Statehood for Australia's Aboriginees?

Good for them, but what is your point culldav?

You think this is what all Aboriginal people ought to do?

 

You really do live in a little dream world all of your own, don't you?

 

In your post #274 you said: ..."They didn't "elect" to live in the outback". My link in post #275 disproved your comment, and emphasised that Aboriginals do ellect to live in outback communities, and NOT forced re-settlements.

 

I wouldn't call this the "outback", it's right on the coast with a big river system, a perfectly sensible place to live.

 

You're splitting hairs really, but I couldn't care less. The facts remain. Aboriginal people are NOT forced to live in outback rural communities. They decided to live in these communities, because they want to live on their own, with their own, away from white Australians. We now know the recourse for these people wanting to live on their own away from Australian society. A bunch of snoty nosed, drug dependent alcoholics, who cannot look after themselves or their own children. So much for not wanting to be part of Australian society, but who did they whinge & whine to for help and money after everything fell apart - Australians. The people they don't want be around. Time to stop wasting $billions of tax payers money on these clowns, and start implimenting some tough love. Its time the ring-master took control of the circus again, and put the clowns in their place.

 

Outback means the inland regions of Australia, not the coast.

I didn't say they are forced, I said they were forced, into government reserves, stations and Anglican missions all over Australia.

The missions encouraged dependence on welfare in many cases for generations, and then were simply closed at the whim of government, and eventually turned into slums.

All very predictable.

It was "us" who didn't want to be around "them". "We" segregated them into reserves and missions, and even separated the "half castes" from their own families by law.

"We" are the ones who denied them basic rights and full citizenship, until only 50 years ago.

I can't believe that you think trying to help our own citizens, who are living in conditions just as bad as anywhere in the third world, is "wasting" money. There is plenty of waste, but it's bureaucratic boomerang aid, it's not grass roots waste.

Anyway, I don't think you actually want a sensible discussion, so I'll just leave it there.

 

I agree, you have raised some valid points. If you want to keep discussing this issue on an intellectual level that is fine by me. I insist all emotional baggage is left out of the discussion.

What is your interpretation of wasting money? Mine. Is $billions of tax payers money being allocated to the Aboriginal problem and situation over decades, and the problem and situation has not been fixed, but has got worse.

The Aboriginal people elected to live in these outback rural settlements/communities. They were not fenced in, and they were not forced to live there for the past three decades. They could have removed themselves from these communities at anytime they wanted. We have to remember the people living in these outback communities were established with new homes and all amenities. They were given schools for their children to attend, and teachers to teach their children. The majority had resident doctors and nurses, but this degraded into weekly visits or emergency attendances when required. The communities had shops, and anyone could have started their own business within these communities to generate work within the community. All this new infrastructure was provided by the Government.

We skip ahead 20 -30 years and let's take stock. The majority of Aboriginal people living in these outback rural communities are now living in corrugated iron huts, because they have trashed all the new homes that were built for them. The majority of the schools have closed, because the parents won't send their children to school on a regular basis. Truancy is rife among young people within these communities where schools still exist, and the Aboriginal children have fallen behind the Australian educational standards. The health standards of Aboriginal adults and children in these communities has fallen to a low standard. The shop operating in these communities is the local grocery shop that provides groceries and alcohol. No business has ever been opened or established by an Aboriginal person in any of these communities to make their communities better or encourage employment.

If a group of citizens (Aboriginals) within your community (Australian) are incapable of making correct decisions on appropriate welfare for themselves and their children. What is the Australian community suppose to do? Keep giving these people money and let them kill themselves off, or start making decisions for them, until such time as they have the intellect to make correct decision for themselves? We know by past experience that by giving them money and facilitating their ideas of living a traditional lifestyle in the bush, doesn't work.

I personally don't see how Aboriginal people wanting Aboriginal people returning to a traditional lifestyle is going to help them or us in the future. History is a fantastic teacher, and it tells us that a culture or civilisation that stays stagnant or goes backwards, doesn't survive. There is nothing wrong with the Aboriginal people keeping and teaching their history and culture to their off-spring, but they must be willing to embrace technology and the future, together with Australians. If we keep allowing the Aboriginal people to revert back to their old instinctual habitual habits of not wanting to embrace change, by facilitating their nonsense; then we are just providing them with the gun & bullet.

 

You exaggerate the quality of the infrastructure.

Aboriginal housing developments are of notoriously poor build quality and they never build enough, or properly maintain them. This leads to overcrowding, and fast degradation.

If the government was serious, they would design better houses and build them to a higher quality.

They've also never done enough to use these housing projects for employment opportunities for locals.

This is all getting better now, but the infrastructure they built 20-40 years ago is a complete joke, as were all of the policies aimed at Aboriginal communities.

I don't see how hippies wanting to "get back to nature" helps anyone either, but if that's what they want to do then what's the big deal?

There are Indigenous tribes in for instance, Brazil, who manage to maintain a traditional pre-European life style who do just fine. They get some medical assistance from the government, but apart from that are mostly left alone. There's no reason that some Aboriginal peoples couldn't do something similar if they wanted, on native title lands such as the ones you posted.

