Howard's approach to remote indigenous communities

bm. This is going to be a very interesting time. Let's hope not too many people fall for Howard's BS.

How did Pearsons cairns conference go hinge?

Been hoping for you on this one, Hinge.



Frankly, I am all over the place on this one.


DO you think it is some sort of landgrab? I find that hard to believe, even of Howard?



What do you think Howard thinks to gain? Pre election kudos?
But this is grasping a nettle that has never done anyone any good politically and is already causing a major furore.


But, I don't see any reason, if managed normally, that normal medicals are going to be psychologically scarring.


These are just GP's going out there....unless Howard has gone certifiably insane, nobody's gonna be doing forced medicals, including swabs and stuff for STD's re sexual abuse, are they? They don't even where a case is being investigated in a normal way.....if kid and family aren't happy to be examined, it isn't done.

Of course, with the anxiety etc that is occurring, lots of people ARE going to be fearful....sigh.....


But what ARE we to do about the elders who abuse the kids, and scare everyone into terrified silence????

About the adults who drink the money away and the kids starve, thus making them and their families so happy to see the nice white paedophiles with their food and entertainment.....



You know how bad it is out there on so many communities....


It just feels like we have entered some kind of bizarre twilight zone.....who in hell is advising him?




I missed the shutting down programs stuff? Huh?

Here's from my Antar mailing list. I know it is crazy to reproduce so much, but people may pick and choose, of course:



ANTaR SA Email Bulletin
26 June, 2007

Below are a few commentaries on the recent Federal Government response to
the Anderson Report on sexual abuse of children in Aboriginal communities
in the Northern Territory, a response which is being called by some the
Howard Invasion of Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory.

Included with the commentaries below (which are in no order of preference)
is a list of reports on "on life in indigenous communities", highlighting
that governments have known for years, decades.

A National Day of Action is being organised - more information as it comes
to hand. Get your banner making materials organised.

Following the commentaries is a job advertisement - ALRM seeks a Senior
Practitioner.

ANTaR SA
Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation (South Australia) Inc
c/- 5 Hutt Street, Adelaide, SA, 5000
web-site - http://antarsa.auspics.org
ph 8227 0170 ; fax 8223 3039 ; email - [email protected]

_______________________________________

Commentaries on Howard's invasion of Aboriginal communities in the Northern
Territory :


Another tricky Howard ruse

Author: Gregory Phillips - Gregory Phillips is a medical anthropologist
specialising in healing, post-traumatic stress syndromes and addictions in
indigenous communities
The Age (Sat 23 Jun 2007) COMMENT & DEBATE

The PM is playing the race card again in an election year.

FAR from being a radical saviour concerned with the protection of
Aboriginal children from sexual abuse in the Northern Territory, the Prime
Minister is mostly concerned with painting all Aborigines as being useless
crooks and abusers. That way, he can put up a smokescreen to justify the
weakening of Aboriginal communal rights to land under the guise of economic
development.

Nobody denies that sexual abuse and alcoholic dysfunction in indigenous
communities is a massive problem. Many Aborigines have long advocated for
better services to deal with the issues, and have strongly asserted that
alcoholism and sexual abuse are not a part of Aboriginal culture. It is, in
fact, a learned behaviour. Where did Aborigines learn it? It is partly a
hangover of the missionary days only 20 and 30 years ago, where sexual
violence was routinely perpetrated on Aborigines by police, pastoralists
and missionaries, and where the church often forced people to marry against
their social and cultural clan systems. This is not an excuse for abuse
today, but it is part of the reason people are behaving this way now. Sure,
the abuser must take responsibility for these terrible actions, and sure,
society has a responsibility to protect children. But to do so only through
the law has never worked either here or overseas.

There's no evidence that dealing with addictions and sexual abuse through
legal, criminal or administrative systems alone works. It might help
alleviate some physical injury and perhaps prevent a small amount of abuse,
but it doesn't address the emotional and mental turmoil that gave rise to
the behaviour in the first place.

