Closing the gap

These people have the right to self determination.

Whilst initially this caused some confusion on my part (ie we just apologised for doing this) I can see the difference.

I have had suggested in the past that mainstreaming aboriginal people would go some way to assisting however it must be as a result of individual self determination.

This appears to be the case in this instance.

bookmarking.

There was an occasion here where a young chap went a little ferral. he just got worse and worse as he got older. His actions never warranted serious jail time and he just kept at it. Eventually police and some other communtiy people decided it was in everyones best interest that he no longer be here. The theory was that taking him outside his known environment might give him the shock he needed. I don't know whether he was relocated or how this was achieved or in fact the result in the kids case.

Perhaps relocating those from Aurukun who wish to do so should be canvassed. Spread across the country 1000 people would hardly be noticed.

At some point (population wise) it has to stop being economic to transport grog that far.

Hey Dad - you've just become Noel Pearson, sort of.

Noel through Cape York Partnerships has a scheme where indigenous youth are sent to the riverina to pick fruit. Get's them out of the environment and uses a bit of tough love in the hope getting them to see that they have more to look forward to than what they have only ever known.

Apparently it works for some - as long as they never go back to the cape. Anyone who does slides back into the mire.

My small L liberal self feels very uneasy about forced relocation. And I still suspect someone has the agenda to get indigenous people out of the cape so it can be used for whatever.

A lot of the older folk say that ejecting the missions in the 1970s was throwing out the baby with the bathwater. And a few decades of bureaucratic neglect of the local councils hasn't helped - if a similar sized white community had to suffer the paltry services offered locally you'd have sixty minutes, TdTn and the rest choppering in and Brendan Nelson screaming apoplectically in parliament.

Mrs Hinge says that the most eloquent indigenous leaders that you see on telly are either stolen gen, have one white parent or were sent to boarding school young. And even that makes me uncomfortable. Assimilate. Resistance is futile.

What do you think could be done to protect the children, hinge?

I'm frankly bamboozled as to what would be the best thing to do in the circumstances.

Mrs Hinge has spent decades in indigenous affairs and the only thing she is sure of is the more she learns the less she knows. I'm with you. Clueless.

But it seems clear that if from birth your parents, extended family and community behaviour and values will influence your own. How do you change an entire community after generations of indignity and hopelessness?

Self determination currently allows the largest percentage to wallow in a self mire, while allowing some to climb out

External determination causes emotional pain, and allows the largest percentage to wall in a victim view, while allowing some to climb out

Relocating reserves destroys surviving culture.

Keeping reserves allows a culture of violence, hopelessness and neglect to continue (it's already grown)

Moving peoples against their wills violates their humanity

Leaving people where they are allows them to violate their own humanity

Allowing alcohol into remote communities prevents discrimination, and allows choice

Allowing alcohol into remote communities where people have nothing else to do leads to excessive drunkeness, alcoholism, domestic violence, sexual abuse

Education without a job path is pointless

No education is discriminatory and will almost never allow aboriginals on reserves to rise up and create, and build, and become someone

Giving welfare allows for the purchase of more alcohol, and creates a dependent culture

Not giving welfare discriminates, and prevents the purchase of necessities

...I'm sure the list could go on

Nicely summed up Vikorr.

CDEP is back on the agenda. Howard was phasing it out and 'mainstreaming' remote communities into work for the dole. Now they've figured out that getting Job Network providers to run work for the dole will cost three times as much as CDEP - and there still aren't enough real jobs to go around - so calling it work readiness is a joke.

My economist brain has analysed the difference between a white remote community and a black remote community. The white community is their because there is an economic imperative - railhead for local farms, junction of major travel routes - whatever. The black community is there because it's occupants could survive off that land for millenia, their lives and culture intertwined with the environment.

Piers Akerman final observation at the end of Insiders yesterday: 'Will Kevin Rudd apologise to Australians for apologising to the stolen generation now that a group of Aurukun elders have asked for their children to be taken away.'

The human toad does it again. A group of elders asking for funding so local children can be boarding school educated is justification for physically tearing screaming children from their mothers, training them to be domestic servants, and inflicting a lifelong sense of dislocation. He really is a despicable human being.

Sigh. Piers at it again.

There is a huge difference between a request from these elders & state sanctioned, forcible removal children against the wishes of everyone in their communities. Some never to see their families again. It is an enormously complex issue. What is the best thing to do? Thanks, Piers, for politicizing a sensitive issue to suit your own petty little agenda!