Paul1405,
I never got a house given for being who I am. I had to work AND pay for what I have.
The housing for migrants you're talking about was housing provided for remote area work such as communities & the Snowy scheme. As soon as the work was done the hoses had to be vacated. Those who remained eventually paid off the homes. No freebies there.
All seeing ? Yes I saw it all, from ruined machinery to wages paid for not even being at work etc.
I have also seen nice housing destroyed by domestic violence AND still see it every now & then.
What you need to admit is that everything non-indigenous have is accumulated by years of working.
Non-indigenous never took ANYTHING off the indigenous that they had to put in an effort to procure. Land that they frequented in various seasons was taken from them but again they never had to put any effort in procuring that land.
The Australian indigenous have been compensated & still are being compensated for that land to a far greater value than what they got out of the land. Ask any of them if they want to go back to that existence ?
I have a lot of sympathy for the treatment many endured black or white. What about your white heritage ? Have you apologised & given back to the indigenous for what your white heritage did ?
Admit that you can only criticise with the benefit of hindsight & you're exploiting this hindsight
rather hypocritically instead of seeing it in the context of the prevailing era.
You are not helping to close the Gap, you're doing your utmost to keep it in place !
Shame on you !

Dear Paul,

You're right. I forget that there's a huge gap in
some mindsets on this forum - and it's a
gap that won't be closed any time soon (smile).

As my husband keeps telling me - don't take it
personally. They can't help themselves. That's
what they do. In the "olden days" they'd pick
fights outside pubs - that my parents witnessed.
Well to these guys - they're still stuck in that
time-warp and aren't capable of moving on. Whereas
the rest of the country has. Basically they're a
minority and totally irrelevant.

Austral;ia will not only survive without them - but
prosper. Yay!

A wonderful chap from a great family (RIP now) was a tourist guide for some years. His comment to questions from tourists were “ I was stolen but if I hadn’t been I would be dead by now”.
Millions tipped into the Aboriginal industry with little to show. The outstation movement around Central Australia as one. How many wrecked and abandoned houses would you like to see out in the scrub, out of sight, out of mind. Aboriginal enterprises and organisations hit the wall owing big dollars, open up within a few weeks with another name and repeat again. We paid for our kids education, travel (18 hours in a bus) and expenses. They still have good mates who were flown to school, all expenses paid. On occasions the plane would fly back empty because they were not ready to go or had more important things to do, like spend time out in the mustering camp.Would not mind the payouts if it was just a little bit more of a level playing field.

The aboriginal communities were given the opportunity to move into larger communities to give better health and education srevices and better housing with electricity and running water, but they preferred to stay in isolation. So it will be interesting to see how this money is wasted on trying to close the gap, while they prefer to stay where they are without employment and the services we rely upon.

GBC,
I have witnessed what you're saying. I'm at a loss what could be done about the Foxy's of this World & the Paul1405's callously exploiting that ignorance.
Meanwhile, the true Aborigines are still at the mercy of their at times questionable indigenous status of their mouth pieces from the concrete jungles who syphon off the funding destined for communities..
I only recently listened to an "indigenous" on ABC Radio who's family I know & both sides are Asian. He's not the only one playing that racket.
I feel sorry for the indigenous who because of cultural protocol can't stand up to the racketeers.

We can't expect to keep doing the same things
over and over again and expect different results.
That's bordering on insanity.

Why not this time listen to the advice being given
for ages by the Aboriginal leaders and communities.
Consult with them and try doing what they ask.
They want self-determinatio0n - why not try that?
We can't keep making decisions for them and expect
them to continue doing as they're told. Yes a lot
of money has been thrown at them in the past - but
unfortunately it's never reached those and places that
needed it.