By contrast, Native Canadian communities in crisis with sexual abuse have
turned the issue around in 10 years by community-led action, by government
being prepared to listen to and trust local community leaders, and by
supporting communities themselves to make the abuse of alcohol a socially
unacceptable behaviour. But to think that forcing such programs on anyone
will work is stupid. This is a Government too hungry for power and control,
and prepared to ignore evidence to use it.

Research strongly shows that programs developed by indigenous people
themselves are the ones most likely to work. The NT report called for a
diverse approach, and called for education services to deal with grinding
poverty. How can Aboriginal children be forced to school when in many cases
in the NT there are not the schools or teachers to educate them properly?
Howard's response is to assume total control and make it look as if he's
dealing with root causes. Instead, all he is doing is window-dressing the
symptoms and blaming Aborigines, as if they're all criminals.

What about the privacy rights of young Aboriginal children from good homes?
Could you imagine all teenage girls in Elizabeth Bay or Toorak being forced
to take medical examinations for a fear of sexual abuse? Never. Does the
Government seriously think sexual abuse doesn't occur in non-Aboriginal
communities? That doesn't make it OK in Aboriginal communities. I just
wonder why the Government has decided on this tired old knee-jerk approach
now. Why has it waited when reports in other state jurisdictions have also
called for federal co-operation?

Howard's central message in Aboriginal affairs since the time of the
Hindmarsh Island affair is that all Aborigines and their culture and
spirituality are false. He tells the public that we are all abusers and
crooks, citing ATSIC's demise as evidence. He doesn't tell the public that
the minister controlled 85 per cent of its budget, yet made sure Aborigines
copped all of the blame. He uses issues such as sexual abuse as reasons
apparently Aborigines can't manage their own affairs. He twists Noel
Pearson's economic development mantra - and Pearson is naive for letting
him do so - into a lie about real estate being the answer for social
dysfunction.

What Howard really wants is to destabilise Aboriginal communal rights to
land, and to get easy access to the NT's uranium.

He wants to use sexual abuse in indigenous Australia as a smokescreen to
marginalise us even more, and to gain leverage from this issue and give the
election a convenient race-based edge. I can just hear it now: "If those
silly Aborigines just lived like us, everything would be OK."

Come on, John. You are lying through your teeth again. You must really be
grasping at straws in an election year if you need to further blame
Aborigines to take the heat off your environment, broadband and IR woes.

Gregory Phillips is a medical anthropologist specialising in healing,
post-traumatic stress syndromes and addictions in indigenous communities.

*******

*******
____________________________________

THE AGE Action/inaction June 26, 2007

Warning bells on life in indigenous communities have been sounding for
years. Here are just some of the reports.
http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2007/06/25/svCHILDRENB_narrowweb__300x316,
0.jpg

ABUSE

* 1989: Professor Judy Atkinson first reported that sexual abuse in
indigenous communities was endemic and epidemic. She has been raising the
issue ever since with all governments.

* 1997: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report finds indigenous
children are almost six times more likely to be removed from their families
and placed in protective care than other children.

* March 2002: Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research figures reveal
Aboriginal men are three times more likely to commit sexual assault
offences and 2.6 times more likely to sexually assault children than other
men in NSW. "We are still dealing with young people (abused) in the past
who are adults now who believe that incest was the way that you learnt to
have relationships," says Winsome Matthews, the chairwoman of the NSW
Aboriginal Justice Advisory Council.

* August 2002: Perth Children's Court Magistrate Sue Gordon chairs a
six-month inquiry that finds endemic family violence and sexual abuse in
Western Australian Aboriginal communities. Then premier Geoff Gallop writes
to John Howard asking for a national response to the problem.

* July 2003: John Howard convenes a national summit with Aboriginal leaders
on child abuse and family violence. Almost eight months later, several of
those involved lash out at his inaction. "It's not just cruel, it's
absolutely outrageous to raise people's hopes and expectations and then
fail to act," says Alison Anderson, then an ATSIC commissioner .

