Curious as to what was classed as "an invasion" 200yrs ago??

This I agree with.

As a country we're far too afraid of being called racist to call a spade a spade.

In saying that our responsibility is to act in the best interests of aboriginals. Making them work meaningless jobs like the rest of us may not be in the best interests of their people. Might be helpful to ask aboriginals what is in their best interests and act accordingly.

:lol: Give me the opportunities the Aboriginals have now and i'd be running this country in 20 years. You honestly cannot attribute remote communities desire to drink piss and sniff petrol in this day and age to things that happened 50-200 years ago. It is unbelievable. At the end of the day, self accountability is needed in their communities and no amount of lah dee dah political points scoring shit talk will fix it. When i got in trouble (in some cases, serious trouble) did i blame my shit family life or blame the Germans for invading my families homeland and displacing them? No, i blamed my self for being a shit cunt and pursued a life of self improvement and discipline despite mine and my familiys past.

And yes please ban Murdochrags, he would legitimately have about 5 posts in the actual football side of this forum. It is getting beyond a joke now

Yeh because treaties work out so well. The treaty of Whitangi in NZ works super effectively.....

A treaty would mean $$$$$ flies out the window. Why should our generation pay for the crimes of our ancestors?

I think this is probably a big misconception (regarding the dollars). This was a big reason why John Howard's government apparently wouldn't say "sorry". After Kevin Rudd's government did say "sorry" the media beat up was about here come the law suits. Any come about?? Did any of those actually win??

In regards to the Treaty of Waitangi a lot of the issues relate to misinterpretations (that is the Maori and English translations did not match, or at least suggested different things in each language). The Treaty was also largely ignored for decades, which led to compensation in the more recent past because of failures by the government to uphold agreements reached in that Treaty.

Not sure if a "treaty" is needed anymore in Australia, as the Native Title Act and other laws have in the recent past been instituted to ensure many of the rights usually included under a treaty covered. I think you'd also have issues with getting a consensus agreement from the indigenous communities in Australia (the NZ Maori had less diversity in languages, customs, leadership etc. than here).

I was more looking at land rights claims. There is a big grey area in Oz regarding land entitlements etc. The crown could be in for a hammering depending on treaty wording. Without some kind of handout for aboriginal land I can't see any agreement.



The big thing is ownership of land. The English version claims ownership whilst the maori claims chieftainship over the land.

I was born in Gisborne in the north island and a shit load of land was given back to the Maori Iwi in the 90's to the detriment of everyone.

Are you aware that indigenous people were largely forced into many of these remote communities by the govt?

The govt stopped them from living their traditional lifestyle, and forced them into these communities to become slaves and dependant on the govt.

So I would argue that it is precisely these govt policies that have created these outcomes.

How ignorant are you? Seriously, the amount of stupidity on this thread is insane.

Until the 1970s it was open govt policy to get rid of the indigenous race. They worked on the assumption that the remote communities would die out, and the children the govt abducted to live with white families would marry white people and the race would "dilute" eventually.

There was a govt movie-reel from the 1950s where they had a bathtub full of water and an eye-dropper with black ink. They would drip some of the ink into the water and show the colour disappear. That was the analogy they used to show how they would "breed out" aboriginality.

If your govt policy is the disappearance of a race of people up until less than 50 years ago, how is that not going to affect things for generations.

If indigenous people have it so easy now, why are they far more likely to die than everyone else? Why are they poorer than everyone else? Unless you are some white supremacist who thinks they are somehow genetically inferior, the clear answer is the social conditions they have confronted.

People throw around "they get welfare" like they all live in million dollar houses. Its ridiculous.

Wooh settle down I'm not saying the government has done shit. My whole argument is that there is nothing we can do to right those wrongs because we didn't for the most part commit them.

The government could give them all mansions and it still wouldn't make a difference.

The point that needs to be made clear about my position is that the government hasn't asked them what they think about improving their lives. The government is just trying to make them westerners.

So the government is forcing these 20 year old alcoholics to still live there in the 21st century? No they do not. There is literally not a barrier today stopping young Aboriginals from achieving anything they want. In fact, non aboriginals are now being disadvantaged to help promote education among the indigenous. If they don't want to live off of the government then they can go right ahead and demand their welfare payments to be stopped, move out of these communities and join the rest of society, including many Aboriginals, get a job and stop complaining about how their grandparents mistreatment somehow limits their ability to work and to not destroy property

Edited by scotch&coke: 1/4/2016 03:16:44 PM

:cool: racism to be brought into thread in 3...2...1...

