There is, however, no question that, where title - both Aboriginal and freehold - is clear then the use and disposal of the land should be at the decision of the owner.

Never have been a believer in political separatism - just take a view that we need to get outcomes rather than state positions.

So you support abandoning the corrupt Land Councils, allowing individual aborigines to buy and sell the property, and abandon your dreams of political separatism?

It is time to give all Australians, including aborigines, the same opportunities that property rights open up for the rest of us.

Precisely!

I am not sure we agree on much at all. Yes, I agree there are many “obviously” aboriginal people who have a lot of trouble and could probably use a hand.. Come visit my neck of the woods; there’s more folks in trouble than you could poke a stick. All sorts. Serbs, aborigines, Islanders, Chinamen, Irish, Anglo, and all sorts of moggies.

None of this supports your ideas about a National body of Aboriginals to address these issues. The issues you raise are common garden variety CLASS issues. The main problem faced by the folks in your area and mine is UNEMPLOYMENT. To the extent this unemployment is caused by mental illness, alcoholism, drug-addiction, etc. that is a social welfare/health issue that does not require national racially based political organisations. If the mental health issues are manaageable, there is nothing like a steady job to fix most of these problems, and no need for racially-based political instititutions to achieve it.

I have to fly for now, but I am very disturbed by your Noble Savagesque attitude to property ownership.

would prefer to see a system where the traditional ownership group.

I am not aware of any society on earth where such pre-modern collectivism works. The solution you are suggesting is merely yet another invitation to corruption, free-riding, indeed “the tragedy of the commons.”

This corroborree-dreaming kumbaya approach has been tried and well and truly failed. It is time to give all Australians, including aborigines, the same opportunities that property rights open up for the rest of us.

Time to let the paternalism go.

I am also not convinced that 99 year leases are appropriate, particularly if taken by a government entity. I would prefer to see a system where the traditional ownership group - appropriately incorporated - for a community receives a head lease over the area with the capacity to issue sub leases to residents to try to give all residents a clear legal right to live in the place and to provide the TOs with some amount of compensation for having others living on their land. The length of leases would be negotiated in the normal way. This way we could possibly see a system where the requirements of the mainstream law and traditional law are both satisfied.

I can appreciate that this system might be difficult to organise in the early stages but it would provide the basis for a housing and infrastructure management system that starts to break down the attitude that that houses are provided by the government without any necessary contribution by the residents and without regard for the proprieties of land ownership.

Kyandagac - Your point on housing is out of date I believe. In the mid 90’s houses in the NT were indeed being lost after 5 years or so of use. Standards that were introduced for housing in 1996 along with the allocation - for the first time - of considerable funds to housing maintenance have addressed that situation. The situation is by no means perfect but a house built now in a remote NT community has every chance of a relatively long ‘life’. Unfortunately, housing associations along the model used elsewhere have generally not worked well and different approaches are now being tried.

One of the issues relating to housing - and only one - goes to the point that Ken is making about real engagement with the recipients of services about the nature of those services and their delivery. Housing in the so-called ‘major’ communities - the old settlements and missions - tends to be knocked about much more than that built on the land of the people living in it. Ownership, in all senses of the word, is a critical ingredient in ensuring that appropriate housing is delivered and maintained, as it is with other programs.

John, I am suggesting a body that can represent Aboriginal people that is established, or not established, by Aboriginal people.

Who are these “aboriginals?” The blackest human beings on the planet, from the Top End, like Djakapurra Munyarryun who opened the 2000 Olympics? The blue-eyed lily-white suburban Sydney girl in my history class a few years ago, who spoke eloquent bogan, but no abotiginal language, and would have trouble spelling “initiation” led alone be proud she had been through it. The young woman with an aboriginal grandmother and three other Anglo-Celt grandparents who born and raised in middle-class Sydney, educated at selective school and old elite universities, who caanot live without her Manolo Blahnicks, yet still insists she is an XYX woman? The Sydney born-and-raised uni student, part-timemodel and barman studying Commerce at a Sydney uni? The kids I grew up with Mt.Druitt who knew not a word of their ancestral languages nor had not been initiated, but were totally into Sherbet?

Doctors have a couple, Farmers have a few, workers have unions.

You are conflating issues of economic class and race. Doctors, farmers, and construction workers get together to share data, use their muscle in financial negotiations, to further their economic interests. Yes, may of them are aborigines. But they do this vis a vis the nature of their work. If the farmer becomes an accountant, the construction-worker, a trolley-dolly, their association with the previous unions ends. Sharing a race, now matter how remotely - which is clearly the state of play in 2007 - offers only tenuous connection for independent political organisation. As I said, no cohesive interests suggest themselves.

Aboriginal people have had these organisations in the past. Time to create one now if they can and if they want to.

Yes they have. But there is nothing I have read so far to suggest it is “time to create one now.” You are of course correct to note “if they want to.” Others here have criticised such bodies being formed by governments. I also applaud any spontaneous organisations of people who decide they have this or that common interests and/or goals. But surely it is for them to decide that now is the time to create on? Not whitey Luvvies.

There is a much stronger case for the compulsory teaching of Greek and Latin in Australian high schools over the long gone kumbaya Dreamtime stuff. Also, most Australian kids would benefit immensely from a proper English education before they go start in on foreign/dead languages/culture.

