Media reporting and policies almost always focus on what is “wrong” with Indigenous Australians. They look at the problems Indigenous people face compared to non-Indigenous Australians.
Current government policy is titled the “Indigenous Advancement Strategy”. But its very name suggests that Aboriginal people are in some way “behind” or “lacking”, needing to be advanced
PS: The McMillan electorate was renamed in 2016
We all know there are huge problems with alcohol and drugs within some communities, those issues are Australia wide and in all races not just First Nation peoples. Governments cuts is already putting the squeeze on services, especially everyone trapped in the welfare system ... So let's look at the effect on someone on 'Abstudy' Payments. For a student living at home under the age of 18 claiming base rate 'Abstudy', their cash payment portion would only be $47.40, then 18-21 cash would be $57.22 and over, would be $104.60 per fortnight in cash payments. The rest must be stuck on the card ....
On May 1, 2016, First nations people from Canada organised a Long March to Rome and met with Pope Francis and requested him to rescind the Papal “Bulls of Discovery”. he Papal Bulls of Discovery are an important piece of a larger idea in international law, called the Discovery Doctrine, which holds that when European nations “discovered” non-European lands, they gained special rights over that land, such as sovereignty and title, regardless of what other peoples live on that land.
There must be thousands of reasons why many First Nations people haven't been able to live as comfortably in a 'white mans world' or establish themselves financially as well as their non-Indigenous counterparts, here is just one of those reasons.
Henry Reynolds says the frontier war - his term for the violent dispossession of First Nations peoples - raises questions of global importance about the ownership of an entire continent
Capitalism could not flourish without crushing the resistance of people who wanted to live differently ... wage labour and the drive to accumulate capital were incompatible with Aboriginal society. That incompatibility was the basis of the genocide. Across a vast stretch of northern Australia, extending at least from Borroloola to the Kimberley, Aborigines tell the tale of a murderous white man. He stands for whites in general, and is seen as an invader. As quoted in a paper by anthropologist Deborah Bird Rose; "shooting all the people [and] getting ready for the country, trying to take it away".
Five men from Alice Springs have used bankruptcy declarations to evade a court order to pay $180,000 compensation to a grieving indigenous mother over the death of her son. Trainee ranger Kwementyaye Ryder, 33, died after he was bashed and kicked in the head by a group of young white males on a drinking binge on July 25, 2009. He had a pre-existing aneurysm.
Andra Jackson Sydney Morning Herald 26 October 2013
