//So I ask Who is an Aborigine ?//

An Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander is a person of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent who identifies as an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander and is accepted as such by the community in which he (she) lives.

Hi Bazz,

Perhaps fifty thousand 'full-bloods' across the Centre and North.

If Indigenous 'southerners' had to provide some sort of Family Tree, or genealogy, which could be checked, you might be surprised how many there are in the 'south' too. Certainly, there would be very many, too pale according to your colour card, who would honestly and sincerely see themselves (and their mother, brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles, aunties, grandparents) as Indigenous, and nothing else. And so would neighbouring Whites.

A couple of generations ago, they wouldn't have known any relations except other Indigenous ones like themselves - and they wouldn't have been regarded as White by Whitefellas. So how could they be anything else by Indigenous ? That may be changing quickly, from one generation to the next, with very high urban rates of inter-marriage these days, but I suspect that many of the children of those marriages would not be fazed one way or the other: they would simply acknowledge that they 'have Indigenous ancestry', and not much more than that. Times are a-changin'.

Joe

Tony;
Doesn't that leave it wide open for abuse !
A real tick the box solution.
How would you resolve a dispute where one says "He is not an aborigine !"
and he says "I am !".

Would a person 50% aborigine be an aborigine ?
What percentage would you pick ?
When you have to apply legal decisions think what arguments could
arise in court. An argument could be that a law is not valid because
Jackie Brown never was an aborigine.
It is like the dual citizenship argument.

It just will never work.

//When you have to apply legal decisions think what arguments could
arise in court.//

That was the legal definition which applies in court, Bazz. It's the definition accepted by all Commonwealth agencies. Has been for some time now.

No doubt you think you have a better definition... but I'm not sure anyone cares.

Hello Joe, I suspect you understand the problem I have put up to be
an Aunt Sally.
You can't have a, well I feel aborigine, as a measure for voting on
legislation. It has to be one or the other for the sake of the law.
Otherwise everyone will be able to challenge the law.

Constitutions are long term documents, and are there for hundreds of years.

Yes Tony and has been disputed by many and is wide open to abuse.
Backhanders etc.
On all those Centrelink etc etc forms how many ticks have been checked ?

Racial laws are very very dodgey laws.