* 2004: The NSW Government establishes an inquiry into the sexual assault
of Aboriginal children.

* 2006: The NSW Aboriginal Child Sexual Assault Taskforce publishes a
335-page report titled Breaking the Silence: Creating the Future. It
included 119 recommendations on preventing abuse.

* May 2006: Northern Territory crown prosecutor Dr Nanette Rogers asserts
that indigenous communities in central Australia are in the grip of an
epidemic of violent and at times even murderous sexual abuse that has
reached catastrophic levels.

* June 2006: Minister for Indigenous Affairs Mal Brough invites all states
and territories to a summit to develop a strategy to eradicate abuse.

* June 2007: NT report Little Children are Sacred blames "rivers of grog"
and catastrophic failures in the education system for the abuse in
indigenous communities.

HEALTH, EDUCATION AND HOUSING

* August 1997: Public accounts committee report finds only a few Aborigines
from remote communities in the Northern Territory have passed year 12
during the past two decades. The report finds that on average, Aboriginal
children aged between 11 and 16 had the literacy and numeracy skills of
students in year 2 or 3 in urban areas.

* August 1999: Australian Bureau of Statistics and the Australian Institute
of Health and Welfare report reveals Aboriginal babies are more than twice
as likely to die at birth and indigenous people are more likely to die from
self-harm, substance abuse and suicidal behaviour.

* April 2000: More than half of all indigenous men and 41 per cent of
indigenous women die before they reach 50, Australian Bureau of Statistics
mortality figures for Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders reveal.

*April 2000: Australian Bureau of Statistics survey finds about 60 per cent
of homes in indigenous communities have leaking or overflowing sewerage
systems, and 80 per cent experienced power cuts during a 12-month period.

* June 2000: A bipartisan report to Federal Parliament advocates the
diverting welfare payments in remote indigenous communities to discourage
alcohol abuse and violence.

*August 2000: A federal House of Representatives inquiry is told of petrol
sniffing and other substance abuse among Aborigines that have "major health
and social implications" in isolated communities.

* May 2002: Australian Bureau of Statistics report finds students in nearly
seven in 10 of the nation's most remote indigenous communities are 100
kilometres or more from a high school offering classes up to year 12.

* September 2002: South Australian coroner Wayne Chivell describes levels
of petrol-sniffing and living conditions on South Australia's Anangu
Pitjantjatjara lands as a "disgrace and shame to us all". Demands an end to
the bureaucratic inertia.

* May 2006: Aboriginal babies are more than four times as likely to die
during their first year of life compared with other infants, and their
death rate resembles that of Australia as a whole a century ago, a West
Australian analysis finds.

* May 2006: Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute report finds
Aboriginal housing in many remote communities is so run-down through lack
of cash that building new dwellings is pointless.

* August 2006: Centre for Independent Studies paper finds literacy levels
of children and adults in remote Aboriginal communities are "seriously low"
and many teenagers are likely to finish school with the reading and writing
skills of a year 5 student.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/actioninaction/2007/06/25/11826238168
13.
html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1


*******
This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without
permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment,
scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal
copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of
the copyright owner, except for "fair use."
*******

A National Crisis: What John Howard Isn't Doing.

I woke up this morning with a sense of doom. What was wrong? Yes. I
remember!

The Prime Minister has announced that he is 'sending in the troops'. He
has declared, in effect, a National Emergency.

Is it a National Emergency? Yes, to some degree it is. It has been, for
twenty years. More importantly, it is a National Shame. Why was this
emergency allowed to develop to the stage that ordinary Australians are
outraged. And whose shame is it? The blame game, which I do not subscribe
to, but which I will move into for this specific article, rests with
government. How come the average Australian did not know when Government
have known for many years? How do I know they have known. Because, apart
from the reports I have been involved with, I have had ministers say to me:
well we know the problems. You tell us the solutions.

