Many people internationally are shocked at the recent stoning of a wombat in South Australia.

The action has highlighted the use of traditional Aboriginal customs and if some are still considered relevant or acceptable in 2019.

Some have justified the stoning, by saying: "Throwing rocks at wombats was "one of many methods" local Aboriginal people used to kill them for food."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-03/sa-police-officer-throws-rocks-at-wombat-in-video/11570502

Will culture and human practice only change through force and pressure? An online petition on this issue so far has nearly up to 125,000 signatures and some politicians have spoken on the matter.

Should change though really come from within ones own self after an admission and realisation that some cultural practices are not healthy to pursue?

Culturally, you're supposed to giggle while you're bashing a wombat to death with a rock. Notice the highly-skilled and cultural stealth with which he crept up on that dangerous animal ?

Do you reckon he then ate it ? Or left it off the side of the road and went off with his mate, giggling, to KFC or Macca's ?

What a worthless turd.

So intersectionality has some problems: are we supposed to support modern-day Aboriginal 'custom' or animal protection ? Or maybe just ignore it all ?

When i lived in one community, i had some chooks, with chicks, one black one and about nine or ten yellow ones. Guess which chick the kids there killed first ?

Joe

Joe

Nathan j he got caught being a drongo
He now needs to come up with a story and this seems not to be true
The grin on the idiots face shows he enjoyed senseless death and is unfit to wear the uniform

and then there is giving young girls to old uncles. That also was a traditional custom. Thank God for the Judea Christian influence that slowly weeded out barbarity. Now we have socialism with no moral conscience, everything goes except of course Christian teaching.

Major "Moogy" Sumner a Ngarrindjeri elder was only
one of many in the region who said it was
"unacceptable" that this act was being considered as
a traditional hunt. He joined many who said that
animal cruelty is animal cruelty - and that is what
this act was.

He explained that whenever they do go out on a hunt
it is done in a respectful manner and the wombat is
killed quickly and humanely and there is no disrespect
to the animal.

Wombats are a protected species and the special dispensation
that's been given to the Indigenous in South Australia because
of cultural issues is now in danger of being taken away if
they allow this sort of behavior to continue.

This unthinking callous act by the off-duty police officer
gives not only his people, but the police force a bad look
and should be condemned for what it was. A dispicable and
cruel act that should not be tolerated. It was not a
traditional hunt. And blaming the Indigenous people for it
is simply not right. The man needs to face up to what he
did and admit it was wrong.

as much as I hate cruelty to animals it is a sick world when this man is criticised rightly for cruelty but the butchering of unborn babies is common practice. Shows you the power of media.

Pedophilia rather takes the moral compass out of Churches hands
Fact is we can not blame all for the sins of some
But highlighting SOME Christians are bigots is only telling the truth

Dear runner,

Is that the same "Judea Christian influence" which saw thousands upon thousands of Australian kids raped and buggered by hundreds upon hundreds of offending priests all while significant Christian leaders facilitated the abuse?

How does aboriginal anything-at-all get mixed up with a moron stoning an animal? What does crap about "culture and human practice" have to do with one of the most awful examples of cruelty by a two-legged animal against an innocent, harmless wild animal? "Cultural practices" have nothing to do with this brutality. Aborigines have nothing to do with it.

This bloke is a horrible arsehole who is not a fit person to be a policeman, as I'm sure any enquiry will conclude

'Is that the same "Judea Christian influence" which saw thousands upon thousands of Australian kids raped and buggered by hundreds upon hundreds of offending priests all while significant Christian leaders facilitated the abuse?'

acting like the god deniers who don't believe in judgement Steelie. Yep socialism and perverted religion are certainly cousins.

If aboriginals wish to indulge in "traditional" hunting practices it must be in the totally traditional way. No white man equipment such as vehicles power boats rifles or metal tipped weapons of any sort.

Any such equipment so used should be immediately seized & forfeited permanently.

If these rules were followed, we would very rapidly see how many "aborigines" like this offender were actually interested in traditional hunting.

Sky got involved last night damning the right of our first nation to live a little like they always have
This is no storm in a tea cup
It is a constructed lie
Made up by a cop who acted like a criminal and a fool
He needed a reason, so made it up

That's fairly normal practice all over. I've witnessed similar with turtles, snakes etc.
All it does is put the academic do-gooders on the spot ! Shipwrecked people in the 19th century at times suffered similar fate. When retaliation got the upper hand it's called white man cruelty a hundred years later !
I just wish people would accept history as it can't be changed anyway, no matter how hard Academia tries !

IF true an Aboriginal elder has said this is ok because of his being one of them?
Changes every thing charge the idiot with animal cruelty and question his ability to remain a cop

I do not believe there is anything "culturally" that can be associated with the actions of this off duty copper Mr Cock. The majority of Aboriginal people would be disgusted with his behaviour, just as the rest of the community are. Not fit to wear the uniform of a police officer.

Cultural practices of indigenous people are to be respected, they are not to be taken lightly. The protocols, practices and beliefs are something that all true indigenous people take most seriously. My wife in her culture takes her responsibilities very serious, she would never be flippant or mocking of those things she is entrusted to carry out as a woman of high standing within her tribe. Those that don't meet the standards, or fail to respect the protocols etc, she will soon let them know.

runner, this bloke could make himself a candidate for a later in life abortion, unfortunately they missed his as an unborn.

Don't think this bloke is Aboriginal.

Leading NSW gunnie, and multimillionaire car dealer Tony Azzi investigated over wombat deaths!

http://www.smh.com.au/national/multimillionaire-car-dealer-tony-azzi-investigated-over-wombat-deaths-20151218-glqoga.html

Pulled a few strings with the mates in power, and got away with it.

Anyone who thinks animal cruelty has nothing to do with aboriginal tradition obviously hasnt lived with traditional people. The cruelty in remote communities used to horrify me.
One example is turtle hunting. If turtles are lucky, only one of them gets caught, because it gets eaten right away. But if more than one is caught the others are laid on their back so that they are helpless, frequently out in the sun, and left like that for days, until people are ready to eat them. And turtles cry. I used to walk past them , sweltering upside down in the sun, with tears rolling down their faces.
Camp dogs would be starving, limping around with dangling broken legs, or gaping, festering wounds covered with flies and no one cared.
And don’t get me started on what the kids used to do to helpless animals for fun.

Dear Big Nana,

Do you ever have anything positive to say about
our Indigenous people? All of your comments
on this forum have always been so negative and
certainly not kind.

cont'd ...

Dear Big Nana,

What does this cruel act by this callous person
have to do with what other Aborigines may
have done - when in this particular case -
Aboriginal elders and many others in that region
have condemned this police-officers actions?

Aboriginals use to hunt for their food? No, can't be.

Weren't we reliably informed a month or two ago that aboriginals were such wonderful farmers (best the world's seen), that they had haystacks of seed higher than an elephant's eye (apologies to Oscar Hammerstein) and feasted on eel a l'orange every night - or something like that.

So clearly they weren't running around killing wombats and the such like. Conversely the stories about their wondrous farming skills were a tad overblown.

Aboriginals wiped out all the mega-fauna on the continent. Seems only right that they've moved onto the not-quite mega-fauna.

mhaze,

I don't have the energy to be kind to you today.

I wish you were a pinata.

Hi Nana

when truth was traded for narrative you end up with Foxy type responses whenever truth is presented. Somehow she has not worked out that denial does not change history.

Foxy, you need to learn the difference between aboriginal people and aboriginal culture. There are many many aboriginal people I absolutely adore, and not just the ones descended from me either.
Like ever other race they have great people, ordinary people and people I wouldn’t pass the time of day with.
But aboriginal culture is a very different issue. Traditional people before settlement had to live in what we would call a savage, cruel world, just as our white ancestors did.
Practises like child brides, wife beating and killing, infanticide, sorcery, cannibalism etc
evolved as forms of survival in a very harsh environment and there was no room for sentiment at all.
But those days are long gone and these cruel practises are no longer necessary and we should not be condoning any of them under the label of “ culture”. None of these practises are necessary in this age of welfare and social care and anyone who wishes to retain these skills should have to do as someone has already suggested, using traditional tools. And no traditional aboriginal ever wasted precious energy and time killing an animal they didn’t eat.
And you are wrong, I do talk about those aboriginal people who are doing well, getting educated, starting their own businesses, caring for their kids etc.

Also Foxy, when you speak of aboriginal “elders” you are meaning almost white people who forgot how to hunt traditionally several generations ago. Ask an elder from a remote top end community if he found this action cruel and he would laugh at you.

I actually saw a real Aboriginal man a few days ago & it made me wonder why we never get to see any like him on TV commenting on indigenous matters. All we ever get is the watered-down half-baked whiter than I claimants.

Hi Big Nana, one thing to keep in perspective is the fact those from remote top end communities do not represent the vast majority of Aboriginal people. This bloke is a bad example, most Aboriginals viewing the film of his actions would just call him an idiot an be done with it.
Unfortunately some indigenous people try to hide behind "culture" as a way of masking their real social problems.

Indy, once again you fail to explain. This "real Aboriginal man" you think should be out there commenting on indigenous matter, what was he like, were his opinions a reflection of your views on indigenous affairs, or something else? The redneck view that all Aboriginal culture ceased to exist or was trapped in a time warp after 26th January 1788 is wrong, culture is dynamic, not static. Like our own culture, that of all indigenous peoples is forever changing and developing. What was acceptable as a cultural practice at one time, may not be accepted today. There are many examples of cultural development in our society. Over a short period of time, it has become acceptable for two people to live together in a full relationship without being formally married, fifty years ago that relationship was stigmatised as culturally unacceptable.

Indy, once again you fail to explain. This "real Aboriginal man"
Paul1405,
Those who think already got the explanation. You're the one who fails to see the real issue !
Just take the time to think outside the leftist square & you'll understand.

Dear Big Nana,

I appreciate your taking the time to respond to me
and I am very relieved to hear your explanation.
I am glad to learn that you do have positive things
to say about our Indigenous People - and don't see
the majority of them in a negative light after all.

Thanks for explaining. I look forward to hearing
more positiveness from you in the future on this
forum.