I agree that people are responsible for their own well being.

I remember once making an argument against keeping open unsustainable remote aboriginal communities which was met with vitriol, even on here. Why is it that if a farm is unsustainable it's closed and no one bats an eyelid but a tax-payer funded, horrifically expensive community closing is racist etc?

It makes you think how people are wired when they have to make excuses to explain why one closure is more important than another.....

:lol: :lol: This is an inherently racial argument so of course it is going to happen. Before i get examples demanded of me for my non aboriginal disadvantage quote i shall give one.

When i went to university (now 7 seven years ago) The atar score required for medicine was always in the 90-99 range. If you were an Aboriginal, it was in the 70's. Peoples lives were literally being put at risk to promote equality yet it achieved nothing but disadvantaging those more deserving

Edited by scotch&coke: 1/4/2016 03:22:23 PM

Damned if you do, Damned if you don't with that lot

My understanding of the remote communities was that under Howard aboriginals were encouraged to return to their native titles with the support of the government. Those were in the times of the mining boom when states like WA could afford it. Now they can't and closing these communities is unpopular.

Except they are significantly disadvantaged because their parents, who will be the biggest influence in their life, were never given the same opportunity due to institutionalised racism of the government. How can you possibly expect people to just let it go that easily.

What is the excuse for the people born into drug/abusive families with the same lack of opportunity? Just curious, I do not dismiss what you are saying.

The thing with the Abbott brain-fart about closing remote communities is this:

There was no discussion, no interaction with the communities themselves, no publishing of data.

Abbott just decided to announce it in the media.

IT would be like the govt announcing the withdrawal of the car industry subsidies out of the blue, with no discussion or explanation of the policy etc.

They deserve help as well. Just because you acknowledge deprivation in one group doesn't mean that you can't acknowledge it elsewhere. Its not a competition.

The reason indigenous people get marked out as a group is because when measured as one demographic group they are FAR WORSE OFF than any other group.

Some of the health measures are comparable to 3rd world countries. So that is why they get attention as a group. But it doesn't prevent anyone from saying any other groups of people also need help.

But people wouldn't give a shit about the car industry, eventually after 2 days of shock most people would come to their senses. There were country wide protests of the closures of communities.

For what it's worth I support these communities providing they're sustainable and efficient. I have a massive problem with these communities costing a shit load only to be a mental health, unemployment, alcohol abuse centre. That's not what these communities were created to be.

However, this is off topic. I brought up the communities as an example in the disproportionate outrage in this country.

This was exactly my situation. I went from being a pisshead bum to a bricklayer, now i have a university degree and am now joining the navy as an officer. This all despite my grandparents being murdered by the nazis, my parents being displaced and forced to move here as teenagers with nothing, going to the grave with nothing and my own short falls as a human. There is not a single thing stopping any Australian, black white or purple, from achieving brilliance. The only thing holding them back is this ridiculous inferiority and victim complex

Edited by scotch&coke: 1/4/2016 03:34:55 PM

At what point do we have to concede that more needs to be done by aboriginals themselves do you think? Where do we draw the line and hand responsibility back to community leaders?

Johnny Howard sunk billions into improving their welfare and all he got out of it was negativity and a lack of tangible results.

I agree that a lot of the time the individual does need to step up, but you over simplify the matter. Thousands of Aussies similarly are dealing with substance abuse every day (some can even manage to live quite "normal" lives). I'd say the biggest difference is the environment that a lot of these Aboriginal kids are being brought up in is quite "toxic". That is, there parents and grandparents were victims to a lot of the racism and discrimination. Their culture, especially regarding family, is very different to most Australians, and this means that there because you did does not means everyone can do it. Each person has different circumstances, different culture, different upbringing, different issues etc. etc. There is no quick "fix" for indigenous Australians, as each are an individual and need to be treated in such a way.

Can I ask did you do all that by yourself or did you have family / friends / networks supporting you each step of the way? Also what made you decide to make the "change"?

