Foxy What do you mean by infrastructure?

If you mean houses BS years ago the Government built lots of brand new houses in the NT for communities most were wrecked within 6 months of being given to Aboriginal families.

With too many the big problem is the bottle, too many alcoholics.
They used to pool there money in dry communities to buy a 4wd etc and go on runs to pick up as much booze as they could bring back.

Aboriginal children are disadvantaged but not by Australia but by there parents and tribal leaders.
Philip S,
I totally agree with you on that. Indifferent bureaucrats too have a hand in that dilemma.

Hi Phillip,

Yes, that's a very crucial point. So, in my book, Tony Abbott's suggestion of getting kids to school is most certainly a major step in the right direction. But as long as people think that everything will forever come from the government, that work will always be unnecessary, how to persuade parents to make sure their kids go to school ? After all, the parents are usually the very people who are, by their own examples, misguiding their children.

Perhaps providing three meals a day at school, with no penalty set against parents' welfare payments ? AND financial penalties against parents who don't or won't get their kids to school ?

PLUS young-adult educational-rehabilitation programs ? Not the same old, same old - the same programs at very low levels with very little study load which 'students' can enrol in year after year, but step-by-step, non-reversible, programs leading to definite apprentice-type programs, and/or to Year 12 and/or to university. That will be a very long process, five years plus a few more years plus a few more years - and I fear that people won't have the staying power to make it work.

And people won't take up any rigorous educational program if they also stand to lose CDEP payments ('work' for the dole). My wife desperately tried to get a Study Centre going at her birth-community, but nobody wanted to try it if it meant losing CDEP, and having to live on Study Grant alone (not to mention mining and national park royalties). You know, like other people. That devastated her.

So it would most certainly be a long shot. But to avoid 'communities' going down the drain altogether in the next generations, what the hell else can be done ? People are learning, thanks to their parents, to be bludgers, and they don't see much wrong with that. In the 21st century, when skills of very high levels are essential.

That's their choice.

Joe

Dear Philip S.,

We read about the gap between life expectancy, infant
mortality, education and employment outcomes between
our indigenous people and our non-indigenous people.

Commentators
speak about these differences being the result of inadequate
health, housing, educational infrastructure and services.
As well as inadequate roads, water, power, telecommunications,
that also play a crucial part.

Therefore I thought
that possibly by providing remote indigenous communities to have
similar access to infrastructure as non-indigenous communities
of comparable size and location have, might help.

It would certainly be challenging - and success would not be
instant - but surely just blaming indigenous people is not
the only answer - something needs to be done - especially
for the sake of the younger generations. Of course leaders in
the indigenous communities have to come forward and be a part
of this and get involved. But they were knocked back
recently. That's why I did think that the
Uluru Statement from the Heart that was rejected by the
government should have been given a go. An advisory body of
indigenous voices on policies and legislation that affects
the indigenous would have at least given them a voice.

Der Foxy,

If that's what you meant by 'infrastructure', then it's already there. Fifty-km roads to an 'outstation', ie. one house, 3 BR, with a bore, septic tank, solar-powered electricity and phone box. A million dollars. And nobody home. Not for years. But the lights on, though.

So what do you want ? Sealed roads to every 'outstation', occupied/abandoned or not ? In larger 'communities', half-million-dollar houses every five years ?

And barely a single vegetable garden and/or orchard on any remote 'community' in the country ? Running water - check out 'communities' on Google Maps, satellite version, and notice the sewage ponds a mile out of town - so running water. So water for gardens. But maybe none.

There must be many, many people who hear about some whizz-bang new project and think, 'Oh, yeah,' and assume that it's basically yet another fraud - a photo op, a flight of bureaucrats arriving at 11.00 and leaving at 3.00 in the blaze of trumpets and photo-flashes.

Love,

Joe

Dear Joe,

It is going to take a lot of work and many challenges
to try to solve the problem of our indigenous people.
However, I firmly believe that having their own
representation as an advisory body in Parliament is
a step in the right direction. They need to have a say
on policies that affect them.

Also, we want them to live according to our rules, and they
want to live according to their customs - unfortunately
these two don't mesh easily. And then racism is also
a problem in our towns and cities. There is an indigenous
community in Kempsey NSW where my younger brother lives
and I hear about the racist attitudes there towards the
indigenous people (including my own brothers').