I do.

Hasbeen & Individual,

You both may have a point. At least in relation to experiencing life in Aboriginal 'communities', the city people may wish, and bleed for, and empathise with, but in fifty years, extremely few have ever actually gone out, even or a day or two, to see what life was actually like there. nd that includes the hot-shot Indigenous elites.

I remember when Charlie Perkins came out to one 'community', in maybe 1981, to check it out for a million-dollar (i.e. % 5 million these days) almond-orchard project. His cavalcade drove in, stayed maybe an hour, and drove out again even faster.

It's a tragedy but city and rural/remote areas are more distant from each other than ever before. The well-meaning 'left' take the word of Johnny-come-lately Blackfella wan.kers* who themselves might either hear rumour from somebody or, much more rarely, spend an hour or so at a 'community' before tippim-elbow-time.

So 'left' whites take the word of a fraud like Bruce Pascoe (see above *). Sometimes, I think that Indigenous ideology is fifty years behind, all over again, groundhog day.

Joe

loudmouth2,
Can't argue with that ! I have witnessed many wide-eyed, open-mouthed academic "experts" crawling all over the communities & exploiting the system fundings !
They always ensured some self-proclaimed 'indigenous' spokes persons with a bit of tan
sat among them.

Come on Joe, Charles Perkins, did more for the advancement of Aboriginal people that anyone. Pandering to the likes of Indy, sure the guy has a racists slant, and is always at the ready to slander the Aboriginal cause.

It is but true Joe. If indi (from his dark world) agrees with you you've written something wrong.

Your anecdote may be right (politicians do symbolic stunts) but Perkins' broader political contribution was beneficial.

Sorry Paul, just telling it like it was. The community council had decided to rip out their 88 acres of grapes (glut of one sort of red-wine grape) and 20 acres of stone-fruit (salt-damp) and 150 acres of lucerne (gone sour), and stop growing the 2000 acres of grain (too dry), with the beautiful, free, dirty-big brand-new Massey-Ferguson tractor, and sold off their 200 stud merinos (too much trouble with dogs) - and put 300 acres of almonds in. With 8000 acres, it might just have been possible to have it all. But nah.

Anyway, they needed a million-dollar loan for the almonds, so Charley drove out with an entourage of maybe four or five limos, stayed for an hour or so and drove out again, after approving the loan. So two community blokes maintained the orchard, mowing weeds and turning the water on and off, for the local processing company to harvest and process.

Imagine everyone's surprise when the loan was later turned into a grant ! Who could have believed it ?!

It was/is called 'self-determination'.

I was a believer and, in spite of nothing but counter-experience, a believer for thirty years. But clearly, across the entire country, it's been a total disaster. Thousands of 'communities', most with running water and probably not one with a vegetable garden, the most basic and easily-initiated project.

Would that it wasn't so, Paul, but ....... If only Aboriginal people had been farmers, like Maori and other Polynesians .....

Joe