It is all very well to sermonise about Aborigines and the inherent right to celebrate their heritage. But without a related emphasis on responsibility such talk amounts to nothing more than platitudes for papering-over the need to examine traditional mores mesh that do not mesh with the modern world
Half the 21st century has gone and with it the dreams of a separatist movement which won its independence from the country formerly known as Australia. The rationale was a fervent and fashionable belief that Indigenous ills were all the white man's doing. Reality remained unpersuaded
They made a pathetic sight, the rag-clad Aborigines who tugged travellers' heartstrings at dusty stops along the trans-Nullarbor rail line -- so pathetic very few of those reaching for their wallets realised they were being conned
If "Indigenous culture" is to be recognised in Australia's Constitution it is vital to understand what the term means. Rap songs and break dancing, perhaps?
(subsequent to the initial rounds of correspondence published at Quadrant Online on December 2, further …
What might lazy journalists and other apologists do if they could no longer liken dysfunctional Indigenous communities to the Third World? They might have to tell the truth for a change
Sexually mutilated infants, toddlers raped, children sodomised, women so badly beaten they come to envy dogs. Stripped of cant and buck-passing, beyond a patronising and indulgent judiciary, remote Indigenous communities are being eaten alive by the cancers of grog, misogny and endemic violence
The hunter-gatherer ethic continues to prevail in remote communities, minus the obligation to actually hunt and gather. Vast infusions of cash and sincere concern can never hope to lift pathologies rooted in the rejection of Western mores
Let us treat Welcome To Country ceremonies as entertainment -- singing, dancing, perhaps even mud wrestling -- rather than ordeals to be endured. At the going rate in Canberra of $10,500 per performance, taxpayers might as well get their money's worth
Some twenty cases have now gone before the courts, but only one has produced a positive result for the plaintiff. The latest ruling specifically refutes claims that children of mixed race were for a period of time taken from their homes in the name of "assimilation"
The Sydney Morning Herald and Age have just published two articles on Kinchela, the former welfare home for Aboriginal boys. There is much that is wrong and silly in the reports -- and even more astray at Australia's fastest-fading publisher
"In Kulgera, I heard the view expressed that Aboriginal elders effectively fulfill the same role as judges in mainstream courts, and therefore should be paid at the same rate as magistrates"
A perverse comfort and an enduring curse, the argument that Indigenous Australians will be forever oppressed is a tragic and self-fulfilling prophecy, one that benefits only grievance mongers and their enablers
One hears much of Aboriginal suffering from those who would pin the blame on "invaders". Politically expedient as those excuses may be, they omit a richly documented record of appalling sexual violence and mutilation
The PM's adviser on Indigenous reform has a sharp tongue and quick temper, but what his critics dislike most is his recognition that a traditionalist mindset hobbles both initiative and hope. To those who value and promote group identity above all else, that sentiment, rather than his language, is the proverbial red rag
Will tinkering with the Constitution alter for the better a single, blessed thing about daily life in remote Aboriginal communities? Not at all, but it will make certain people feel very good about themselves
In a case little-reported outside WA, a family's claim for damages has been dismissed -- a decision likely to stymie many other actions and further erode the myth that black children were taken for no good reason by white welfare workers
Rick Feneley claims: “Three of the 25 men – Uncle Cecil, Uncle Manuel and Uncle …
How to explain the violence, abuse, alcoholism and squalor of many Aboriginal communities? A good start might be the pernicious influence of traditional culture and those who turn a blind eye to its toxins
Round up the usual suspect cliches, the dubious documentarian will need them all by the time he has turned his camera on pallid Australia's oppression of Aborigines. He'll be so busy, ib fact, he may have no more than a few moments to be feted on Q&A and other ABC programs