Hi Paul,

I think Individual is having a lend of you, he's got long experience of 'real Aboriginal people'.

But you are right, culture is not static, it is dynamic - in that sense, all 'cultures', to use the word inappropriately, are as long as each other, they have all been developing dynamically for half a million years.

But some phases of cultural development take a hell of a lot longer than others - our hunter-gatherer past, in all cases, was lived over an extremely long time period, up until much more recently than most people think - perhaps the past few hundred or a thousand years in Scotland and Ireland and Lithuania. Then of course, an explosion of cultural change in the last few hundred years - which Aboriginal people here are also now going through.

As for cruelty to animals, Big Nana may be able to back me up, but I do recall that young blokes seemed to be afraid of animals, such as sheep. In one community, with grapes, wheat, lucerne, stone-fruit, citrus, unlimited water licence, as well as sheep, when we were rounding up the sheep in the yards around the shearing shed, the young blokes used to back off if a sheep stopped and looked at them. They usually carried a stick (the blokes, not the sheep).

Killing baby birds was a great pastime of the kids, knocking the nests out of the trees then killing the chicks. Sheer childish cruelty, the little bastards. Maybe we all used to do that, stomping on ants, that sort of thing. But adults ?

Cheers,

Joe

Joe,

What we're talking about here are the callous actions of a
young police officer who behaved badly. What does
that have to do with what his ancestors may or may not
have done in the past?

What does that have to do with what his ancestors may or may not have done in the past?
Foxy,
He simply inherited their mentality genes ! You should watch some of the "hunting" going on outside the City boundaries. On the other hand there is a kind of parallel with our drug abusers & the new traditional "hunters".

Foxy has it right a grub, who happens to be a Police officer [such people exist o sung wo] did a dreadful thing
Hunters killed for food not fun
He seems clearly unfit to hold his job

I don't have much time for any 'explanation' which involves genes, more like the sheer dominance of actual circumstances.

A distinguished friend, with many decades of experience, has sent me this comment:

"I saw

- the first news report which was just the video of the guys laughing and carrying on as they stone the poor thing to death. The report was run as an anti SA police story

You know – outrage over off-duty policeman’s cruelty to animals. The media loves that sort of thing!

- The second news report hung a strange non-sequitur on the end - Animal right activists want law changed on indigenous right to kill endangered species but without any explanation as the connection between the two parts.

- Then the third report later that night they finally got up the courage to mention the off duty policeman’s indigenous background, but you could see they were getting nervous about running the report They had backed off considerably on the cruelty angle.

And then the story died almost straight away Too difficult. Bagging cops is fine – great journalism - but this is catching the wrong people

It’s a perfect example of how the media wants to slant reports so that you only get what they want you to know … and the listener/reader/watcher has to look for their own little clues to work out what really happened.

But the really great part is the intersectional conflict where we all get to see the real status of the different sectional groups according to the media rules:

* Indigenous trumps animal rights

* Trans trumps gays

* Muslims trump women (Muslims trump everyone!) etc.

There is a great article on the subject by Daniel Greenfield called the Victim Value Index

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-minority-victim-value-index.html "

There has been a crisis in anthropology between objective scientific observations and analysis, and advocacy, for some decades, i.e. in how to properly 'explain' behaviour in traditional societies (not that this bloke's remotely 'traditional'), but this is useful for those who want some reality and truth:

http://quillette.com/2019/10/05/the-dangerous-life-of-an-anthropologist/

Joe

No worse than this,
http://www.9news.com.au/national/kangaroos-hit-and-killed-nsw-south-coast-teenage-driver-charged/c29481e3-94b7-477b-b04e-9019ac7ecfa3
and he could claim it as a cultural thing, for as Paul says, culture is always changing and it is surely a cultural norm in Australia to kill kangaroos with cars.

"Kangaroos accounted for 92.5 per cent of the top five most commonly hit animals on the road with 12,922 of them involved in a crash just last year across the state.

This was followed by wombats with 478 hit on the road, there were 286 cattle hit as well as 154 dogs and 133 cats."
http://www.northerndailyleader.com.au/story/6225247/tamworth-named-a-roadkill-hotspot-as-drought-causes-spike/

That's 35+ 'roos per day, and that doesn't include the injured who get off the roads and die, often a lingering death, in the bush.

On the other hand, I was driving with an Aboriginal friend along a country road, just yarning, and he swerved to avoid running over a sleepy lizard ambling across the road, almost without thinking. Nice bloke, a great thinker about hard issues. He was probably a damn sight more 'cultural' than this idiot.

Joe

Issy, I'm glad you're back from the Bunyip hunt. Have you still got that cook book you were plugging a few years back 'Road Kill Recipes for the Failed Hunter' was that it? How is good buddy and number one NSW gunnie and part time used car salesman and leading wombat killer Tony Assi?

Just on cruelty to animals, how many greyhounds competed in races last night that had been baited with a live rabbit or possum during the week? Seems to have become an accepted part of Australian culture.

Hi Joe, Indy falls into the same category as many of the hard right forum faction do, claiming intimate knowledge of all things Aboriginal, especially isolated communities, which incidentally represent only a small fraction of Aboriginal people. Then only use of that so called "intimate knowledge" is to denigrate a people.

Indy made a claim that he "actually saw a real Aboriginal man a few days ago". When challenged to a please explain, he snuck out the back door in typical Indy fashion. You're claim "I think Individual is having a lend of you, he's got long experience of 'real Aboriginal people'." Indy has no such experience, as Aboriginal people are as diverse as the rest of society.

I challenge anyone to put up an explanation of a 'real Aboriginal person' as defined by culture, not the tourist image, but the real person of today. While you're at it how about an explanation of what is culturally a 'real Australian person'. Me thinks we live with a lot of sub culture, with a few traits that are fairly universally accepted, like candles on a birthday cake.

Hi Paul,

Good point, but I expect that Individual qualifies as someone who has known many Indigenous people, up the Cape and across at east north Queensland, including Cairns, over perhaps forty years. Plenty of different sorts of Blackfella up there. No, not all Blackfellas are the same, and there isn't just one Indigenous culture. And never has been.

But if you mean that there is a sort of spectrum, or continuum, or even a polarity, amongst Indigenous Australians, you might enjoy this one:

https://quillette.com/2019/09/28/the-case-for-black-optimism/

Around twelve years ago, my late wife Maria wrote an article that Noel Pearson was much taken with (in 'Radical Hope'), on the development of (at least) two Indigenous populations, one work-oriented and the other welfare-oriented. Necessarily, the more 'traditionally-oriented' population tends towards the welfare model, but the work-oriented population, overwhelmingly urban, is uncannily like the African-American urban population that Hughes describes in the article cited above.

Strangely, the 'left' avoids any reference to that (possibly) majority population with its conventional measures of success - with, in Australia, maybe three thousand new Indigenous graduates each year, two-thirds women. Well over fifty thousand graduates, all up, one in every eight or nine Indigenous adults. One in every six Indigenous women.

And similar to African-Americans, Indigenous women here are participating in tertiary education at higher rates than for non-Indigenous Australian men. But you might read about that in The Graundain.

No ? I wonder why that is .....

Joe

Joe,

Being blessed with a hunters eye I see things on/near the road well before I reach them, thus I avoid all but the most suicidal 'roos and deer; sheep are not much problem as they seem to know what motor vehicles are as do goats I often slow down to let lizards have right of way, or to straddle them when they shew fight and want to have a go at the vehicle.
Some years ago a friend's daughter swerved to avoid hitting a 'roo and ended up in the roadside drain, got charged with negligent driving!!

Paul,

Haven't been after anything except ferals, been a few bushfires locally, so a lot of fleeing foxes, wild dogs and a few cats, on which we have effected a reasonable toll.

But you are right, culture is not static, it is dynamic
Loudmouth,
Correct so, why does the Guilt industry not subscribe to that evolvement ? Sort of like, the European invaders have done wrong but their descendants have seen the wrong & have fallen ar$e over backwards to compensate yet that is as yet not enough for the Guilt industry !

Aboriginal spirituality is meant to be animistic in many ways.

So what is the term referring to?

Definition of animism

1: a doctrine that the vital principle of organic development is immaterial spirit

2: attribution of conscious life to objects in and phenomena of nature or to inanimate objects

3: belief in the existence of spirits separable from bodies

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/animism

In an animistic world every thing is meant to be interconnected in some form including humans, plant life and all animal species, land forms and celestial bodies, which are meant to be part a much larger reality.

On earth, nothing is inanimate, everything is alive with all elements all energised by a spirit.

As such, humans are meant on an equal footing with nature; are part of nature and are morally obligated to treat animals, plants and landforms with respect as a result. Presently that is not happening and has not happened for a very long time.

One cannot exist without the other.

This type of hunting, in fact any hunting is cruel. It is time to recognise all elements are part of a picture of which humans are one part of. Humans are therefore not superior in that context and should not think so either.

For anyone interested - I've just managed to get
hold of a book that Banjo Paterson recommended -
"The Last of the Nomads," by W.J. Peasley. I've
started to read it and it's extraordinary -
the story of how two Aboriginal people survived alone
for thirty years in
the western Gibson Desert region of Australia.
It looks like being absorbing reading.

He shouldn't be doing that, no need for it.

Here is the formula for the breakdown of the " Nondeterministic Automata" of the animal.
Unfortunately it lacks the power to determine which of the subject matter is the true animal.

s0 -m-> s0 -m-> s0 -a-> s0 -i-> s0 -n-> s0 -m-> s0
-m-> s1
-m-> s1 -a-> s2 -i-> s3 -n-> s4
-m-> s1

My solution to solving the obvious problem would be to erect randomly placed statues of Captain Cook throughout the outback, as a means to deflect such senseless attacks on native fauna.

Dan.

PS.

Has anybody asked the obvious question; was the officer in question actually performing a humane act in trying in his own way, to kill an injured animal?

Having spent many years travelling around country roads, I can assure the faint hearted and truely sensitive among us, of the huge damage to a vehicle which can be caused by accidental running over a wombat on the track.
At the intersection of this event there are two obvious casualties. In the most part both of which, from that point in time, are immovable.

Dan.

If the creep was performing a "humane act" he was certainly enjoying it and and prolonging the wombats ordeal.