 

[video=youtube;QRBMdS4t36c]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRBMdS4t36c[/video]

and Hugh Jackman's view.

[video=youtube;cbEiWnbmu5w]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbEiWnbmu5w[/video]

 

Government Housing Developments (Department of Housing homes) are also constructed for Australian residents. These homes are also notorously reknowned for their poor build quality and fast degregation. They also never build enough for Australian citizens and are never properly maintained. We have all seen the media reports regarding this. There is an estimated 1 million Australian citizens on these Government Housing Development waiting lists.
It would indicate that Aboriginal and Australian citizens both get low standards of Government build homes, and maintence is a majory issue.

We agree that there are responsible aboriginal people living in these properties and responsible Australians. We also agree there are irresponsible Aboriginal people & Australian living in these properties.

The big deal is this: when Australian Aboriginals wander off to do their own thing (live a traditional lifestyle) and then get themselves into massive trouble, 20 years later they scream to the world that Australians abandoned them and left them to die. The native tribes in Brazil dont do that!!

If Australian Aborigianl seriously want to return to a traditional lifestyle, then they need to inform the UN and the world press that is their intentions, and remind them that they don't hold the Australian Government or the Australian people accountable for anything that happens to them. If their children are not educated, then they cannot blame Australians. If their children die young, then they cannot blame Australians.

Personally, I'm sick to death of some Aboriginal who people make irresponsible decisions about their welfare and the welfare of their children, and then blame Australians for it.

How hard do you think it is for a Government to deal with 200-300 different Aborigianl tribes, who all want different things and expectations?

 

Maybe I'm dumb, but can someone define for me "traditional aboriginal lifestyle" please?

 

Nope, you got it right!

 

Please....someone....anyone....please....

 

He really wants to learn so he can be more sensitive, so somebody please And don't say "google it" for f..ks sake, that's way too easy!

 

Did you watch that video I posted. "Traditional" lifestyle has had a battering over the past 225 years, for most of which, the white government, the churches tried to destroy not only the culture and lifestyle, but ultimately the people as well. They have succeeded to a large degree with the destruction of the culture and lifestyle. Even though it was predicted by an Australian Prime Minister that in the future we wouldn't even remember they existed (Aboriginals), they have survived, which is why they call it "Survival Day". They do have some remnants of their traditional history. Some from the songs and stories of the old fellas, some from anthropology are all that is left. This is a big problem.

 

Why do indigenous people prefer to live in outback communities. Probably because they were born there, grew up there and know not much else. There's a clue in the idea of surnames/family names. They're not necessary in indigenous communities but they're needed when interacting with government so children born in these communities get family names. Macumba. Rankine, Lennon, Croft, Agius - these are just some from memory and they're all from South Australia. Some indigenous people get their family name from the location of their birth - Macumba Station was where an indigenous woman I knew was born and she was given the name of that station for her family name. The others I listed are derived from station owners' names. The point is that they're born there, grew up there and live there and why would they move?

Housing. Does anyone actually bother to ask indigenous people in outback communities what they of housing they need? At the risk of exposing my ignorance it seems to me that indigenous people in outback communities see housing as shelter, not a sort of investment. Perhaps that's why communal living is so frequent..

Human cultures adapt, that's why we're all over the planet. The indigenous "traditional" lifestyle has adapted to European influences. Just as we European Australians no longer buy and sell wives (we used to until the late 19th Century) so have indigenous people adapted their culture.. For some of us the adaptations may not be to our liking but as long as they don't break our laws then so be it.

 

Eh, maybe some are like that but the number of aboriginals living in remote areas is a minority:

"In 2006, the majority of Indigenous people in Australia lived in Major Cities (31%). The remaining Indigenous population was evenly distributed across Inner Regional (22%), Outer Regional (23%) and Remote/Very Remote Australia combined (24%)"

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/4705.0

So you could hardly say that aboriginals prefer to live in outback communities...unless you have something to suggest otherwise?

 

I was referring to comments which focused on indigenous people in outback communities and the issue of the traditional lifestyle. That's why I made the point that people born in those communities tend to stay there. I would imagine the same is true for many indigenous people who are from rural (non-outback) or urban areas. Many, not all, I hasten to add.

 

I think 24% is still a significant number.

 

There doesn't seem to be any such thing. For some Aboriginals, a traditional aboriginal lifestyle represents being antithetical to Australian cultural values when its not in their interest, but it can also represent these same Aboriginals adopting Australian values, when its in their interest for money and profit.

A traditional lifestyle represents Aboriginals reverting back to a stone-age people being hunter gatherers.

Its like me saying I want to live a lifestyle that my ancestors did in the 17th Century, but want all the modern conveniences of the 21st Century - its a contradicton in terms.

 

It is, I mistakenly thought Diuretic was speaking generally in his post and not specifically about the outback.

 

Reading my post I have to say I could have made my point clearer, there was ambiguity in it.