I therefore must assume they knew the problems.

I have been looking for solutions since 1992.

This morning I asked myself: If I were Prime Minister, with all his powers,
what would I have done? Firstly I would understand and respond
accordingly, to the fact that this is not an issue isolated to "Aboriginal
Lands' in the Northern Territory.

In the Short Term

In the short term, I would focus on a child centred approach to building
child centred, child safe communities.

A Child centred approach: My first question would be what child safe
places are already within communities. How can I support them? Often the
safe house in the community is inhabited by a grannie on welfare, who opens
her door to any child in need. She is someone who, somehow, like the
miracle worker with loaves and fishes, can feed many children from her
welfare cheque. I would support those people who are already doing hard
jobs with little or no resources.

Secondly, I would ask for Aboriginal peoples living in remote Aboriginal
communities; rural towns; urban centres, to put up their hands if they
wanted to be involved in a long term approach to building their futures,
from within a child centred - child safe infrastructure. I would then, in
the short term, begin to work with select communities from each region
across Australia, to help build their capacity. I would do this with an
understanding that each community I worked with, supported and resourced,
would be obliged to work, in turn, with others near them.

In the short to medium term I would provide educational opportunities, to
increased skill development which could be piggybacked from one community
to another.

Third, following from my child centred approach I would immediately start
to build networks of workers, already out there, on the ground, and I would
build from their knowledge and expertise, resourcing them to do their jobs
without the stress levels they live with, on a day-to-day basis.

I would provide educational opportunities to workers so they feel capable
for working with the child, who as described on page 67 of the report, saw
his mother shot in the head and had to clean her brains up of the floor. I
would ensure that workers have clear child trauma counselling skills by
providing short courses for culturally safe crisis intervention.

These are both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal workers, who have as their
fundamental work ethic, the rights of the child to live and learn in child
safe, child friendly environments.

These workers would include police who are legislated to protect children
from harm. Hence restricting access to alcohol and other drugs is an
important part of their work responsibility. Social workers, and child
protection officers who see the damage pornography does to the developing
child would be encouraged to work with police to help restrict access to
such material. I would charge mine workers, and mining companies for the
behaviours of their employees, and others such as mechanics, school
teachers, builders, who are found with such materials, on Aboriginal lands,
in Aboriginal communities.

I would expect school teachers to embed in their class curriculum,
modalities and activities which heal trauma.

In the medium term

In the medium term, if I were the Prime Minister I would build into all
that I do, a community strengths based approach, grounded in advancing
education at all levels. The strengths based approach would provide
educational opportunities for Indigenous Australians to acquire skills so
they can work with their own people, and others, for healthy early
childhood development; education for life long learning, and education for
healing.

Such educational packages would be both community based and tertiary
delivered. They would have formal accreditation so that graduates could
work in any field that helps build a society where children will always
feel and be safe. This approach is an Indigenous employment strategy, and
I would build that into my government's employment and enterprise strategies.

A long term approach embedded in education and quality research.

In the longer term, if I were the Prime Minister, I would embed in all that
I do, research on the ground. Those researchers undertaking Professional
Doctorates, with scholarships for Indigenous Australians, would work with
those working on the ground, and would document the activities and
processes, so that in five or ten years time, I could show the Australian
nation, what works, why it works, and how it would work in the towns and
regions of Everywhere.

I would expect then that we would be able to work together, all of us, to
build a future for all people in this country. I would then be able to say
to my senior bureaucrats: you now have the practice based evidence.
Support these approaches, on behalf of all Australians.

But I am not the Prime Minister.

And I am sorry that I am not, for if I were this Prime Minister, I would
ask of myself: am I now willing to say sorry for my government's inability
to respond to this long term 'emergency', an emergency that has existed
over the ten years that I have been Prime Minister of this country? Am I
willing to say sorry on behalf of my ministers, who have known of this
crisis for many years, for their lack of will to do their jobs? Their
inaction has profoundly deepened this so-called emergency.