Stop making excuses for this arsehole.

Dan,

Has anyone asked the obvious question: was the wombat injured in any way BEFORE that half-wit crept so timorously yet courageously up on it and bashed its head in with a rock ? Real humane.

Admit it: it was a vile thing to do, whether the bloke was Indigenous or not.

Accept that intersectionality inevitably throws up contradictory demands, and put the responsibility where it lies.

Joe

I note this bloke was using the rock in his right hand! Obviously a member of some far right political org, most likely the Cosa Nostra no doubt. I do believe I detected an ever so slight, but distinguishable to most, a Tasmanian accent. The shorts, I seen the exact same pair in 'Lowes! Its all coming together for me.

BTW, Indy was he that "real Aboriginal man" you claimed you were speaking to the other day? Who was in the drivers seat? Ah! Indy.

BTW, Indy was he that "real Aboriginal man"
Paul1405,
You're proving time & time again with almost every post that you'll never muster the mentality required to comprehend the gist of common understanding.
So, rather than explain it to you I leave you with the challenge of working it out for yourself, asking your mates for help is fine by me, as long as you eventually "get it" !

Individual,

How's that again?

God, Paul, you're so funny ! They must piss themselves over their kale smoothies down at the Smashed Avo Collective. But your implied suggestion that it's no big deal to bash a wombat's head in with a rock may not seem all that funny to one of your other groups, you know, the animal-lovers. You might have to very carefully explain it to them.

Alternatively, you could have the courage to confront some of the dilemmas of intersectionality - while you (and Foxy) feel you must support, or at least never criticise, any action by any Indigenous person or fear of being racist (and thereby commit racism: it's a complicated world), you also have to explain to other virtuous groups how proper and normal it is to bash a wombat's head in.

Sorry, I can't wish you good luck. Have the courage to criticise vile acts, no matter who commits them. Let's move on.

Joe

There is still room for the science of determinism to act as an arbiter here.
the Peano theorem establishes that for every initial condition there is at least one local solution of the equation. I like that one.

I prefer this to other looser variants of determinism theory, the loosest of which is the
more Metaphysical in its attempts to explain the philosophy of the science.

But first should we ask of the situation, who was the more stoned, the wombat or the cop?
And keeping the argument on the outback track, since there is now one less wombat, it naturally implies as a consequence, one spare hole in the ground, and one remaining live cop...Mmm.

Back to the theories of determinism, which when push comes to shove, very quickly find themselves entwined in argument with the therory of indeterminism.
Paul 1405 comes close to the bone here; politics is never far away from an indeterminate argument.

But let us on these pages, not act as a vigilante against the appearance of injustice by the cop towards the wombat.
Feeding into the solution must be all determinates. The order of collation can't be given to personal value judgements, since that involves an inequality of the first order.
Removing the sense of pity towards the wombat, and removing likewise the sense of rage towards the cop, helps the theory of determination progress to a solution.

I don't wish to add my own judgements into the mix, to a greater extent than I wish that a sane non-judgemental consideration is similarly applied by those here with a burning interest in justice towards wombats; which I've determined are the vast majority.
Poor cop.

Dan

Dan,

Amidst all that postmodernist verbiage, when you write,

"Removing the sense of pity towards the wombat, and removing likewise the sense of rage towards the cop ..."

if you mean, "abandon any sense of right or wrong, which are bourgeois and neo-liberal concepts anyway, and assume that nothing wrong was done to that dead wombat, and that therefore the police aide did nothing wrong ...."

you show yourself as morally bankrupt as the police aide.

Call it like it is: a totally dumb-arse act by an idiot terrified of nature.

Joe

How's that again?
Foxy,
I had half-an ounce of benefit of doubt reserved for you but it's gone now. Sorry !

Individual,

Glad to see you're improving.

.

It is quite obvious that the Aboriginal police officer did not kill the wombat in the traditional Aboriginal context of hunting for food. It is an act of senseless cruelty to one of Australia’s unique, emblematic wild animals.

Hopefully, the staging of this gratuitous act of cruelty and the publicity it has received will lead to the legal protection of the species, not just in South Australia but right throughout the country – as is already the case in Victoria.

That said, there are even worse scandals that occur every week in Australia :

• At least one woman is killed every week by a partner or former partner

• Intimate partner violence is the greatest health problem for women aged 25-44

• Violence to Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander women is 3 times that of other women

• Health and welfare costs due to violence to women represent $21.7 billion a year

All that violence is, of course, condemnable and illegal, but it continues unabated and largely ignored.

.

Dear Banjo,

And much worse is the fact that women are accused of
being liars and not deserving to be believed despite
the evidence and statistics being presented. We currently
have a Government Inquiry in the family law system -
whose Deputy Chair is Pauline Hanson and she believes that
women lie. And the Chair of that inquiry is a conservative
MP very much pro marriage no matter what the conditions -
so you can image how objective this inquiry is going to be
and how many people are going to be willing to testify.

Dear uncle Joe.

My post was full of cynical scepticism. Avoided blaming culture, since post- modernists believe there is none, and avoided appropriating blame. This was achieved by ignoring right and wrong by removing the moral argument.
Your correct to interpret and identify the distinct scent of post- modernist philosophy in it.
That's good, I achieved my aim.

But Joe, I consider myself removed from it. Since I pivot on a belief in God, and hold fast to the joys of the metaphysical realm.
More so than yourself, who self confesses as an atheist. Which puts you closer to Friedrich Nietzsche, who launched his post-modernist ship down the godless slipway, to be crewed by atheists off into the modern world.

Dan

Well Joe, earlier I posted this; "I do not believe there is anything "culturally" that can be associated with the actions of this off duty copper Mr Cock. The majority of Aboriginal people would be disgusted with his behaviour, just as the rest of the community are. Not fit to wear the uniform of a police officer."

Being a true friend of the "aboriginal folk" as you claim, yet you only read what you want. Like your website which regurgitates the biased racists words and opinions of white authority. Not one word from any "aboriginal folk". Why is that Joe?

Indy it is now obvious that when you claimed "I (Individual) actually saw a real Aboriginal man a few days ago & it made me wonder why we never get to see any like him on TV commenting on indigenous matters"

That was a lie, you made it up to give you a puffed up sense of superiority, and then with the help of another friend of "Aboriginal folk" Joe, you tried to back peddle. You know as much about the vast majority of Aboriginal people, their beliefs and opinions, as you know about the other group you like to denigrate, public servants, your ignorance is astounding.

I can only imagine what is your ideal Aboriginal spokesperson.

Hi Dan,

I owe you an apology, except for your allusion to Nietzsche.

Paul,

What ? Do you mean, why didn't I transcribe any letters from Aboriginal people on my web-site, www.firstsources.info ?

For a number of reasons:

1. I didn't find any in the state archives, although, on reflection, they would have been somewhere in the 160 boxes of letters to government officials. In any case, the Protector answered them.

2. If you mean, just private letters to individuals, how would I get hold of them ? Did the Aboriginal writer keep a copy ? Did the person he/she wrote to make a copy, or keep the letter ?

3. So how would I know where to look ?

Still, if you're genuinely interested, I'm sure you could find letters written by Aboriginal people to government officials, somewhere in your local state archives. Let me know how you go.

I spent eighteen months typing up the letters of the SA Protector. I found very little which could be called racist in any of them, quite the opposite. Surely, with your vastly deeper concern for Aboriginal people than I have, you could dedicate yourself to spend more time than that - a mere eighteen months - in finding out what they may have written about ? Off you go :)

Joe

Joe, throwing mud at others seems to be your forte at times. "They must piss themselves over their kale smoothies down at the Smashed Avo Collective." Who are "they"?

I did not say or imply "that it's no big deal to bash a wombat's head in with a rock may not seem all that funny to one of your other groups." read the earlier comment from me. Some try to denigrate Aboriginal people by association, ONE does something stupid and cruel, then ALL must be tared with the same brush. That's how the racists works.

Reading what I have of your Protectors letters, I can not recall ever coming across anything where one of these white controllers has admitted getting things wrong. Miracle men one and all.

Aboriginal people, if they bothered, must piss themselves reading that sanitised nonsense from their old colonial white masters on your web site.

Paul,

Anything constructive to say ? Never mind, just sit in your throne, passing judgment on others.

As for whether the Protector ever got things wrong, I was struck again and again that I didn't think I would have done much differently from what they did or proposed. In fact, i was surprised how innovative and thoughtful they were. For example, when men from the north-east used to come down, raiding huts and taking women from the Flinders Ranges people, their express purpose was to collect ochre around Parachilna. So the Protector promptly ordered a tonne of ochre to be delivered to them each year.

On another occasion, a woman was being mistreated by her husband on one mission. The Protector (Hamilton) asked her if she wanted to move back to her home country near Crystal Brook where he would ensure that she was provided with rations.

If you can find any racism in any of those letters (admittedly, with eight thousand letters to read, it could be an unnecessarily onerous job for you), let me know.

Any other idiocy ? You're losing it, old boy, maybe early dementia ? Puha is good for that.

Joe

That was a lie,
Paul1405,
Your cynicism seems to be boundless & as for your other trait Doris Lessing describes you best.

Doris Lessing argued that "there is no fool like an intellectual ... a kind of clever stupidity, bred out of a line of logic in the head, nothing to do with experience."

Indy, when you put it up, you need to back it up, something you can't do can you. Why? Because you made it up, all to puff yourself up, instead you stuffed yourself up.

Joe, great humanitarian acts by those white controllers. Reminds me of the great humanitarianism of the Japanese towards Australian POW's, they gave them Red Cross packages, sometimes, all heart those blokes. South Australia was a special case with only about 5% of the Aboriginal population.

Paul1405,
You really should seek help !

I think that the High Court of Yallingup should reconvene and try the fellow. I am sure that given the gravity of the alleged offence an exception to his gender will be made so that the trial may proceed. Then, like many misbehaving women tried before him, he can be bashed on the head and chucked down a hole, his otherwise fatal landing partially cushioned by a pile of corpses, from whence, after regaining some form of consciousness, he might crawl off into a corner, reflect upon his deeds, then perhaps, some days hence, die. Such was justice.