Teach Aboriginal language and culture in every high school in the country. The day to day racism born of ignorance is the single greatest impediment for advancing Aboriginal standard of living.

Which aboriginal language? About half a dozen were spoken at Kormilda when I was there. Pick any one such language and you’ll offend those who speak other languages.

Also, where the teachers to come from? Only Yolngu is taught at a university level, to my knowledge.

1) Support grandmothers (aunties) - these are the backbone of most indigenous communities. These are the people who can(and do) intervene and protect children from being abused. Support them through sympathetic welfare reforms - not taking away money from these responsible people and through employing and training them.
2) Food for money - leads to corruption at outback stores and as is already evident ties up families and communities in bureaucratic red tape. Reform the food supply system that’s where the problem is - what’s the point of enabling people to spend their welfare cheque on chips and coke?
3)Provide decent accountancy services to community organisations - centralize wage payment systems to increase efficiency.
4)Fund and train and supervise administrators for local representative bodies. Ensure local representative bodies have free and fair elections. Fund and insist upon training in conflict resolution/group dynamics for local representative bodies.
5)Whats the bet that all(95%) of the housing to be built by the Brough splurge will be wrecked within 5 years? Going on past experience - nothing surer. Complete fiasco! waste of money! Should be stopped immediately! Establish housing co-operatives under administrative conditions outlined above (NB these are required by current mainstream housing co-ops) insist upon best practice design and sustainable maintenance mechanisms.
6) Teach Aboriginal language and culture in every high school in the country. The day to day racism born of ignorance is the single greatest impediment for advancing Aboriginal standard of living.

I didn’t think of just terms. However, going on historical form, I’d give this 5:1 that the Commonwealth will win.

In fact constitutional issues surrounding acquisition of property on just terms aren’t nearly as settled as you suggest. Hence the current constitutional challenge to the NT Intervention by the Maningrida community, based squarely on arguments that aspects of the Intervention are in breach of s51(xxxi) just terms requirement. I give the challenge a reasonable prospect of success (it’s a 50/50 bet, I reckon). Although some aspects of the controversy may be less relevant under the Rudd government (e.g. they’ve said they won’t abolish the entry permit system), it’s still very much a live issue. I’ve been meaning for some time to write a post about this.

If you read David Coles’ comment again (carefully this time), you’ll see that he is talking about a representative body set up by indigenous people themselves, not one imposed from above like ATSIC. You will also see that David anticipated and dealt with your point that “there is no longer any such group…” as aboriginal people. We have national trade unions, and national employer groups and national RSL bodies etc etc. All these groups have concluded on an ongoing basis that they have enough common interests and aspirations to make it worthwhile to establish national representative bodies. Are you seriously suggesting that aboriginal people don’t possess at least that degree of common interest, or do you think for some other reason that aboriginal people should be denied the right to freedom of association that all other Australians enjoy?

That said, the re-establishment of some sort of national representative body for indigenous people is only tangentially relevant to the issues I am talking about in this post. What I am advocating is consultation, negotiation, adaptation and development of “ownership” of social programs at a local community level, a process to which the existence of a national body is largely irrelevant. A “one size fits all” solution will not work; although there are substantial common problems, there are also very significant differences between communities in remote Australia (let alone between remote communities and aboriginal people living in urban areas).

This whole obsession white bourgeois people have with “aboriginal people” and “self determination” is a naive denial of the fact that there is no longer any such group as an “aboriginal people” that could cohere around a central representative body. Like it or not, the “assimilation” process has long gone past the point of no return.

Wonder why there has been next to nothing said about the legal implication for the property ownership-&-enjoyment rights of all of us as a result of the Intervention?

Because the legal matters are settled. Aboriginal land in the NT is managed under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act NT, a piece of legislation which could only apply to the NT because it is a Territory, not a State. Likewise the intervention can be nearly unlimited in scope, because it is occurring in a Territory, not a State.

constitutional or treaty-based arrangment seems to be the way to go, though this is a fairly contentious issue, at least in the detail.

The easiest way is to establish new States or Territories, but I’m not sure how sensible it is to establish new jurisdictions primarily on the basis of race. As for a treaty, I have pointed out before that there were at least 600 distinct culture groups - nations if you like - at the time of settlement. With whom are “we” meant to negotiate?

Doctors have a couple, Farmers have a few, workers have unions. Aboriginal people have had these organisations in the past. Time to create one now if they can and if they want to.

This would not be a parliament.

A treaty would be very useful in achieving a number of purposes for both the country and Aboriginal people but it will be a long time before most will be convinced. First, we will need to accept that they were here first and that the place was taken from them. I am not convinced that we have done that yet.

at least in the detail.

Ah, you don’t say. It is a little contentious in principle, as well! I am not sure that there is any reason for removing indigenous people from

the whims and vicissitudes of the Govt of the day

Why can’t I also be protected from those whims?

I agree that Indigenous control is the key. ATSIC was a case of live by the sword, die by the sword.

Another issue is the need to remove the Indigenous affairs, at least partly, from the whims and vicissitudes of the Govt of the day. The term of the last Federal Govt being the example that makes the argument. A constitutional or treaty-based arrangment seems to be the way to go, though this is a fairly contentious issue, at least in the detail.

There are already enough elected representative bodies. They are known as the parliaments of the states, territories, and commonwealth.

I hope this helps.