Hi Foxy,
Forgive my bias, but when I see USAID (feel good arm of the CIA parading itself as helpful to others in need) and NED (National Endowment for Democracy - US overthrow team) and all these UN agencies all intertwined, my internal alarm bells start ringing.
It's certainly not as though I want a worse outcome for the indigenous, or anyone for that matter.

I've always been one to draw attention to things that others pay little mind to, and I've mostly always been this way consistently for the 7 years I've been a member here.
There's always more to the story if you dig a little deeper.
Yesterdays conspiracy theories are often tomorrows breaking news.

Hi AC,

I respect your opinion.

Your heart's in the right place.

"What has been done to date has not worked".

Why not listen to somebody on the ground who's got a clue rather than city elites, albeit it that they are aboriginal city elites. The lot of aborigines won't be improved by dividing the nation.
http://www.facebook.com/JacintaNPrice I look forward to the senator's first speech.

What hasn't worked is maintaining quasi-aboriginal lifestyles in communities where services cannot be brought equivalent to what they may find by relocating to towns. Anything further in that direction only stunts advancement, as it has done for generations. Meanwhile, urban aborigines are moving ahead with the rest of Australia, with the assistance that can be provided in urban settings

Is Mise: Australians of Irish, Scots, English, Welsh, etc ancestry don't have a history, in Australia, of being dispossed of their land, of being rounded up and placed in government controlled reserves, of having their children removed because of their ancestry, of being refused school admittance, of being refused access to soldier settler land grants even after war service ... I could go on with many more examples. Given that history, the effects of which are still felt by Aboriginal communities and families today, why ever would Aboriginal people trust government?

Many of those things were legislated, that is, enacted in laws by politicians. What the Voice would provide is for a formal process for Aboriginal people to comment on draft legislation before it becomes law to minimise negative impact on Aboriginal people. This is still pretty weak, it would not be able to enact law, just advise, but such a formal process could be more effective than individual submissions.

Why should indigenous people have this and not people of immigrant descent? Well, the latter don't have a history of such overwhelming coercive government control (though early Chinese and Pacific Islander imigrants got similar treatment in some aspects.)

"Meanwhile, urban aborigines are moving ahead with the rest of Australia, with the assistance that can be provided in urban settings".

Spot on. Those who want help and can be helped are doing well among the mainstream. Most people identifying as having varying amounts of aboriginality live in urban areas where they share the benefits of modernity.

Nothing can be done for those people languishing in the Whitlam/Coombs living museums in the outback. Flying Doctor is about it. There are no jobs in remote areas. If there are basic schools, kids are not made to attend. The horror stories coming out of even fair size towns like Wadeye and Arakun curled the blood.

Ordinarily, I would agree that our indigenous people should have a voice in Parliament. But whenever I had anything to do with them, their voice, though limited in number, thundered noisily with the feigned and spurious sound of almost ALL politicians both State and Federal, to a point it almost drowned out, genuine aboriginal concerns, and causes.

I believe it's become almost fashionable among politicians to support whatever causes or demands our indigenous folk are currently seeking, for fear they'll be typecast as being racist if they fail to do otherwise.

From my own limited knowledge, the average black man in the bush sees very little of the money or benefits given to them, via the tax payer. It would seem to me, there're just a select few indigenous people, who totally control the money, and direct its expenditure, and not always for the benefit of all indigenous people?

And I've seen, first hand, brand new houses built for exclusive aboriginal occupation, trashed in a matter of weeks when various indigenous groups are the custodians. Do you think that, and other wanton behaviour, will ever be reported to Parliament, by a lone aboriginal representative?