Given all the trite indignation, and holier-than-thou moral judgement by some of the white mob on here, firstly about this bloke who is a total idiot, and then try to extrapolate his stupid behaviour to cover all Aboriginal people. Not bad coming from a mob who collectively have tortured and murdered about 200 million of their mob in the last hundred years. When it comes to being cruel and sadistic the Aboriginal is a novice, he can learn so much on that score from the white honkies who tortured and murdered thousands of Aboriginal people over the past two hundred years right here in Australia. Probably some of the self-rightest Forumites are related to those murderous white men!

Indy, still can't come up with an explanation concerning that so called ideal black fella you met the other day can you. Was it a lie?

Indy, still can't come up with an explanation
Paul1404,
What do you need explained ? What I meant by a "real Aborigine" is his complexion. You know the real matt black skin, white hair, nice demeanour, brown eyes that revealed no racism, unlike those whiteish stirrers from the City suburbs who've never even seen a Wallaby, those who you sound like !

A great outpouring of self-hatred there from Paul 1405. He can't wait to use anti-white drivel in defence of barbarians.

Paul,

I didn't realise that the Aboriginal Protectors here in South Australia were agents of the Japanese fascist military, a hundred years later. Perhaps you could join the dots ?

Probably those Protectors and missionaries were not much more humanitarian than you or I. But they seemed to do their best in what was a six- and seven-day-a-week job, organising rations for up to seventy depots, meeting people coming to town for hospital treatment and ensuring they had somewhere to stay, organising free medical attention in major regions, etc.

And ensuring that any Aboriginal people charged, say with mass murder, had competent interpreters so that they could understand the workings of the court system as British subjects, otherwise for the charges to be dropped.

And issuing boats and guns, so that people could continue to use their rights to hunt and fish and gather - as they still can.

If you can find any evidence to the contrary, on my web-site: www.firstsources.info , I'd be happy to have a good look at it. I'm surprised that you didn't refer to the Rufus Creek battle, that's in the first volume of the Protector's letters. All indexed, for your easy viewing.

Along with indexed Royal Commissions from most states. The 1000-page 1935 Moseley Royal Commission from WA is a beauty. And a twenty-year journal of a key missionary. And twenty years' more of letters from the same mission.

And, of course, spread-sheets in relation to Indigenous tertiary education performance, that you won't find anywhere else, not even (!) from Indigenous education bodies. No research papers from them either, although I've put together a few insignificant examples. I wonder why they are so quiet about any of that, Paul ? Could it be because power, rather than Indigenous advancement, is their central preoccupation, and because they view Indigenous university success as a threat to their power bases in the Industry ?

Joe

ttbn giving advice to Paul about self-hatred and
drivel?

Very impressive - coming from our resident
intellectual, compassionate, and truly caring poster.

Hi there Indy, you are confused again, I know that bloke you "met the other day" he's not Aboriginal at all, he's African American and his name is Uncle Tom.

Hello Joe, I didn't realise Mother Teresa was also an Aboriginal Protector in South Aussie, I stand corrected. It is reported that Adolf Hitler once said on seeing a goldfish in a bowel; "How cruel it is to keep a goldfish in a bowel". It takes all kinds!

Well Joe, we have discussed the Rufus Creek Massacre previously, where SA Aboriginal "Protector" Moorehouse led a party of whites to indiscriminately murder about 40 Aboriginal men, women and children. Maybe you can find a letter from Moorehouse where he gave the survivors a few blankets or something to calm them down. Can put it up on the good old website.

Paul, you don’t seem to actually study the finer details of many of the events you mention.
Firstly, white people didn’t kill thousands of aboriginal people during settlement times. The biggest killer of aboriginal people was disease. Measles, tb, venereal disease, etc.
The second largest cause of death was murder by the native police, who killed thousands of aboriginal people, mainly tribal enemies, especially in Qld.
As for that massacre you mention, well according to accounts, it wasn’t indiscriminate, it was the end result of 6 months of guerilla type warfare, initially provoked by white men not handing over the food and tools they had promised for the women handed over to them by their husbands.
Quite frankly, as far as I’m concerned, any man who loans out his wife in exchange for food deserves everything he gets.

Hi Paul,

I certainly wouldn't want a goldfish swimming around in my bowels. Neither would it.

Perhaps you can join the dots between Aboriginal Protectors here in tiny South Australia and the wonderful (strangely non-left) Mother Teresa. No doubt, you hunger to do some of the sort of work that she did for fifty years, to show that people on the 'left' care so much about alleviating the sufferings of others, when you're not busy talking about it with your inner-city friends. Oh, they don't talk about such things ? Quel surprise.

But you might be too busy, joining the dots between SA Protectors and the Japanese fascist machine of the Second World War.

Joe

Paul1405 is running out of sense rapidly.

Dear Paul,

Perhaps some of our posters need to do some research
on Australian history - particularly on something
called "Australian Frontier Wars".

Wikipedia would be an easy place to start. It tells
us about the "violent conflict between Indigenous
Australians and White Settlers during the British
colonisation of Australia." Wikipedia says that -
"the first fights took place several months
after the landing of the First Fleet in Jan. 1788
and the last occurred in the early 20th century as
late as 1934."

"A minimum of 40,000 Indigenous Australians and
between 2,000 and 2,500 settlers died".

The Indigenous numbers are possibly even higher.

Worth a read

As I said Foxy, the largest number of aboriginal people were killed by native police.
It was tribal warfare supported by European weapons.

“The Native Police were a deadly arm of state, spreading north and west to conduct ambushes and reprisals alongside waves of land-stealing pastoralists over the last third of the 19th century.

Estimates of the numbers of Aboriginal men, women and children they killed ranged from 10,000 to 60,000, Mark Finnane, a Griffith university professor of history, said.”

Foxy,
yes & so is the story of the CHARLES EATON.

Foxy,

Then it wouldn't be all that difficult for archaeological and forsnsic-science trams from universities to carry out thorough investigations of 'well-known' massacre sites ? Especially at sites where many, many people are reputed to have been killed ?

We know that it is very difficult to completely remove all signs of a body, let alone hundreds. To burn a body takes round a tonne of wood, so hundreds of people would mean hundreds of tonnes, so at least in hard country, entire areas would be cleared, all at the same time, so regrowth on trees would all be about the same age, and maybe (I don't know) their rings could be counted, to give a very rough idea of when the trees were stripped.

Let's apply a bit of science and truth to this discussion.

Joe

Dear Big Nana,

According to my research the 'frontier wars'were
carried out first by British soldiers then by
police and settlers - often acting together and
later by native police working under the command
of white officers in military style forces
supported by colonial governments.

Dear Joe,

Much research has been done on the Frontier Wars.
The University of Newcastle is just one place worth
contacting. There are maps of massacres - there's even
a list of massacres on Google. All you have to do is
be willing to look and read more than just Keith
Windschuttle and his team's work.

Foxy,

Yes, a 'list' of supposed massacres, but no investigations, as far as I can tell. None. Surely, if there were investigations of massacres of Aboriginal people, in the most likely or notorious sites, they would find something, if there was something there, and give some backing to that 'list' ?

It 'lists' sites in South Australia which, frankly, would be impossible, a couple in the north-east in the 1890s, for example. Another site 'listed' which was actually a massacre of Aboriginal people accused of marrying wrong, by other Aboriginal groups (Mt Eba). If that 'list' is unreliable in relation to South Australia, I wonder how much store can be put in it, especially since there haven't yet been any proper forensic investigations.

Perhaps somebody could put together a 'list' of Aboriginal massacres of non-Aboriginal people. Yes, that happened, and is far better documented than just a 'list'.

If massacres occurred, find evidence.

Joe

Hi Joe and Foxy,

Just a point on "traditional customs" I can't speak for Aboriginal customs, but on the score of the Maori custom of tattooing. The practice is not to be taken lightly, some certainly do, and is frowned upon if carried out for purely selfish reasons, such as self adornment. The person doing tattoos, like carving, has to firstly seek authority from kaumatua (elders) to do the work, they also need to be trained correctly in that art form. After a tattoo is done completely, which can take several sessions it should be blessed by an appropriate person.

The Son had a very nice one done a couple of years back, Mums first question was, who did it for you, where is he from, secondly what is its kaupapa (meaning). Then has it been manaakitanga (blessed), or who is going to do it. Before performing the work the artist should perform a karakia (prayer). Recently a nephew who has been in a bit of trouble lately, had a large tattoo done on his neck, very impressive, put it up on 'Facebook', Aunty seen it and she was straight on the phone with the appropriate questions, seems it passed Aunties sniff test, all is well.

I was once in NZ with the wife, and we stopped at a spot in a forests down south to pick some kind of bush. To take up north for a baby who had bad eczema. The wife knew this particular bush grew there. Before entering the forest she said a karakia, and explained that years back she had been given permission from a local kaumatua to gather in that forest, but under strict rules, like don't take more than you need.

Before entering the forest she said a karakia,
Paul1405,
it is the custom here too on Cape York. All those of us who know respect that.

Joe,

Here we go again. We've been down this path so many
times before and as I've told you - there's no point
in continuing this conversation with someone who
refuses to see the evidence or read material that
contradicts his views. Books have been recommended to
you, you refuse to read them - and yet you make
judgements on the authors. Universities have done
the research that is readily available - even the
archives of our National War Memorial acknowledge
and I quote:

"The 'Frontier Wars' were a series of actions that were
carried out by British colonial forces stationed in
Australia, by the police, and by local settlers. It is
important to note that the state police forces used
Indigenous Australians to hunt down and kill other
Indigenous Australians..."

John Connor an academic from the Australian Defence Force
Academy has added his research to aid our understanding
of the early settlement of Australia. His book has been
described as well researched and a very readable study
of Australian colonial warfare. "Australian Frontier
Wars," it's only one of many worth reading. It just
may broaden your horizon.

Foxy,

Can you understand that a list is not evidence on its own ? In this case, surely a forensic examination of likely sites is necessary for any assertion to be conclusive ? Why do you avoid such a need ? Why just accept whatever someone asserts just because it' in the direction of what you want to believe ? Evidence is what counts, not virtuous feelings.

