According to 2016 Census data, the number of Indigenous university graduates has risen rapidly in the last ten years, to 48,700 (compared to 19,340 in the 2006 Census). Adding in last year's and this year's graduates, and the total soon will be around 56,000. Overwhelmingly they are base in the cities, most likely those in which they (and perhaps their Indigenous parents) were born, and more or less where they will want to forge their careers. Those 56,000 represent about one in every six Indigenous adults in the cities, one in every four or five women. Ten years ago, it was more like in twelve. In ten years' time, it will be more like one in four.

Meanwhile, in many remote 'communities', graduates come and go, but hardly any more are staying now than ten years ago. Many have no graduates at all, and never have. And, as long their kids don't go to school, they never will. Their choice.

Since the 2006 Census, Indigenous home ownership and purchasing has more than doubled in numerical terms, from 45,000 to nearly 99,000, so that, in spite of home ownership being all but impossible due to leasing restrictions in many remote communities, across the country, almost 38 % of Indigenous dwellings are either owned or being purchased. Someone please tell John Bilger, so that he can distort those figures for his British Gullibles.

In South Australia, and I'm sure in other States, the proportion of young people finishing Year 12 has gone up around twelve times since the mid-1990s. So inter-generational mobility is certainly a rapidly-growing possibility.

How fast ? I would suggest that the Gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous working people is closing VERY fast. Yes, I know this might upset many on the 'Left' who might prefer people to stay poor but happy, in the dirt but with their 'culture'.

But either way, it's the choice of Indigenous people, not of their more knowledgeable 'Left' friends, or of Indigenous elites.

Joe

Joe, with regards the graduates in remote communities, at a guess I would say very few are ever likely to live in these places.
Locally grown students are reluctant to return to known dysfunction, especially with the job opportunities available to actually brown skinned people with degrees.
And any fair skinned urban indigenous graduate who does happen to venture into a remote community is likely to run screaming from a lifestyle they could never imagine existing.
You need to be a thick skinned, skilled survivor to adapt to life in those communities.

Hi Big Nana,

Yes, what I am very depressed about is the rapidly-growing Gap between urban and rural/remote Indigenous societies, each going off in their own very different direction. It seems that one population is quite legitimately seizing opportunities, putting in the hard yards, and trying to reap the benefits. The other population seems to be ever-more determined to sit on its collective arse, get dumb Whitefellas to do more and more for them, and find ever-new ways to whinge about the vast and evil forces of colonialisation, aided by the 'Left' and urban-based Indigenous elites. But never, never going back to the bush for life.

Actually, my dear wife Maria wrote about this ten years ago, "Two Indigenous Populations" (of course, those two can be differentiated into many, but let's say two for convenience), and I've put her article on my web-site, www.firstsources.info, on the 21st Century Page. Noel Pearson, I'm a bit chuffed to say, cited her and the article in his essay "Radical Hope". She also alluded to a growing class structure (i.e. the genesis of 'many populations'). What is amazing is that, at the time, the best estimate of graduate numbers was about fifteen thousand. Ten years later, there are around 57,000. Something's taken off, and it ain't remote communities.

Should urban people stop, turn round, drop their studies and skills and go bush ? No, of course not. Try telling them that. I'm sure the extremely virtuous Left would think so, and tut-tut over their Kale Lattes about people losing their culture by becoming skilled and relatively comfortable (and nearly 40 % of indigenous people now own or are buying their own homes - wow, that would piss off the Left even more). Perhaps, for them, universities should bring back courses in the Evils of Apartheid 101. Nah, let's talk uncritically about the glories of culture instead. Non-Western culture, that is. The Enlightenment ? Feh !

The push for 'Recognition' (treaties, separate States, perhaps a separate nation) has fizzled. What's left ? As always, the far, far more difficult task of

[TBC]

[continued]

of genuine, truth-based, Reconciliation. I don't mean hands in the sand or walks over bridges, or everybody joining hands and saying "Om," and then going home fulfilled, but realisation on all sides that atrocities may have occurred in our history (on both sides) AND that what the Torres Strait Islanders call "the Coming of the Light", bringing Indigenous people here into the modern world, has brought vast benefits to all of us.

It's going to be a very long process. But first, the rural and remote areas beckon with their exciting challenges to get kids to school, to stop blokes beating up their beloved and kicking their dogs, to stop humbuggers from standing over their grannies for their welfare cheques and get them (the able-bodied young people, not the grannies) into training for skills and to become worthwhile human beings.

Of course, one problem is that those slackers have used up most of the enormous goodwill that Australians have for Aboriginal people generally, much of it based on a naive romanticism about Stone Age life, and a possibly racist pity that, as they may see it, Indigenous people can't seem to do anything for themselves, 'they're still so primitive'.

Well fifty seven thousand Indigenous people have proven them wrong on that score. AND there's a lot more to come :)

Now, where to start with genuine Reconciliation ? Learning the ruth, based on evidence, about our past, and not relying on baseless assertions about unbelievable atrocities and Satanic government polices, would help. Long way to go, folks, but as they say, from little things big things grow.

Love,

Joe

Yes Joe, aboriginals will only really prosper when they forget the words aboriginals & Indigenous exist. They have to join the mainstream to gain the most Australia has to offer.

The do gooders & the aboriginal industry knocked many of them back decades, with the industry in particular being more interested in having clients, than the good of those clients. Those who ignored the industry & got on with their lives are your graduates & success stories today.

But what does Stan say? Waleed?

Unfortunately there is no media or political interest in the good news stories, the strides taken in tertiary education, employment and socially, and in population numbers too.

Besides, there are buildings to claim and very likely drag some $millions grants out of 'gubbermint' for restoration, then suck dollars out of holding them, or sell,

http://www.theherald.com.au/story/5041577/pigeon-poo-graffiti-holes-in-the-floor-millions-to-restore-old-post-office/?cs=305

Maybe a Canberra restaurant, that could be fun for a while and get some headlines.