Foxy, you really shouldn’t make generalisations. When you say that aboriginal people live in poorer conditions, have worse education, health outcomes etc. exactly who are you talking about?
Did you know that nearly 40% of aboriginal people own their own homes? Many of them are on higher incomes than the average white family. Many, like my youngest son, have their own businesses.
We now have something like 50,000 indigenous university graduates, with nearly 20,000 currently enrolled. Joe would have the exact figures, I’m working from memory here.
The group who are so disadvantaged are the smaller percentage of those living remote, and who, like white people living remote, don’t have the access to many educational facilities. However, whilst remote white kids do quite well in educational outcomes, remote aboriginal kids don’t.
The cause of this is multi factored. And has very little to do with government and certainly won’t be affected by anything the activists do. People in remote communities have never heard of treaties or the Uluru statement or indigenous representation and nor would they be interested because none of those things will have the slightest effect on their lives.
The only thing that would change attitudes in remote communities would be to stop money flowing into them and that, finally, would get their attention and make people understand that they have to personally engage in their own existence and future.

"The only thing that would change attitudes in remote communities would be to stop money flowing into them and that, finally, would get their attention and make people understand that they have to personally engage in their own existence and future."

Never a balder truth spoken. How else will they be brought into the 21st century?

But we can't handle the truth and we'll just keep on doing what we're doing for another century, pouring money into a black-hole until the problem goes away. Yeah right.

Dear Steele,

Thank you for the link to Bruce Pascoe's
talk - at the State Library of Victoria.

I can still recall my days of working there in the AMPA
Library (Art, Music and Performing Arts) where I catalogued
their oral history collection. I loved the work. It was
fascinating and I learned so much.

Dear Big Nana,

No one is denying that there are Indigenous people who have
succeeded in life. But we should also not deny the facts
that for many - problems still exist.

My references to the effects of more than 200 years
of dispossession, racism, discrimination, and the fact
that this has left many of our Indigenous people with
low levels of education, an inability to gain meaningful
employment, over representation in the prison system,
and appalling housing conditions -
is not something I have made up.
These facts are given in government reports
and other sources.

I stated earlier that more weighty and bewildering
government reports will not assist reconciliation even is
they make governments feel like something is being done.
Too many recommendations made for and by Indigenous
people over decades have never been acted on. Instead
poorly designed policies made on their behalf are funded
and enacted.

But it's not all bleak. Empowered communities are all
working in different ways to tackle Indigenous
disadvantage. Hopefully with allowing them to have
control of their own lives instead of us telling them what
they should do - they may just succeed where we've failed.
But I don't have much faith in the system. Our record
has not been a good one. And the Indigenous people
according to the 2016 census make up only 3.3% of the
population. Not much influence politically.

Do any of us think that the Prime Minister of
Australia and our government will really secure
within the Australian Constitution the recognition and
protection of the full and complete rights to their
indigenous way of life in all its diversity - giving
them economic independence through the proper use of
their ancestral land and waters in all their abundance
and wealth?

Steele & Foxy,

1. No Dreaming stories about farming.

2. Aboriginal people now control a sizable area of Australia, some of it very productive - certainly down this way. Any agricultural enterprises on any of it ? Yes, there must be isolated efforts, but if Aboriginal people were generally farmers, even in just those favourable areas, then why aren't they getting back into agriculture ? Perhaps using the deep knowledge of their elders ?

3. Almost everywhere, from the time when white fellas set up Missions down to the post-1970 times when naive young left-wing white fellas settled in communities, pretty much the first thing they tried to do was to set up vegetable gardens. They almost invariably failed within a couple of years of futile effort, and with little or no involvement from the local Aboriginal people, except maybe a couple of women.

I remember older people at one community telling me about how, in the recent past, the Mission/settlement/community had fruit orchards, which had now died. My inner voice suggested, "Why not water the bloody things ?" Actually, there was a pear tree there, under the eaves of the machine shed, which accidentally got plenty of water every year, and seemed to have a good crop every year, which nobody noticed. Not even the kids.

But keep the myth alive, fellas !

Question: why is there this sudden insistence that Aboriginal people weren't hunter/gatherers ? Is it because some bright spark has suddenly twigged that land-use recognition is one thing, but that it may not (may not, I don't know the full land law involved) constitute recognition of land ownership. Well, Mabo has dealt with that issue in favour of Aboriginal groups. So why the reluctance ?

Joe

Dear thinkabit,

You write;

"To call catching wild eels with traps an example of sophisticated agriculture is really pushing the boundaries of the meaning of the phrase."

Why are you doing this? Where did I use the term 'sophisticated'?

Perhaps you have been doing some reading.
"This 6,600-year-old, highly sophisticated aquaculture system developed by the Gunditjmara people will be formally considered for a place on the Unesco world heritage list and, if successful, would become the first Australian site listed exclusively for its Aboriginal cultural value." The Guardian

It certainly was aquaculture and has been described as such in numerous scientific papers including Heather Builth's 2003 study. Various ponds were used for various growth stages of the eels and the nets designed to capture certain sizes and let smaller ones through. This trapping, separating and preserving meant the eels were a food source all year round and the processing by smoking of eels enabled their trade across West and central Victoria.

"Builth computer-modelled water levels and revealed that these stone features were constructed across the lava flow to form a complex system of artificial ponds to hold floodwaters and eels at different stages of growth. These holding ponds allowed eels to grow in a restricted and protected area and be available to the Gunditjmara for much of the year. Critically, increasing the availability of the eels centred on improving eel survival, given that the eels breed in the Coral Sea. Builth described this complex network of ponds as “aquaculture”."
http://theconversation.com/the-detective-work-behind-the-budj-bim-eel-traps-world-heritage-bid-71800

Why is this such a struggle for you?

Dear Loudmouth,

You write;

"Question: why is there this sudden insistence that Aboriginal people weren't hunter/gatherers ?"

It certainly isn't sudden as the early explorers certainly recognised farming techniques and operations were being utilised by Aboriginal people. However there was certainly a concerted effort to push this from sight and it fitted the narrative that was constructed around the wholesale dispossession that occurred.

People like Bruce Pascoe are at the forefront of revealing the accounts from the early explorers but modern archaeology is also painting a vastly different picture that the one we were presented with in school history books.

The question is why are you so invested in railing against both the early settler accounts and modern archaeology?