Over the years, since, say, 1960, I've read most of the books you ask me to read. Some I don't bother with if they are full of baseless assertions. And I hope I will 'make judgements' on anybody who makes assertions without evidence. Any half-wit can do that.

You have an amazing reverence for whatever Google throws up :)

Joe

Joe,

I read a lot and research a great deal.
Google is only one search engine.
I use many sources. And actually do read things
before making judgements.

Don't insult the police force by calling him a police officer. He is a liaison officer.
The specialist 'liaison role' performed by a Police Liaison Officer does not require powers of a police officer. However, they may be called upon to assist police officers with law enforcement tasks in certain circumstances.

Joe,

You have an amazing reverance and total commitment
to seeing Indigenous history from the White
Man's perspective only.

Foxy,

That's your assertion: prove it.

As for your earlier post, suggesting that you read a lot, that's a bit by-the-way - have you read any reports of thorough investigations of massacre sites ? Otherwise, it's just your third-hand reading of somebody else's second-hand reporting of an assertion.

Reading a real, real lot is not proof of knowledge in this area: it's loaded with assertions - for example, the 'stolen generation' (how many ? One), Indigenous deaths in custody (a lower rate than for non-indigenous prisoners), and so on - plenty of assertions, which collapse when they are actually analysed rather than believed without question, by really nice, virtuous people such as yourself.

Joe

Joe,

That's not my assertion.

Unfortunately -

That's your actions since I've known you on this
forum.

Anyway - as I've stated earlier to you.
There's no point to this conversation. I have
no wish in arguing with you. It achieves nothing.
I've learned that from the past.

I shan't be responding to you on this matter any further.
It's too distressing for me.

Hi Foxy, Joe is well known as a forum apologists for the crimes of early white colonials. After all there is nothing, no disclaimer that his website could contain biased untruths, just published Aboriginal Protectors letters etc that would in no way incriminate Europeans in such crimes. A bit like reading the letters of Hermann Goring to see if there is anything that incriminates Nazi's in war crimes against the Jews.

"A history of bloodshed
Between 1820 and 1824, the white population increased tenfold in the Bathurst region, from 114 to 1,267.

With their traditional hunting grounds destroyed, the Wiradjuri people became increasingly involved in skirmishes with white farmers.

The proclamation of martial law by governor Thomas Brisbane ordered any retaliatory bloodshed be stopped by any means necessary, with the use of firearms against the Wiradjuri in the area west of Mount York on the Great Dividing Range.

n early March 1824, a farmer showed a group of Wiradjuri people how to cook potatoes in what has become known as the Potato Field Incident.

Under the belief that the potatoes were growing on their tribal lands, the Wiradjuri people felt they had a customary right to the produce.

Upon their return, the white farmer, who misunderstood the situation, gathered neighbours to slaughter an unreported number of 'thieving blacks'".

Tearing at the scabs again Paul1405 ? Judging by your selective historical events you're actually trying to reopen the wounds of the past. Is the word healing not in your vocabulary ?

Indy,

The point being whenever Foxy, others or myself raise the subject of the terrible things that have happened to Aboriginal people since European colonisation Joe is quick on the defensive with claims of "nothing to see here" or some attempt to negate with things like "so many Aboriginal girls go to uni" etc etc.

What has happened is a fact, we have to move as a united people, but with recognition and equality. To simply say, as the apologists do, its in the past so just forget it, is not good enough.

Like your claim, that a white haired old Aboriginal gentlemen should be a spokesperson for his people. You only favour him because you think he would say the things you would like to hear, he would be subservient, and full of gratitude for all that has been done. He wouldn't rock the boat, in other words.

he would say the things you would like to hear,
Paul1405,
No, he'd be saying things that'd prove you et al so terribly wrong !

Hi there Indy,

Glad to see you recognise with custom comes some degree of responsibility under some circumstances. "it is the custom here too on Cape York. All those of us who know respect that."

There is no account as to what were the circumstances that led to the deaths of several people from the shipwreck of the Charles Eaton. Can you offer up some evidence?

Pau,
]
I . put ten years into finding resources and transcribing them, so that other people didn't have to do it, it was at their fingertips.

Yes, I should have checked each of the nine thousand letters of the Protector (i.e. the 'Aborigines' Department'). And a total of fifteen thousand pages of resources that people can assess as they wish. What a total bastard I am. It might have take a bit of time, say a month for each letter, say 750 years, but I won't have much else to do.

And you've done ...... what ? As someone wrote of the French diplomat Talleyrand, 'un soc parfume plein de merde'.

Joe

Joe,

As my French teacher

"Tu crois que ta merde ne pue pas?".

Or -

"Tu te conduis en petite merdeuse. Tu te crois au-dessus
de tout".

cont'd ...

Joe,
As my French teacher would say -

You can't hide shyte with perfume.
So, stop doing it.

Sorry, Foxy, in what way do you mean ?

Joe

Joe,

Take an intelligent guess.

Paul,

Your statement that ' .... some attempt to negate with things like "so many Aboriginal girls go to uni" etc etc. ' devalues the wonderful efforts of Indigenous people, especially women, to seize opportunities in higher education. This year, I think that Indigenous university commencement and graduation numbers will keep rising by 6-8 % on last year, to around 7300 and 2700 respectively (those federal Ed Dept numbers may UNDER-estimate real figures by 20 %). I think that's wonderful. You think it's worthless and an easy subject for vicious, snide attack. To me, they are the Real Indigenous People, the best of Indigenous people.

For the information of those who might care, Indigenous university commencements in award-level courses have risen by three and a half times since 1994 to around 7300 in 2017, the last year of figures; 17,400 enrolments in 2017; and a total of about 55,000 graduates, two-thirds women.

Indigenous women are commencing study at higher rates now than NON-Indigenous Australian men. And those women graduates make up one in every six Indigenous women across the country.

An equivalent 20- or 24-year-old age-group, more or less the average age when people start uni, is about 14,000. In other words, the equivalent of more than half of young Indigenous age-groups are now commencing university study. Given that two-thirds of commencing Indigenous students are women, this translates into the equivalent of two-thirds of all young Indigenous women commencing university study. And rising at about 6-8 % p.a. for the foreseeable future.

You can mock this, but in my view, it is the one bright light in Indigenous affairs. You may want the 'real' Indigenous people to stay down, poor, helpless, in need of white saviours, because they're so unchangeably 'cultural', fated to stay dispossessed. I don't see any need for saviours any more: Indigenous people are doing it all themselves. They are taking control of their own lives without pseudo-friends like you. They don't need you or me, get that straight. And for Christ's sake, wish them well.

Joe

Hi Joe,

"You can mock this, but in my view, it is the one bright light in Indigenous affairs."

Not at all, it is a great stand alone achievement by our Indigenous brothers and sisters. The ones who mock, are those who throw such an achievement up as a counter to past failures. You have a tendency to do that, as if this success today negates failures of the past.

There is so much negativity on this forum, and else where, about Aboriginal people. Some have such a mind set against them that every thing they post is negative. Foxy called out Big Nana for continually posting negative comment, and you know what, Foxy was right, a huge bias of negativity is posted by some. Yet Big Nana came back to say that there are good people known to her in the Aboriginal community.

You may want the 'real' Indigenous people to stay down, poor, helpless, in need of white saviours
Loudmouth,
Wrong, so utterly & terribly wrong ! Such totally unnecessary deliberate bad choice of words to incite bad feelings.
What & I'm sure of that, most non-indigenous would like to see is the indigenous Australians to be like everyone else. Members of a Nation where equality is actually practised, not just preached. I know of quite a number of indigenous whose efforts are constantly thwarted by utterly useless bureaucrats & idiotic policies. The communities are swamped with such bureaudroids in order to alleviate unemployment in the South, not to help the communities.
I wonder how many Australians are aware of how much funding for indigenous communities actually ends up in the pockets of bureaudroids, lawyers & other "professionals".
It's a truly sickening show running to a script written by academic social engineers. For their own benefit of course !

Dear Paul,

Well said. That's why the Uluru Statement from
the Heart asks that truth in the telling of their
history be done. And after so many decades - it
needs to be. You and I acknowledge that - which
in no way demeans any future achievements. On
the contrary.

Paul,

What 'failures' have there been in Indigenous higher education ?

Well, one that I can think of: the idiotic push to try to make aspiring Indigenous students confine their studies to Indigenous-oriented awards, a strategy which bombed out between 1998 and 2005 - after which, the vast, vast majority of Indigenous students have enrolled in standard, award-level courses, and tripled in numbers.

Why did the elites try to push that line ? Clearly, because power and control were more important to the Indigenous elites, not just in higher education but across the board of Indigenous affairs, than mass advancement and the seizing of opportunities. Indigenous-studies course-writers thought they would have lifelong careers with a captive student population. Boy,did they get that wrong.

So, yes, that was one 'failure' - a 'failure' which liberated Indigenous people. And they'll never go back to being overly-shackled by careerists.

In the meantime, on the other hand (perhaps another 'failure'), since 1998, Indigenous student recruitment, preparation and support programs at universities have, in many cases, withered. But all that this has meant is that Indigenous students are doing it on their own, sometimes oblivious of whatever 'Indigenous Centre for Excellence' may be on their campuses while they get on with their studies. Wonderful !

And another dreadful 'failure': what are left of Indigenous programs at universities have, on the whole, abandoned any attempt to extend university opportunities to rural and remote areas, with non-performing staff doing their endless and pointless research and living off the low-hanging fruit of well-qualified, urban students - turnstile programs.

Any other whinges, Paul ? He toe-toe koe.

Joe

Hi Individual,

Yes, that's what I was trying to get at, in my clumsy way (and I'm sure Big Nana too) :)

Cheers,

Joe

Joe,

That's why the Indigenous are asking for a voice
in policies that affect them. A voice - only
a voice.

Hi Joe,

You ask;
What 'failures' have there been in Indigenous higher education ?

A HUGE FAILURE! The first university in Australia, Sydney University open in 1850. The first Indigenous person to graduate from that university was Charles Perkins in 1966, 116 years later, a huge failing. In the next 53 years thousands of Indigenous people graduated from university, a huge success!