My family and friends were the problem. Bailed on them, got out of a dead end town and tried to make something of myself. My friends and parents meeting an early grave from drug and alcohol related issues was what caused me to do something with my life.

And i agree, there is no quick fix for anyone. But saying that it is impossible to better yourself and your life is utter garbage. There are far more networks and charities these days helping with stuff like this then there was when i was going through it yet i managed to gtfo and achieve something. There are far too many excuses in the world today. Most problems in life can be fixed by sucking it up and doing a bit of hard work

Edited by scotch&coke: 1/4/2016 04:07:55 PM

Good work on your behalf. Unfortunately many can't manage to do what you did (irrespective of race, religion or creed). Not being in their shoes, I won't pretend to know the answers but I'd imagine if I was in their shoes I'd want to do my utmost to break the stereotypes and negativity that surrounds Aborigines. Many indigenous role models do this, and try to assist those not as "strong" (mental strength is far harder to master than physical strength) ... perhaps the problem is that humans tend to focus on the negative more so than the positive (I remember my "new age" friend telling me once about some research that found for every negative relation we have with something we need ten positive relations to counteract it, otherwise we'll have a negative attitude on the subject). Not sure how accurate the numbers are, but consider how often the first thing (or focus) people tell you about a holiday experience is the negative.

We've probably steered too far off topic ...

To reiterate whatever the person said on the first page.

People don't seem to realise two things:

(a) that admitting the fact that the European settlement of Australia did amount to invasion (from the viewpoint of Indigenous Australians) does not mean we non-Indigenous Australians are saying "mea culpa, I did it".

Young German people today, in my experience, are immensely sorry that their nation's government perpetrated the Holocaust. They're very sorry this happened. They don't feel personally responsible for it. Apart from anything, they weren't born. But they're sorry it happened. And, on an institutional level (government, etc.), apologies are made for the Holocaust for the sins of previous institutions at fault.

This is fair and appropriate.

(b) maybe, just maybe, it's only possible for Indigenous Australians to have some kind of a future when society can acknowledge the evil done to their forefathers.

I have a feeling many on this forum either don't understand the concept of reconciliation or they don't want to understand.

It's not confined to Indigenous Australians. Look at the Armenians. They want the Turks to acknowledge the genocide against their people. They need this to be able to move on in the future. Imagine if German governments hadn't apologised for the Holocaust. How do you think Jewish people would feel?

Too many on here don't understand this idea. Or they don't want to do so.

Much easier to go about hating people (Aborigines, Muslims, whomever). Much more fun as well.

Didn't KRudd apologise? I don't think these types of token bullshit will appease anyone. It is literally the debate that has been highjacked by Socialist Alternative to give them a cause. To make them stand out. How many Union rallies ect have been highjacked by SA et al. for their upper middle class white kids to prance around and feel smugg? You see about 5 indigenous people and the rest are white rich kids.

It's incumbent upon mainstream Australian society to stop acting like defensive morons. Sometimes it feels like watching a documentary of KKK-supporters making excuses. If people think it has always been tickety-boo for the Indigenous Australians, or that it still is, they're either really thick or smoking something funny. Either way, such people are basically caricatured in things like Borat and South Park. Who wants to be like that?

Token gestures are bad. But apologising (as a society or a government) or similarly acknowledging some distasteful (e.g. invasion) are important, providing it's not meaningless and we made actual efforts to bridge the gap in equality.

The thing is, as I perceive it, it's very difficult for many Indigenous people to progress without society acknowledging that which was done in the past was wrong.

Easier said than done (in terms of improving Aboriginal welfare) because some problems are so entrenched there's no clear-cut solution. In fact, there's widespread disagreement within Indigenous communities.

But these entrenched problems all go back to the what has happened to Indigenous Australians in this country since settlement. It's the source of the trouble for Indigenous Australians.

Before we (as a society) can do anything, we need to get to grips with the wrongs of the past.

Lets be real, anything we do nowadays is a token gesture because the most heinous crimes were not committed by those who are alive and in power today.

We can only be empathetic and understanding. We can't be sorry for what we haven't done.

Also as someone who did exchange to Germany, I did not experience the teenagers feeling 'sorry' for what their country did during the Holocaust. They felt empathetic towards those who suffered.