It may help to have input from the communities
that are affected rather than having others
dictating to them and disempowering them.
That's why the NT Intervention failed. There
was no community consultation.

Foxy, for Christs sake.
What bl**dy community intervention.
If these are the very people you and your lot promote as being an advanced society with abilities such as agriculture, aquaculture, engineering, and so much more.
Then WTF happened that led them to end up in this sad and sorry state, and the indolent bunch we witness daily, half cut or sniffing petrol?
Foxy stop it with the disempowering BS, you are wrong.
If these people were so advanced as you have tried to imply previously, then A; they should have been more advanced when the Poms arrived,
B; they should be well and truly self sufficient and just as advanced as the Europeans of the day, and more so today.
But they are not, so either we take control of their lives (again) or we leave them to their own devices, NO ASSISTANCE whatsoever, finacial or otherwise, just like any other and all, Aussies.
Your last five lines of your last posting are just plain overeach and completely untrue.
LIES!

ALTRAV,

To change things and to ensure change, the system must
be reformed to encourage and, indeed, mandate responsibility.

The current system of government control is not working
for the Indigenous people.
It should be reformed.

Policies to address family violence, truancy, suicide
and alcohol abuse in Indigenous communities would be
improved with input from the people they are intended
to benefit. The success of the Native Title Act for
example would be greater if governments could better hear
Indigenous peoples' ideas to remove red tape and make
their land more economically productive.

The difference between Italian-Australians, Greek-Australians,
or White Australians, is that parliament makes specific
laws and policies about Indigenous people. There is no
native title act for Italian-Australians, because their
ancestors were not dispossessed of land in Australia.
Nor has there been an Italian-Australian Intervention.

When parliament makes laws and policies about the
First Nations of the NT, as they did with the NT Intervention,
the First Nations of the NT should have a fair say.

Whether you agree or disagree that the Intervention
was necessary, there is consensus that it was poorly
implemented, without proper consultation,
and
not as effective as it could have been. The Intervention
failed to achieve its aims.

Had local First Nations been empowered to take
responsibility in its formulation, the Intervention would
not have been discriminatory. It would have been better
accepted by communities and more effective.

Anyway, as I said previously - I'm all talked out on this
subject. I shan't be responding to any more posts.

Ah, sweet Foxy, so incredibly naive . :)

Some of us have been around the block in Indigenous affairs for many decades, but you come along and, after getting to know one bloke at a museum, are the authority. You know that no Indigenous leader or member of the elites would every have a negative bone in their body, they all love their people so much and want everything to go well for everyone. Yeah, right.

You can't see that, for a start, constitutional 'inclusion' opens the door to eventual constitutional ' exclusivity' and to pushes for all manner of special rights (which you probably would agree with) and separatism, from special clauses in treaties within the states, to demands from others for political sovereignty, i.e. either carving off a chunk of Australia and declaring it to be a separate state, or separate country, to a multitude of little chunks being carved off to represent each clan, and each of those chunks being funded from Canberra BUT completely running (or hiring whitefellas to run) their own affairs - a sort of Clayton's 'sovereignty'.

And when some groups get the bit between their teeth, they'll be demanding for all non-Indigenous people to be repatriated back to Whereverland.

I'm simply not interested in special rights for anybody - I don't know how I, as an equal citizen with you and every other citizen, can 'grant' more rights to some group than I or you or any Australian already have themselves.

I have no trouble with Native Title, which recognises the form of land tenure existing pre-Contact - it's standard British practice to recognise the forms of land tenure pre-Invasion/Contact/Settlement etc., i.e. Aboriginal groups having the rights (as even now, in SA) to hunt and gather etc. as they always had done.

Of course, the early ration system knocked that about a bit, especially the 'gathering' part:

Joe

[continued]

once the ration system was introduced, perhaps within a day or so, what woman would be silly enough to keep going out and gathering grass seed all bloody day, and grinding it half the night (cf. Sturt), when she can stroll down to the depot and get her pound of flour per family member per day, i.e. a two-pound loaf each per day ? [Have you ever tried eating a two-pound loaf of bread every day, for, say, a week ?] . And then sit and talk with the other women most of the day while the missionaries looked after the kids in school.

So the Contact certainly disrupted some fundamental pillars of Aboriginal society, e.g. the total subordination of women for sixty thousand years. Whether the Protector etc. could foretell what the consequences of the ration system would be or not, it meant fundamental changes to culture, ritual, women's role, etc., and the establishment of schools in Aboriginal languages (at Adelaide, Encounter Bay, Pt McLeay, Pt Lincoln, eventually up in the north-east, and later in the north-west, probably transformed the position of children in traditional society as well. So much must have changed quite early, Aboriginal adaptions to new phenomena, which have been going on ever since.

Aboriginal people are Australians, 1st, 2nd and xth, like the rest of us, with full unquestioned equal rights. I hope it stays that way and is never doubted.

Joe

Joe,

The Uluru Statement from the Heart seeks to resolve
the fundamental moral problem that has tormented our
country since 1788: How do we create a fairer
relationship with the First Nations of this land?

The problem was left unresolved in 1901: Indigenous
peoples were not represented in the constituional
compact that made the Commonwealth. It was not answered
in 1967: the referendum empowered parliament to make
laws for Indigenous people, but it did not empower Indigenous
people with a fair say in respect to those laws. It
was not resolved in 1999: the proposed symbolic preamble
would have changed nothing, and it failed at
referendum.

Indigenous Australians have now formed a historic consensus.
They ask for constitutional recognition through a First
Nations voice in the Constitution. Not a racial
non-discriminatory clause, which was opposed by politicians. Not
uncertain symbolism in the Constitution.

They ask only to be heard in decisions made about them.
A political reofrm. Not a veto, but a voice.

Properly understood, the Uluru Statement from the Heart
respects and appreciates equality over division, unity
over separatism, secure sovereignty over sovereign threats,
responsibility over passivity, and rationality over
sentimentalism. The Uluru statement offers a way to recognise
and empower First Nations of Australia to take responsibility
for their affairs, while upholding the Constitution,
respecting Crown sovereignty and unifying the country.

The problem is the Constitution has not ensured fairness and
equality for Indigenous Australians. It is time it did.
The Constitution confers upon Parliament a special
power to racially discriminate. This needs to change.

If that makes me naive. I'll wear that badge with honour.
And you Joe, need to go against your paranoid nationalism.