Foxy, I keep reading about how indigenous people want a say regarding policies that affect them and I must say that I am at a loss to understand how that would work.
Every single policy that is passed through parliament affects all Australians in some way, including indigenous people.
So, are they saying they want to be exempt from some laws or policies they feel are detrimental to their lives? Are they asking for separate laws based on race? Are they in effect, wanting apartheid?
And I have spent a lot of time thinking about what policies they would object to.
The legal system? Health system? Child protection policies? Land tenure?
You say you have done a lot of reading on this issue so perhaps you could give me some examples of policies they may object to.

Paul, you are wrong, as Foxy was wrong. I can’t recall ever writing anything negative about aboriginal people as a whole. Individual behaviour yes, but that has nothing to do with race.
What I have been very scathing of is aboriginal culture and the rewriting of aboriginal history to suit current beliefs that all white men are bad and all native people are good.
I also question the right of some people who are fairer than I am and who know nothing of aboriginal culture , to claim they are aboriginal and knowledgeable about culture. But that is not putting anyone down because of race.
In fact, like a Joe, I am the one who keeps pushing the belief that aboriginal people are more than capable of forging their own futures and that paternalistic management of their affairs and the constant classification of them as victims does far more harm than good.
Like every other race, aboriginal people come in all different types, and the sooner people like you come to understand that the better. Just like white people, the aboriginal race has great people, good people and awful people who lie, steal, deceive and rip off their own countrymen for their own benefit. The noble savage ideal was discredited long ago and people need to see that and start seeing them as equal people who have made the incredible step from Stone Age to modern society in less than 300 years. If that doesn’t prove how capable they are, nothing will.

Foxy,

They already have many, as we all do. There are Indigenous radio and TV stations, a luntitude of organisations, consultative bodies in all fields in all states and federally, members of parliament - as well as the standard channels of 'voice' which are available to everybody.

I look forward to the day when the scams stop.

Joe

Dear Big Nana,

Firstly, the Constitution confers upon Parliament a special
power to racially discriminate.

Section 25 allows for states banning races from voting and
in various sates been excluded from the franchise. That clause
acknowledges that racially discriminatory laws are permitted
under the Constitution.

The High Court has confirmed this.

The resulting constitutional problem for Indigenous
Australians is demonstrated by the fact that the
"Racial Discrimination Act 1975" has been suspended three times
in recent decades - each time only in relation to them.

The Uluru Statement calls for a First Nations voice in
laws and policies made about them as a way of preventing
repetition of past discriminatory policies.

This proposal has a long history - Indigenous advocates
have argued for decades for fairer representation in
their affairs and a First Nations voice in the Constitution
would guarantee Indigenous people a say, without
transferring power to the High Court or undermining
parliamentary supremacy.

It presents a way of improving Indigenous policy through
early Indigenous engagement rather than subsequent
litigation.

Paul,

Sorry, I thought you meant current failures, ongoing failures.

But isn't it fun to be able to bitch about something that happened so long ago, knowing we can't reverse history ?

But consider this: back in those dark ages that you mentioned, universities were very small, with a very tiny range of courses: law, medicine, dentistry, philology, arts and politics, science, mathematics. Over time, new courses were added, but by 1910, there were barely twenty thousand students in all universities across Australia, about as many as the current (2019) total of Indigenous student enrolments.

After the War, universities were greatly expanded, allowing middle-class students to enrol. After 1960, the working-class could enrol through (of all things) Menzies' scholarship schemes. 1960.

Indigenous enrolments really began to pick up at the end of the 1970s and were close to what was defined then as 'mass tertiary enrolment' by the mid-nineties. Of course, there are now more than four times as many Indigenous enrolments as back then, and twenty times as many graduates. I'm sure you are as overjoyed to realise this as I am :) Nah ?

But that's been the succession: upper-class, middle-class, working-class, followed closely by Indigenous participation. Actually, Indigenous participation goes back much further than people think: Olga Wilson enrolled at the Adelaide Conservatorium to do a Music course in the late twenties, and I wouldn't be surprised if there were other Indigenous people enrolling before that.

But let's keep whingeing about the distant past, which, in case you haven't noticed, is over, gone, buried. But let's wallow in self-pity: those bastard Normans who stole English land, etc., etc.

For Indigenous people now, the bottom line - which you may deplore, I don't know - is that they can access university study just like anybody else. Around 120,000 - one hundred and twenty thousand - have done so since 1980. 20,000 are currently in the system, 55,000 or so have graduated. So more than half of all enrolments have turned into graduations. There will certainly be 100,000 graduates, two-thirds still women, by 2030. Suck it up.

Joe

Foxy,

"Firstly, the Constitution confers upon Parliament a special
power to racially discriminate."

Got any examples of when the Parliament did so?

Is Mise, if anyone replies that the NT intervention actually contradicted the Racial Discrimination Act I would like to point out, that despite the government agreeing that it did, it actually didn’t because all white people living in aboriginal communities at that time also came under the rules of the intervention.
They might not have been large in number but they did live in these places and were banned from bringing in alcohol, porn etc. And the very few white people living in communities on welfare had to go on the Basic Card.
I was very surprised when the government stated that it had suspended the Discrimination Act because they hadn’t really thought it through and remembered the white people out there.
And as been suggested by many, rather than specifically dedicated aboriginal voices in parliament, it’s easier and more democratic to just remove the offending section of the Constitution that allows for discrimination.

A voice - only a voice.
Foxy,
Yes, the real Aborigines only ask that, the fake ones are just after money like all Leftist bureaudroids !

Aboriginal people already have many voices. Not just in parliament but also in self managed health systems, self managed legal systems, self managed resource centres, self managed land councils etc etc.

Is Mise,

Historically - as you should know -
the Constitution has excluded Indigenous
Australians from our democracy.

Before 1967 Indigenous Australians were excluded from
being counted in the census for the purposes of voting.

The Constitution also empowered laws and policies that
denied Indigenous not only voting rights but
property rights, equal wages, and asserted unequal
protectionist controls. It's all available and
documented.

Had the principal of equality been extended justly to
Indigenous peoples in the first place, Australia would not
now be grappling with constitutional reform to ensure
Indigenous people receive a fairer go than they've had
in the past.

Indigenous people might not now be asking for a constitutional
voice in their affairs.

Foxy,

Do you read the posts of experts, people with very long and deep experience, like Big Nana ? Or do you mindlessly regurgitate what some authority, like Professor Google, has mindlessly churned out ? For god's sake, please stop trying to reverse the distant past and recognise what rights and opportunities for Indigenous people are available now, and have been for decades ?

Just by the way, there have been Indigenous tertiary graduates from teachers' colleges and nursing schools for much longer than from universities, just like for white working-class women - there have certainly been Indigenous teachers since the late forties and nurses from the early fifties, if not earlier. You know, people who have got on with life and not wallowed in memories of injustice as you would like them to do.

And I don't give a toss how that makes you feel, if that offends you in some tiny way. For god's sake, learn SOMETHING !

Joe

Big Nana,

There has been persistent shortfalls in life expectancy
and health status of our Indigenous people due to
government inability to address equitable needs
and funding gaps in primary care. To secure adequate
funding for the long term in many areas.

As for land councils? You need to check
each state to see what's actually going on.
And what is and isn't being transferred to Aboriginal
communities.

You again display an unfortunate tendency to brush
aside any concern regarding our Indigenous people.
Which I find hard to understand.

Totally agree Joe, any trashy nonsense from the past is superfluous, useless nonsense. Does your website fall into that category? After all its full of the unsubstantiated nineteenth century reports of biased white men which can not be of interest to a forward thinking progressive such as yourself.

You could not be more correct Foxy.

Joe; Thank you for pointing out the typo, me using the word bowel instead of bowl, much appreciated.

BTW, what is the meaning of the word luntitude, as in " luntitude of organisations" not familiar with it, but there are lots of words in the English language I am not familiar with, luntitude could be one, I thought the word multitude might be of a better use.

Paul,

As usual, you completely misunderstand what I might have said: I have none of your interest in "any trashy nonsense from the past is superfluous, useless nonsense. "

I'm interested in two things: what people may have said in the past, in their own words; and in making it available to others for free, on my web-site:

www.firstsources.info ,

so that nobody else don't ever has to do that again. Of course, I may have fabricated something out of malice, and the person writing - the Protector or a missionary or government official - may give a completely distorted account, or lie outright. Or not.

Of course, everyone has their own biases. Perhaps even you :) . Nah !

If you want to find anything amiss in what I've typed up, go for it. Otherwise .....

Yes, of course, 'multitude', as in 'a multitude of Indigenous organisations' - five thousand across the country, is one figure I've heard. All with voices. Strangely, although most have web-sites, very few come up with original papers or suggestions or comments on policy. So although they do indeed have voices, very few seem to have the gumption to use them.

Joe

Foxy,
Your idealistic, Leftist drivel is not helpful at all. Like every society, the Australian indigenous too have people who perform & people who don't.
It really is now up to them to reject the likes of you interfering without actually having clue what is really needed.
Do-gooders cause harm & disunity !

Hi Joe,

I heard 10,000 myself, or was that 20,000, no matter. 5,000 could come from painstaking accounting of numbers by a learned gentleman, or it could come from a bar fly on his tenth schooner for the night down at your local, we'll never know.

When I put up it was a failure that no Aboriginal person had graduated from a university in 116 years, you came up (as usual) with all sorts of mitigating circumstances. One you didn't mention was the fact Europeans in general, and those Government Aboriginal Controllers, believed the best and only jobs Aboriginals were suited to were some kind of poorly paid menial servitude, labouring for the boys, domestics for the girls, not much "edumacation" needed there!

Joe, can you fill me in. Why did Aboriginal people need a European Controller, sorry Protector. They seemed to have done perfectly fine for at least 40,000 years without one. I know, they weren't doing perfectly fine, in the year 40,000 BC, so the forum experts will tell me, they were clubbing each other to death, and raping the women, but we can argue the toss later. In your opinion, what were the benefits for Aboriginal people of having a European Controller, going to Uni certainly wasn't one.

Paul,

As usual, a string of non sequiturs. Nobody much went to university in 1850, only the very elite. It was a class-based institution. The middle-classes couldn't get their foot in the door until much, much later, and the working-class much later still, closely followed (or accompanied) in time by Indigenous people, who had been overwhelmingly living in rural areas until well after the War, where there weren't any universities. When they came into the cities, their children started going to university. Indigenous participation is now possibly higher than for Australian-born working-class men.

