wales, but only by 43 % in the Northern Territory; one in every nine Indigenous people in Victoria (perhaps one every six adults) was a graduate in 2016, but only one in every 3.06 Indigenous people in the Northern Territory was a graduate, perhaps one in every sixteen adults;

*. increase in home ownership and purchase (for every 1000 people) by 53 %: the average number of occupants declined from 10.1 to 6.6 across the country. Actual home ownership and purchase numbers increased from 45,056 to 98,731, a real increase of 119 %.

Perhaps 60 % of that population rise was due to re-identification, people who were already there but not identifying until 2016 (and therefore rises in graduate and home ownership numbers occurring as well), and birth rates may even be falling if we take that re-identification factor into account.

Surprisingly, there was an average of only four persons per owned/purchased household in Tasmania. But no surprise that there were twenty two to an owned/purchased household in the NT, where usually people can't actually purchase the household that they live in, because of Land Council regulations, i.e. the responsibility of Indigenous people themselves.

Just trying to put the Recognition'Reconciliation dilemma into some sort of perspective. :)

Joe

Foxy would have all believe that aboriginals are somehow forgotten and unrepresented (and despite the three layers of government). As is easily demonstrated, that is a complete fabrication,

http://www.themandarin.com.au/?s=indigenou

Joe, there is another class of aboriginal that you haven't mentioned and that is the rapidly growing middle class remote and rural people. Nurses and teachers, owners of small businesses, workers in all trades positions, offices etc. many owning their own homes. But unlike urban aboriginals, these are still in close contact with their tribal lands, take the kids camping there on holidays, eat bush tucker and still hunt things like goannas, bush turkeys, turtles and dugong. The kids hear language spoken when they visit the communities and all primary schools teach some indigenous language and have posters up around the schools with the seasons etc in language.
Places like Darwin, Broome, Gove, Katherine etc are full of these people, and they are not concerned with recognition from what I hear. They are more interested in getting the Native Title issue sorted out so they can apply for individual leases.
They also have a higher rate of marrying other indigenous rather than white, in fact I read somewhere that Broome has the highest rate of indigenous/indigenous marriage in the country.
So we have at least three distinct, different groups of indigenous people, all with different goals and aspirations and all with different histories. A right mess.

Thanks Big Nana,

Wow, I hadn't really thought of that, it's great ! Yes, it seems that there are three distinguishable populations (at least), the (urban and more remote) working and welfare populations, often keeping a bit of a distance from each other, and certainly having different trajectories, aspirations and strategies.

Yes, I suspect that, on the whole those two working populations have other preoccupations besides pumping up the 'leaders' and elite families (a fourth population ?) over issues such as Recognition', who seem to reach over them and suck up to the welfare population, on the basis of "Poor bugger me."

On home ownership: according to the 2006 and 2016 Censuses, the average number of Indigenous people for every house/apartment owned or being purchased fell from 10.1 people per dwelling owned or being purchased in 2006, down to 6.6 in 2016. In Tasmania in 2016, there were only 4 people for every dwelling owned or being purchased. In the NT, with so much of the population in 'communities where nobody can buy their dwelling, there were 22 people for every dwelling owned or being purchased. So if they're taken out of the equation, the average number of Indigenous people across Australia for every dwelling owned or being purchased outright, would come down to about 5.8. That's 'owned or being purchased', John Bilger, not per dwelling generally, but kept telling your Gullibles something different.

So what's the real story about 'over-crowding' ? When we lived in a community for those four years, many young couples had houses, but chose to stay with their mum, so that she could look after the kids and they could continue being teenagers. So some places were, yes, over-crowded - and many houses were simply vacant.

Thanks again, Big Nana, that's broadened my optimism :)

Joe

Hi Big Nana,

Just looking at the 2016 Census results, with the 60 % rise in Indigenous graduate numbers in five years (mostly, I suspect from re-identification). I checked out the proportion of graduates in capital cities and was surprised to see that the percentage of graduates based in cities rose from 51.2 % in the 2001 Census [9840 out of 19228] to 53.9 % in the 2016 Census [26249 out of 48660] (some graduates may have been overseas at the time of those Censuses).

Now, what does 'self-determination mean, if not that 'communities' make the effort to boost their social and economic potential, and to do that, they need to attract skilled people ? And if Indigenous people enthusiastically supported that definition of 'self-determination', then graduates would have moved from the cities to those 'communities' ?

Perhaps they did, got ignored, beaten up or otherwise pissed off at the corruption and went back to the cities, with many gruesome tales to 'encourage' others.

Perhaps graduates, like other Indigenous people, have a somewhat different definition of 'self-determination', but it doesn't really seem as if any enthusiasm for it - in the limited sense of my definition - is growing. Yet surely the push for 'Recognition', treaties, a separate State, and maybe a separate Nation - or Nations - requires just such enthusiasm ? How would a separate entity float otherwise ?

So here's my question: do Indigenous people generally support Recognition ? Yes, I know that sounds absurd, of course they do. Don't they ? If not, then what ?

Clearly, in my case, the Devil makes work for idle hands.

Cheers,

Joe