Dear Loudmouth,

After the whole "rabbit proof fence story is fiction' saga we went through I certainly am not inclined to do another dance with you.

However the very British notion of the act of tending one's hunting estates not being regarded as farming is not universal. 'Firestick farming' with cool burns to enable fresh growth of staple food crops along with opening up land for better hunting access involved widespread vegetation modification.

The fact that it doesn't fit your traditional notion of farming doesn't matter.

SR,

Oh, I certainly don't think that the Rabbit Fence saga was all fiction. I think that the girls found the fence and which direction it went in, and went back to the Meekatharra road and hitched rides from there to Jigalong where they arrived unhindered by the one-man 'Aborigines Department'.

In the tiny 145-page book, with its 10-12 pages dealing with the girls actually on or near the Fence, the writer is oblivious to the fact that the Rabbit Department employed maintenance workers every six or seven miles, which indicates that they never spent a single day walking along the Fence. Nor it seems, was there any attempt by Mr Neville to engage the co-operation of the Police, to get in front of the girls and arrest them.

And once they arrived back at Jigalong, they were left alone by Neville. That might differ from the tone of the film somewhat.

Anyway, BTT. Farming, by any definition, involves cultivation and care of the soil. Strictly speaking, farming does not include even pastoral activities. Pastoralists don't like being called farmers, and vice versa. Traditionally, Aboriginal groups were neither.

Foragers, by definition, forage - they hunt, fish and gather food, usually daily. In Australia, there was no herding of animals, nor cultivation of the soil. Nothing unusual about that - most of the world a thousand years ago was occupied by foragers, even maybe half of Europe - the Baltics, much of Scandinavia and Russia.

Yes, Laplanders - Sami - and Native American groups on the Plains of the US and Canada, followed herds of reindeer and buffalo respectively, which is a significant precursor to actually herding, i.e. controlling - and owning - herds of animals. In the Middle East, Kurds and early Persians etc. herded goats and sheep seasonally up into the mountains and down to the plains. People still do that. And also in much of drier parts of Africa.

But it's not farming. Maybe in your view, if those Africans set fire to their environment, they would thereby by farmers ?

Joe

Steele, regarding your comment about health staff in remote communities. I find it hard to believe that a town of a few hundred people would have 3 doctors. It wouldn’t be financially viable.
Large remote communities do have doctors. For example, Wadeye in the NT has a population around 2000, that’s one of the largest communities. They have two doctors there, but also they have 10 registered nurses and 7 aboriginal health workers. That’s 19 health staff for 2000 people, way above the level of mainstream Australia. And before you point out that nurses and health workers aren’t doctors, the fact is that many people go to see a doctor for issues that can be handled by other staff. Blood pressure, blood sugars, wound dressings, nutritional and weight advice, antenatal checks, post natal checks, infant health checks, immunisations etc etc. are all done by nurses and health workers. In addition, specialists fly to remote communities regularly. The large communities might see a paediatrician, obstetrician, surgeon etc once a month or so, depending g on the size of the community. In fact, remote people can see a specialist much quicker than someone in the city who may have to wait years to see a surgeon or orthopaedic surgeon, whereas remote people only wait months.
So, in reality, remote aboriginal communities are well covered for health services, in contrast to remote white settlements, like cattle stations and pearl farms, who have no government provided health staff at all and have to rely on weekly or fortnightly visits from mobile clinics, or drive themselves to the nearest doctor, hundreds of kilometres away.

There you go, Steele. Make an assertion and you'll get an informed response which punctures your balloon.

No free lunches in this business :)

Joe

Dear Loudmouth,

If you really don't know what you are talking about it is probably best to put a sock in it mate.

Dear Big Nana,

The 2016 Census has the population of Wadeye at 2280. With 2 doctors that gives a ratio of 1 per 1140 residents.

That is disgraceful.

In my town the ratio is well under half that and pretty well marries with the current Australian ratio of physicians per 1000 head of population of 3.57.

What do you think needs to be done to raise the level of health services within that community so it is commensurate with the rest of Australia?

To have ratios at the level of a country like Guatemala in a place as rich as Australia should not be tolerated

SR, you cannot merely equate numbers by generalising like you have.
There are so many factors that come into play on such decisions that I, in fact, even you cannot begin to know or be privy to.
Like many things in life each case has to be treated according to all the factors at play.
So don't be surprised or get out of sorts over how many medical professionals are at any one particular location.
If the situation was dire, I'm sure the govt would already be aware of it by now.
Also, I'm shocked that you would question or denigrate big nana and loudmouth.
From what I have read and learnt about these two commentors I would tone it down a little if I were you and listen to what they have to say, instead of shirt fronting them.
You never know, you might actually learn something.