Unjust it was, but that's how it was. Then. It isn't completely like that now, with 120,000 Indigenous people having been to university. And 55-60,000 graduates. 100,000 well before 2030, one in every four or five Indigenous adults, one in every three women, i.e. on a par with eastern European countries.

Sorry if they didn't stay down, so that you could shower your pity on their helpless state. But they didn't. So slag away.

Joe

Hi again Joe,

You didn't answer my basic question, why was there a need for Aboriginal Protectors? What were they being protected from, after all reading from all those "letters" the European colonisers were overflowing with the milk of human kindness towards Aboriginal people.

"Sorry if they didn't stay down, so that you could shower your pity on their helpless state. But they didn't. So slag away."

Wrong, according to you they were never down, that's all a unsubstantiated fabrication of the inner city 'Latte Set' and the rest of the Commo block. The remarkable achievement of Aboriginal people is they are still recognisable today as a distinct race of people with a definable culture, despite 200 years of that Europeans milk of human kindness being showered upon them. Some say they are an ungrateful bunch!

I'm not slagging anyone off! Indigenous people have a remarkable ability to forgive, I see it in my wife, I see it in many Aboriginal people as well. The tomorrow is what is of most impotence, but we should not forget yesterday, or sanitise the past so some people wont have to feel any sense of guilt.

Dear Paul,

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
continue to be one of the most vulnerable groups
in Australia.

They live in major cities, in regional areas, in
remote areas and in very remote areas.

Their life expectancy although improved is still
less than that of non-Indigenous Australians.
Causes of death include heart disease, diabetes,
respiratory diseases, and cancer. And of course
alcoholism and drugs are also a problem.

A high percentage are unemployed. Women and children
suffer physical violence and abuse. There's a high rate
of disability. And the national imprisonment rate is higher
than that for non-Indigenous.

Of course there has been positive improvements. Especially
in the attainment of education levels. And health services
are the biggest employer of Indigenous people.

But overall there still needs to be a focus on
human rights and social justice issues. Reviews need to
be made on the impact of laws, policies, and programs.
On what does or does not work. The government needs to
be provided with policy advice and research on a range of
issues. That is why having a voice to Parliament would help.
What form this would take and how it would be done - can
be worked out that will be suitable to all.

All that is being asked by the Uluru Statement is to be heard.

No one is denigating the current achievements of our Indigenous
people - or attempting to do so. But only focusing on the
achievments does not help solve the other problems that
do indeed exist

Foxy, you are in no position to discuss what is or isn’t needed in healthcare for indigenous people.you have no lived experience in this area, you are totally dependent on what officials, Black and White say. There are good reasons why aboriginal people fall behind in Health stats and lack of money isn’t one of them. If you are actually interested in the reasons why, I’ll tell you why, if you ask.
As for land councils, what are you complaining about!? They are totally managed by elected aboriginal people. Isn’t this what you want? Self management?

Paul, if you really want to know why a protector was needed then you need to read this Royal Commission report, especially the witness testimonies at the end.
Of course some individuals took terrible advantage of some aboriginal people, especially the women and girls. After all, you will never stamp out human vice, it will always exist in every race. And the terrible acts committed were done by both black and white, many aboriginal men sold their women for alcohol, tobacco, metal tools and weapons etc.
read the report and understand that a protector was necessary but didn’t work as efficiently as was needed, due to the vast distances involved and lack of manpower.
I have read this several times now. As I said, the problems arose from individual acts, not government policy.

http://www.parliament.wa.gov.au/intranet/libpages.nsf/WebFiles/Royal+Commissions+-+Report+of+the+Royal+Commission+on+the+condition+of+the+natives/$FILE/Report+of+the+Royal+Commission+on+the+condition+of+the+natives.pdf

Big Nana,

I've done enough research on the topics by people
who have lived in the areas around this country
and I've also read the stats from official sources like
the ABS. My knowledge is not limited to just one
region - it covers the big picture of the entire country.
By people who actually know what they're talking about.

As for your references to "self management"and land councils.
Well they can only manage what the government gives them.
And that's very little.

Has WA passes land right legislation?
NSW allows Aboriginal people to claim land that is" not
needed for any essential purposes". Queensland introduced
a limited land rights scheme. And so it goes. The government
gives, and it controls. And it also cuts.
Sure it has its "token" Indigenous reps - who have to answer
to their white controllers. But appearances - is what it's all
about.

Anyway, I don't want to continue this conversation with you.
Enjoy your day.

Paul,

Aboriginal society and the superstructure based on it, i.e. the culture, were fundamentally different from European society and culture (which was maybe one-to-five-thousand years distant from it). The Europeans had the upper hand early on, but of course Aboriginal people saw this new environment through their own eyes, through their own culture, if you like - their own cultural ethos and principles. Those were radically different from Europeans'. They didn't necessarily see the world as a good Marxist should, as class-based and threatened by capitalist imperialism.

But, as in all societies, food was paramount within Aboriginal culture. In a hunting/gathering society, food had to be a daily pursuit and was gained with more difficulty. Now, maybe the Europeans, with their all-powerful knowledge, knew this and offered daily rations as a ploy to get them off the land. Maybe, even though Indigenous foraging land-use was recognised from the beginning, and still is, at least in civilized but insignificant states like South Australia. And not just rations, but also boats. And guns. For their own nefarious reasons, of course.

Whatever their reasons - and it's not for me to presume - when I was typing up the Protector's letters, of course I was weighing up each and every letter for bias, possible bullsh!t, fabrication, and whether the Protector was a total bastard because I would have done so much better in 2019, being Virtuous. I didn't really find any evidence of that. If you read the nine thousand letters, you may indeed find such evidence. Each letter took around half an hour to type up on average, but you may indeed be able to read them faster than that :)

Otherwise, I suggest that you try to learn instead of easy-peasy sniping.

Nah.

Just to throw the cat amongst the pigeons, I do believe that invasion/settlement/being dragged into the modern world was inevitable for Indigenous people here, by the way. i.e. it was bound to happen, sooner or later, and the sooner, perhaps the easier in the long run. Go for it, show us your Virtuousness.

Joe

Foxy, you do realise that the land councils are the ones who get the multi millions of dollars from royalties from mining etc don’t you? The government never sees that money. And that the councils are the ones who decide how that money is dished out?
Why do you think the separate regions want to disband the land councils and handle their own royalties money?
And do you realise that royalties money is never declared to Centrelink or the ATO. Which is why people in some communities have an income of over $100,000/ year yet still get welfare. And somehow still living in squalor.
Apparently you are not reading the correct documentation.

Big Nana,

Not just mining royalties, but national park royalties in the NT. A news report a couple of years ago observed that people at Mutitjulu, near Uluru, received $ 14,000 per household the previous year, not counted as income. Good on them, but as you point out, not only do people still get welfare, being on a low declared income, but they can be living in squalor even if they are pulling in annual six-figure actual incomes.

Nearly forty years ago, I did an income survey at a community where I had lived, assuming that I would find poor incomes. With a friend from there, we drew up a map of the place, house by house, and worked out what each household pulled in. I found, to my surprise and horror (after all, weren't Indigenous people supposed to be much poorer, deserving of our undying pity?) that the average income there was equal to the Australian average income at the time. Of course, I buried the data. I asked my supervisor about it, maybe it was just in that community, but no, she said, similar elsewhere.

Foxy, income is not the issue. There is little objective poverty in Indigenous communities. How people spend their money, is a different problem - well, a different range of problems, involving choices. Let's move on and away from endless pity for the helpless Blackfella to something more practical.

Joe

Dear Big Nana and Joe,

As far as I can gather - contrary to popular
belief Aboriginal Land Councils are not funded by
tax payers. They are self-supporting and have been
since 1998.

WA- has not passed Land Rights Legislation. Queensland
introduced a limited Land Rights Scheme. SA turned
reserves into perpetual leases but did not transfer
the land into Aboriginal communities and so on.

Aboriginal people live under different state laws and
regulations. Of course I believe that there would
be some who would mis-use the system. Just as there are
plenty of non-Indigenous who do. But I refuse to
believe the very narrow picture that you guys are
painting. Hence my reluctance to continue with this
conversation.

Joe,

The blackfella is not asking for endless pity
or "protection and support."
What they are asking for is equality with the whites.
The difference is that parliament makes specific laws
and policies about Indigenous people.

There is no native title act for non-Indigenous people,
because our ancestors were not dispossessed of land in
this country. Nor has there been an intervention on our behalf.

Whether you agree or disagree that the Intervention was
necessary, there is a 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.

We need to empower communities to take responsibility
themselves : to take the lead when it comes to
intervening in and ultimately resolving their own problems.
To paraphrase Eleanor Roosevelt, government cannot do anything
for you that you are not willing to do yourself.

The Indigenous People of Australia have a right to take
responsibility. They should be empowered with a Constitutional
Voice in their affairs, so they can always participate in decisions made about them.

And you guys as champions of responsibility, should support such
a reform.

Dear Big Nana and Joe,

It might be worthwhile for you to read Professor
Ciaran O'Faircheallaigh's Distinguished Lecture 2017,
given at Griffith University on -

" Mining Royalty payments and the Governance of
Aboriginal Australia."

Foxy,

In SA, Premier Don Dunstan set up the Aboriginal Lands Trust in the sixties, my wife's uncle/cousin was head of it at one time. The property in Aboriginal settlements were transferred to the Lands Trust from then on: land on most settlements, and later communities, were leased out by the Lands Trust to community councils by the early seventies.

As more land was purchased for Aboriginal communities, some was leased out to them under the auspices of the Lands Trust, but some was also purchased and owned outright, as annual licences, perpetual leases or freehold, by the community councils. Some land they didn't even know about: one 25-acre of lakeside land under annual licence, for example, which they found about accidentally hen a new neighbouring farmer asked them if they would like to pay half for a new adjoining fence. Much grumbling about the inconvenience of suddenly having more land.