If I were the Prime Minister I would sit in deep soul searching about my
lack of leadership in response to these critical needs, and I would
acknowledge that in my mandate on behalf of all Australians, I have failed
Aboriginal children today. And I would say: ... Sorry.


Professor Judy Atkinson
[email protected]

Regarding the land grab claim. I'm sure I read somewhere that Howard intends to allow the aboriginal people to hold freehold title over land after 5 years.

Of course Howard is could be that Howard doesn't include land that is being mined in this sort of thing.

I've always seen Howard as a guy who wants to do the "right" thing, at least as seen from his white conservative christian perspective.

This is opportunistic in the sense that he has the report that says it's "the right thing to do" and he has enough political snese to know it's gonna win votes. Given those conditions, it's all green lights.

The beauty of this plan is that anyone who comes out against it, is, by default FOR child abuse. Win/win for Howard.

Not necessarily.

It's fairly easy to say :

"Lets look at ways of of reducing child abuse that doesn't amount to a new stolen generation"

or

"Lets look at ways to reduce child abuse that doesn't amount to one law for aboriginals and another for white Australians"

or

"Lets look at ways of reducing child abuse with laws that apply to all Australians, not just one racial minority."

etc etc etc

Btw, if he doesn't want to introduce laws to enable his vision, then this will become mostly a political stunt with little substance, for what are police etc going to do differently? The best part about this idea is the educational aspect...but that shouldn't be dependent on child abuse, but on attempting to break the aboriginal population as a whole (as opposed to individual communities) out of the cycle of poverty.

It is easy to say.

People have been saying those things for decades.

Perhaps you have an easy solution to offer?

Hi Eorl



I think you misunderstood my intention. I was replying to the following opinion of yours :



My intention was to point out that there are comebacks for this that don't leave the opposition open for attack. It is saying that 'yes we need to implement plans to reduce child abuse, but with one rule of law for all Australians, not an appartheid of one law for blacks and another law for whites." (or some idea similar)

I think we all agree that the lessening of child abuse is a requirement of any civilised society (I would say 'elimination', but that's just no ever going to happen).

Agreeing on that...people can still disagree on how to go about it.

.....................................................................................................

By the way, I see the child abuse phenomena as intricately linked to their cycle of poverty, living in remoteness, boredom, and lack of meaning in their lives...as well as alcoholism, which I see as a symptom of the preceding mentioned problems, etc)

In my opinion, the only long term way to bring it under control is to introduce measures that restore meaning and self respect into the lives of aboriginal people. Self respect for men is in large part determined by their ability to contribute to their own lives, and the lives of loved ones - to be needed. Meaning can be found in being needed, but so does doing things that have meaning to you. What in remote communities allows for this ? As far as I know, at this stage - little to nothing. Extra policing then, will only be a bandaid solution, not a true remedy.

Given that, I see a number of possible long term solutions.

1. Education, preferably by selective & volunteer boarding school (ie. selective in that those children scoring well in school get offered boarding school scholarships when they get to high school age, and volunteer as in they can accept or reject the offer). This would have to be done over generations (probably 3-4), to allow the kids childrens childrens to grow up in a culture of learned achievement, rather than of hopelessness and child abuse.

2. Building a job infrastructure within remote communities (some of this is already being done with aboriginal peoples going to work on nearby Stations, or Aboriginal run Stations, but there also needs to be something similar within the communities). The only other option I see to this is the disbandoning of remote communities.

3. Organised activities for the children (as far as I'm aware, the remote communities have almost nil in the way of entertainment or decent sporting facilities. I could be wrong on this, but I don't see many other reasons why they would feel they have nothing to do) - A place for bored kids to hang out by the way, is one of the major reasons PCYC's started up.

