[contiued]

The right to use the land as they always had done ? That's already written into law, at least in SA. Are people taking up that opportunity ? Using the land as they always had done ? I can't really see it.

Now, compensation for the use of land for infrastructure by State and federal governments, including infrastructure which benefited them too - from the recent case, at about $ 10,000 per hectare. That would fill a few pockets, especially those of people with shares in breweries.

Royalties from mineral exploitation ? Already being done, for more than fifty years now. Tax-free too. Ain't 'colonisation' grand ?

My limited experience suggests that in rural and remote areas, where 'colonisation' has had the least influence, the main problems revolve around lack of education, lack of employment (not exactly symptoms of colonisation), access to grog and drugs, gambling, remoteness, alienation and total boredom. If anything, people there - mainly from the Coombsian days, post-Whitlam - haven't been given enough opportunities to participate in 'colonial' society - they have been shut out of the economy by the concurrent factors of keeping their kids out of school AND technological change, and thereby shut out of mainstream society.

But in the cities, where the Indigenous majority live, maybe one in four Indigenous women is a university graduate, one in seven men. That's a lot of 'colonisation'.

Joe

"I'll look at it when someone provides the evidence. "

Paul puts his hands over his eyes and says "I can't see the evidence".

Its little wonder that he so misunderstands the world.

Dear Paul,

The conscience of some Australians has finally been
awakened to the fact that Aborigines want to and will
make decisions for themselves. Until recently, many
Aboriginal aid schemes were run by " whites " who
adopted a paternal attitude to Aborigines treating them like
children and considering that only they knew what was best
for Aborigines.

In the last decades, legal aid, land rights, education and
health care for Aborigines have become the important issues
for government Aboriginal Affairs departments.

Many Australians have never seen an Aboriginal Australian, and
perhaps through ignorance, their plight has at times been
overlooked. Progress is being made at last in the
Aborigines' fight for the chance to survive in today's
Australia, and although much still needs to be done, perhaps
the outlook is more hopeful now than it has been in the past.

Among my numerous Aboriginal friends, there is not one who doesn't think that the arrival of Arthur Philip was not advantageous to them.
They can see what fate they escaped by Colonization, especially the women.
In fact, one woman lamented that as he was an Anglican, the Pope couldn't canonize him.

First Fleet diarist and writer Watkin Tench wrote of the injuries that a tribal woman was suffering from, they were injuries about the head and were not self-inflicted.
As I remember she had been beaten by her husband, I'll try to find the exact reference.

Is Mise,

Among your "numerous"Aboriginal friends?
Really?

Are they as "numerous" as your "numerous"
Indian friends who thought that the British
were great for India? (your wife doesn't count).

Dear Foxy,

Australia, Indigenous people and communities have had self-determination fo nearly fifty years now. If anything, it seemed at the time that governments couldn't get out quick enough, to let community councils make their own mistakes.

Since then, around five thousand Indigenous organisations have been initiated, all free to make their own mistakes as well.

And that's where we're at in 2019.

Love,

Joe