I don't know about the Kimberley but down this way, communities often had more land than they thought. Nowadays, they treat this bonanza like they treat their other land, by doing nothing with it. Thousands of acres, which they could be working and providing employment and income.

Joe

As far as I can gather -
Foxy,
You really need to gather farther !

Spot on Foxy, the bigger picture is what's important. Joe and Big Nana retreat into the microcosm of the minority every time anything is mentioned about Aboriginal people.

Joe and Big Nana, 68% of Aboriginal people live in NSW, Queensland and Victoria, the vast majority of those are urbanised. You have a decent understanding of South Australia and some remote communities, but the reality is they are not indicative of the majority. Incidentally what percentage of Aboriginal people benefit from mining royalties?

Had a bit of a read of that 1905 WA Royal Commission; it makes for harrowing reading. Black slaves, children as young as six in servitude. People chained by their necks. Alabama 1860!

Paul, did you actually read why people were in neck chains? And I’m not so sure about the six year old children but surely those statements gave you some idea of why a protector was needed?
Government policy wasn’t the problem, it was the behaviour of a few individuals just as a few individuals did their utmost to help aboriginal people.
Nothing is ever black or white.

Foxy, the issue is solved very simply. Just remove any section of the constitution that allows separate laws for anyone.
The overwhelming major of Australians would vote for that and then no one could complain.
Could they?

Foxy, you need to widen your reading sources. Land councils are funded by government. Who else is going to pay for all those vehicles, multimillion dollar buildings and 5 star accommodation for the top staff when they travel?

Check out the Northern Land out the Northern Land Council.

http://www.nlc.org.au/about-us/faqs

Hi Big Nana,

Do I detect a degree of envy on your part? The old saying "Its only a rort if you're not in on it." Do you have an objection to Aboriginal people staying in five star hotels (your claim), Joe will be giving you the razz for wanting to keep Aboriginal people down trodden.

In the past 20 years, before moving to Brisbane, I spent a lot of time in the inner city of Sydney, working in "housing" nearly every day in fact, seeing first hand the conditions of those Aboriginal people, and others, living in the 'Biggest Aboriginal Community in Australia, the Redfern area'. You and Joe most likely have seen a hell of a lot less of the big picture of Aboriginal Australia than I have. That's where the bods are, they are not in South Aussie, or the back of beyond, thy are in the cities and towns of NSW, Qld and Vic. You need to understand the conditions of the urbanised Aboriginals, not just the minority in remote communities, who have their own special problems as well.

Paul, my comment about 5 star hotels has nothing to do with envy. I have never envied anyone for anything in my life. No, my comment was in frustration at the rorting of money that should be going to aboriginal people struggling in remote areas and lacking many of the facilities and services available to aboriginal people in places like Redfern. We have children starving up here, never going to school, living in dysfunctional families, in conditions that would see them removed if they were white. That money is needed for them, not aboriginal power players far removed from this poverty.
And the reason Joe and I focus on people in remote areas is that they are the ones disadvantaged by being aboriginal, not those in urban areas who have access to all the services and facilities available to white people, in fact, in areas like health, legal services, educational grants, affirmative action in employment etc aboriginal people in cities have even better services and opportunities than whites.
So, the majority of aboriginal people should have no complaints. They live in a western culture with all the benefits available to everyone else, and as many are indistinguishable from white people, cannot even claim discrimination.

Paul1405,
You're well overdue seeking psychiatric help !

Paul1405,
Just out of interest, what do you say to Govt contracts going to companies from Sydney, whilst the local builders are looking for projects on indigenous communities. Then, when the Sydney outfit goes under & then the local companies are engaged to finish the project ?
Meanwhile millions in tax dollars are vapourized & more funding is put on the table so the project can be completed at great cost.
All managed & organised by Public Servants.

Paul,

The overruling purpose of Indigenous organisations is to keep the funding going. And growing, if possible.. Therefore they need a growing clientele. With your help, that will be successful.

In urban areas, Indigenous young people are participating in tertiary education in rates probably much higher than those of non-Indigenous, Australian born working-class people, perhaps close to fifty per cent. They are seizing the opportunities that are available to other Australians, as Big Nana has tried to point out to you repeatedly. Of the fifty thousand (or so) Indigenous university graduates, perhaps 90 to 95 per cent are from urban centres, where they have come from and where, like other Australians, they will seek employment.

So obviously there is a huge task for any actually working programs at universities, those paid to focus on Indigenous student recruitment and support. I look forward when they might turn away from their personal career-building towards having a sense of obligation to our remote and rural populations.

Joe

Hi Joe, Big Nana and Foxy,

"The overruling purpose of Indigenous organisations is to keep the funding going. And growing, if possible.. Therefore they need a growing clientele. With your help, that will be successful."

Joe, that is simply a blinkered cynical opinion (yours) which cannot be argued against.

"And the reason Joe and I focus on people in remote areas is that they are the ones disadvantaged by being aboriginal,"

Big Nana are they being disadvantaged by being aboriginal, or by being in remote communities, or a combination of both. Put a group of poorly educated, dysfunctional white people in a remote community and the outcome is likely to be the same.

There is hope, and Joe you're right, education is the key. Its no accident that as aboriginal people become educated then leadership from within comes to the fore. Educated people understand issues better, disseminate information better, they are more articulate in argument, and are able to make, and follow through with "radical" demands. Things that uneducated people lack.

are they being disadvantaged by being aboriginal, or by being in remote communities, or a combination of both. Put a group of poorly educated, dysfunctional white people in a remote community and the outcome is likely to be the same.
Paul1405,
I can't argue with this assertion, fairly spot-on ! Even in our cities we suffer from too many dysfunctional white people. Drug abusers #1.

as for; education is the key., if you brought in teachers from overseas yes but as it presently stands with education here, things look like getting worse.

Hi Joe,

"with education here, things look like getting worse."

That has always been the view of conservatives and most older people, I think you qualify on both counts. I believe education in Australia today is more diverse and universal than it has ever been. As some advance into senior years negativity creeps in, older people become pessimistic and cynical about the future, something they are unlikely to share in.

Paul1405,
I know many older people who can perform tasks for which many Millennials require a calculator & spell check. And, no this doesn't cause negativity creep in for seniors, it's simply disheartening ! As you said the diversity is now far greater in education here but what you didn't say is that this diversity has undermined competence & logic & common sense which is in turn exploited by those who don't have the welfare/future of Australians/Australia at heart !

Paul,

I'm not Individual, in case you're confused. I don't think 'education is getting worse', certainly not for Indigenous people. In fact, it seems that something like half of all young urban Indigenous people are going on to university. Half, and rising at 8 % p.a. And an amazing 60-70 % of graduates seem to be going on to post-graduate study. I think it is the key to a very bright Indigenous future.

So Trump-bum-boys like Ttbn call me a loony leftie, and you call me conservative ? I must be doing something right :)

Cheers,

Joe

Hi Joe,

Sometimes its a bit hard to blow your "cover", your praise of Indigenous learning on the Forum is well know, at least by me.

BTW, its coming up to the 250th anniversary of the Cookie Monster's arrival in Botany Bay on his first Cooks Tour. Should we celebrate with a cake, or not? I'll put up a discussion on that very subject, then we can have our usual ding dong on another wonderful event in aboriginal history. Are you up for it? ALWAYS, AH!

Look forward to Paul bashing those who have established such a high standard of living he enjoys. Obviously would never go back to the nomadic lifestyle before the country became civilised. Oh well ungrateful and revised history is a requirement to belong to the socialist mob. How else could they virtue signal and have an excuse for their violence and anger.

Paul,

That raises the question of whether or not invasion was inevitable. Whether we like it or not, I think invasion had to happen, from one imperialist power or another. And probably, given the differences in technology, the earlier the better, in the long run.

Discuss.

Joe

In our area the indigenous' feelings about the 250th of Cook are not overwhelmingly joyous !
At least a few have told me so.

re the previous post, Looking at the Pokie room I tend to believe otherwise.

Hi there Indy,

I could not agree more, research shows 95% of aged pensioners are inveterate gamblers, addicted to pokies, lotto, scratchies, bingo and chook raffles! Under the PPP the El Dorado pokie facility down at gods waiting room will be off limits to ALL aged welfare recipients! Should some find voluntary abstinence beyond them, I cannot rule out electric shock treatment as necessary! Once we have delt with the rampant aged pensioner alcohol and gambling addictions, we can move on to my Pensioner Initiated Self Sustainability, PISS for short. BTW are you collecting those free seed packets from Woolies? If not, why not? You will need them, PISS is coming.

Individual & Paul,

I didn't say i liked the idea that invasion of Australia was inevitable, simply that it was inevitable. Since it was bound to happen - if not by the British, then by the French, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, Russians (think of those huge gun emplacements on the coasts of every major city - and then the Japanese, Chinese, Indonesians. Sooner or later.

Having established that incontrovertible but inconvenient fact, the next question is: after all the tragedy and turmoil, was the invasion, on balance, beneficial ? Would Indigenous people have been better off if, in spite of the invasion, they had been left to live their lives as hunters and gatherers (or, for Paul's benefit, farmers) ? Well, they can do so now, there's nothing stopping people from eschewing the welfare life and going out hunting and gathering, and living their simple but charming lives around camp-fires. Is there anybody doing that, except on weekends away from the ghastly conditions of 'communities' ?

Another incontrovertible but inconvenient inevitability. Somewhat confirmed by the sixty thousand Indigenous university graduates, with maybe four thousand more each year. Yes, many getsucked into the do-nothing power-elites, but I live in hope that many somily want to do a good job with their skills and live like other Australians.

Now perhaps we can get onto the real issues of how to either improve, or migrate away from, 'community' life.

Joe

Forget the wombat stoning;
Anyone catch the 7:30 report on racing thoroughbreds...

I'm willing to support them shutting the racing industry down entirely.

- Melbourne Cup and all -

They've had their chance to clean things up.
I don't want to see them treating animals like that.
It's wrong.

Another piece of good news in education:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-03/miraculous-indigenous-education-rates-complete-year-12-qld/10069150

In short, this ABC article shows that, according to ABS figures, Indigenous students in Queensland are completing Year 12 at almost the same rate as non-Indigenous students.

Next stop: university.

A game-changer.

Joe