Perhaps some of this has been tried, but obviously not on the scale and timeline needed (because the timeline needed would be decades, and I don't see Australian Govt's doing problem solving on that scale)

My apologies vikkor, I did indeed misunderstand.

I agree with you entirely, except that I am less sure about what could or should be done.

My mother has worked on communities in NT, WA and QLD for many many years, and even she is completely bewildered by the problem. Her entire discussion of the situation is punctuated by the phrase "but then again". Mostly, she thinks proper infrastructure is the way to begin.

My brother, who is a tribal member of (and to a degree, a leader within) such a community, is fully behind what the government is doing.

At the simplest level, how can we impose western standards of child protection on another culture, but then again, how do we justify not doing so?

It seems very far from easy.

It is very far from easy, and what I suggest may not work - after all, the government has tried many things over a long period of time noticable success. As I said, it is only my opinion (that something needs to be done to help restore meaning and self respect into the lives of Aboriginals as a whole - such a thing being only possible over the long term).

By the way, regarding their land rights (only), I just came across this article.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,22007622-2702,00.html

Hi again Eorl

I just noticed something you said "Mostly she thinks proper infrastructure is the way to begin."

Do you know what she meant by "proper infrastructure"?

Reason I ask that is much of the infrastructure built by the govt falls into disrepair in short order, or becomes vandalised. On the other side of the coin, I recall reading something recently that lead me to believe the average number of people living in aboriginal community homes is around 7-12 people.

This was one of the reasons I specifically said "Build a job infrastructure", which involves training as well as building (because I think that vandalism etc is once again a symptom of the lack of meaning, self respect, boredom etc that permeates their lives, and jobs are one way to allow them to regain such)

Anyway, as you can see, I'd previously thought about this, and so I was interested in what your mother meant (her view may or may not meet mine, but others perspectives usually offer valuable insights)

Yeah, she meantioned simple (yet expensive) things like bitumen roads, drains, sewerage, electricity, hot & cold running water....the things that make a suburban house operate the way it's supposed to, that we generally take for granted.

It seems, despite my initial reaction, that we are very much on the same page vikkor.

bm

I don't pretend to be any sort of expert on the causes of the problems troubling aboriginal communities in this country. But I have some strong beliefs about how long-term, sustainable change can be brought about. I don't think it happens when the body with all the power (the government) imposes a pre-determined "solution" on the powerless (aboriginal) communities involved. Then suspends the rights of those it is supposedly trying to help & sends in the army & the police. This is treating everyone, in all the communities involved, like children who need to be forced to behave decently. I have no doubt there are many decent, responsible people within those communities & I suspect that forming an alliance with those people would achieve more long-term change than this heavy handed approach taken by the government. It's unfortunate at a time like this that there is no longer a body like ATSIC (a reformed version, of course) to represent aboriginal concerns with this government.

The infrastructure point is important. No remote white australian community would put up with the lack of services that exist in an equivalently sized remote black community.

I don't have much experience in those communities but I love a woman who does. She doesn't have any answers but there's no way out unless all parties are working to the same goal. And to me the government's approach is a half-assed media circus. How can you fly bureaucrats into Mutujulu on Wednesday, to 'find out what the problem is', and report back to the minister on the following Saturday?

I'm gonna be scatter gun here, so bare with me.

Facts:
-A two year old with syphillis.

-White people are the main source of child sexual abuse in aboriginal communities - women will and do sell their bodies and their children's bodies for grog.

-Enforcing the law never cured anyone of alcoholism

-The army was first sent into communities in NT to do construction work under the Keating government.

-The Howard government squashed bilingual education in NT - ask an English teacher how they teach a Japanese speaker to speak English if they have no understanding of Japanese.

-Communities, arguably self-governed, always have a white CEO, and as Mrs Hinge says 'They're either Missionaries, Misfits or Misogynists'

-Remote communities are set up to fail. They don't get the resources a white council would, they don't have much of a rate payer base, they don't have the capacity to manage even a council bureaucracy.

-The govts 'Whole of Government' approach to funding these communities, in the wake of the ATSIS wind up is laudable in concept, in reality it's lucky to get lip service from lead funders who are far more interested in meeting departmental targets and stopping their minister from being embarassed - and of course never offering minister 'frank and fearless' advice - although, with the demise of ATSIS any sort of link or understanding between indigenous communities and the controllers of the big foot of federal bureaucracy has long gone - so any advice they could give would be of little value.

Enough rambling. More to come.

My experience does not mesh with yours re who are the main abusers, Hinge.


Certainly, there are very organised white paedophiles, who make themselves indispensable to communities......but I have seen a LOT of abuse by male elders, followed with threats to kill disclosers.....and this is doubtless the tip of the iceberg, since only those brave enough to defy the threats tell authorities.


I also see police swoop on, and arrest, white predators, because there is not fear of them, or kinship stuff, which makes people be silent, while being able to do anything legally re elders and other indigenous males seems almost impossible.


I HAVE seen communities refuse to believe kids because the white paedophile is relied upon by the community for lots of goodies.

Hi Hingehead,

A few observations :


I had a flatmate once who went over to Japan to teach English to the Japanese. She didn't know a word of Japanese. This method is called Immersion, and is highly successful when fully applied.

Most white people in remote communites are police, health care (ie the ones fighting the child abuse), education, and I should imagine, adminstrative/maintenence personell.

Most documentaries and/or news articles I have seen on the very young have been talking about aboriginal males abusing the young, both girls and boys. The stories of these come from health care staff, police, and significantly, sometimes from aboriginals themselves. I'm not discounting the possibility that whites abuse aboriginal children, but rather that you may have missed some perspectives on the matter.



There is a major difference between the two. Remote white Australian communities mostly survive on a needs basis (ie where there is money and jobs to be made), but remote aboriginal communities survive to a large degree on handouts from the government.

Like I said - I've not experienced life in a community, but I live with someone who has. And I believe her when she says she's seen 'long grass' women sell themselves and/or their kids for a bottle of plonk.

Vikor, I guarantee your friend's class had some English - it's not immersion if you're the only person speaking the language that has to be learned.

Quoting 'most documentaries/news articles' means limiting yourself to what was being reported and how it was being reported - I prefer my source, but I can't argue against yours.

Hmmm. You said:

"There is a major difference between the two. Remote white Australian communities mostly survive on a needs basis (ie where there is money and jobs to be made), but remote aboriginal communities survive to a large degree on handouts from the government."


I wonder how these communities survived before there was a government to give them handouts? Guess they fluked it for 50000 years....
(sorry about the flippancy)

And those white communities don't survive on their own merits - any remote community is funded by the public purse more per head of population than any urban/suburban community - I'm just asking for parity.

I'm thinking that maybe you think I'm wearing a black blindfold - but I'm well aware of the abuses of some aboriginals on their own people either through cultural or sociopathic motivations. I know Yunupingu cries poor to the govt for infrastructure for his people, but pockets the mining royalty check and goes hunting in his personal helicopter, then returns to his latest 13 year old wife. I know a bunch of white folk who either work on or with community and who's dedication is awe-inspiring considering what regularly confronts them, from being threatened with spears to being called a white c**t in board meetings. And that's apart from the soul shattering visions you get out the corner of your eye, toddlers with malnutrition bloated bellies, dogs dying at your feet, 12 year olds chroming behind buildings, people stepping over a body without checking to see it's still breathing....


Simple fact is indigenous people in general, but remote communities in particular, are paying for a raft of mistakes and apathy in their integration into modern Australia by us and our forebears. Assimilation was never going to be easy but it could have involved a lot less suffering and hopelessness.

I am yet to be convinced this Howard move is any different from what has gone on before. Since when did he care anyway? Couldn't even bring himself to say his sorry for what white society had done since settlement.