Went to a debate the other evening on the Voice; now that the dust has settled. It was at the Sydney Institute, which is run by Gerard Henderson. He puts on many good shows. When I say debate I mean separate short speeches by Paul Kelly (The Australian) and emerita professor of law Anne Twomey. Kelly advocated No, while Twomey was a Yes.
Kelly’s speech was very good and much the better of the two. That was because he had cogent reasons on both a principle and political level as to why the referendum failed; and deservedly failed. It’s no reflection on Twomey’s ability that she was unconvincing. The case is too hard to make, as Anthony Albanese and his hapless Aboriginal Affairs minister Linda Burney found out. Twomey basically argued that the fears enunciated by the No campaign were unfounded. She gave no positive reasons why they were or why the referendum should have been supported.
I didn’t get a chance to ask a question. Henderson runs a tight ship and the room was crowded with would-be questioners. However, a lady more or less asked my question about who was an Aborigine. Unfortunately, she asked it of Twomey who proceeded not to answer it. It seems to me to be the biggest elephant in the room and it’s largely ignored or treated as though it was one of many issues on the periphery.
Most Aboriginal people are more of British / European ancestry than they are of Aboriginal ancestry. The gifted Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, who I’m perfectly prepared to regard as Aboriginal if she wants me to, is still only half Aboriginal. The vast majority of those 812,728 people in the last census, in 2021, who self-identified as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders, would have far less indigenous blood in them than does Senator Price.
American Indian tribes have blood-quantum or other restrictive rules to prevent people like U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren from freeloading. They don’t regard these rules as racist; and neither should we. In the normal course people can call themselves what they like. However, once preferment comes with the territory we have to know who is who. Of course, there shouldn’t be preferment based on racial or ancestral criteria. But, if there is, then we need to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak; or, to be blunt, the black from the white.
Some so-called “Aboriginal” people are as white as me or close to. It’s ridiculous that land rights, or special benefits of any other kind, should flow to people with majority British / European ancestry. This is particularly the case if they are doing okay, thank you very much. I wouldn’t be surprised if those Aboriginal people with half or more Aboriginal blood were very few in number. Suppose we say, more liberally, one-quarter or more. That would still probably mean dealing with a manageable cohort and not wasting energy, money and preferment on people who are indistinguishable from Australians as a whole.
Stop making sense
Still we’re confused by the false equivalence of being genetically pre-European and being culturally pre-European. There is of course no-one who is culturally pre-European any more, no matter how fiercely the first nationses frightbats might like to signal that they are anti-European with their traditional displays of er flags and Black Panther fists and tattoos and keffiyeh headscarves. And tuck shop lady arms.
Allow me to shoulder my elephant gun-
Question, that anyone with even one drop of Aboriginal blood will be asked just once, on their 18th birthday- do you want to live as a pre-European Aboriginal?
if Yes- then fine, off you go, but there’ll be no medicine, no refuge, no aid, and most importantly no quarter if you try to visit pre-European savagery upon any Australian.
if No- then fine, shut up and get on with it.
How many of the ‘proud’ aborigines go to a dentist, or take their children to one?
The hypocrisy was totally evident after the referendum when the ALP and Greens rejected Jacinta’s royal commission into child abuse in Aboriginal communities. We all know it is horrific, yet the government has no plans to do anything at all about it.
So it was all about political power, nothing else. And we the voters saw through the facade.
It would be so much easier if we could use the Pantone colour chart.
AS a proud “Geordie” who’s great gran (mum’s side) was born in Golden Point, Victoria (1859) I still getz very upset cos no one recognizes my “true blu” status ..
Life is sooo unfair ……!
Indigenous and Aboriginal are 2 words with different meanings. Indigenous means ‘naturally arising in a given place’. By this definition, all non migrants are indigenous – if you were born here, you arose here, not in Europe or England or wherever your bloodlines might trace back to.
Aboriginal means ‘of the original’ (people). If you are less than 51% aboriginal, you are NOT aboriginal.
Fortunately, our wise lefties have ruled out any sort of qualification test because ‘racist’, so we are all free to self identify. I have self identified as Aboriginal and TSI for over 10 years, and I have the jail time to prove it.
Why should special rights accrue to people on the basis of race at all?
I’m at the point where I just wish our governments and constitution were colourblind. Same rights and responsibilities for all, land councils can exist under the identical rules that govern the local Italian Society. They can govern themselves and be responsible for their own actions.
Disagree completely. Government assistance should only go to the truly destitute, black, white or brindle.
Abos have a cultural and intelligence based tendency to idleness. Best not encourage it, even if for a small percentage of the cohort.
If you pay for indigence, you will surely get more of it.
While agreeing that the greens are hypocrites, I was disappointed when Jacinta and co called for. a Royal Commission into child abuse.
What we desperately need is a Royal Commission into how much money is being paid to who, for what purported purpose and what have they actually achieved.
The answers to questions about things like child abuse, child neglect and domestic violence should naturally fall out of the results.
You are at least partly wrong and I can prove that you are at least, partly wrong.
How did John Batman come to acquire land in the Port Phillip Bay District? How was his interest in that land held and how was it recognised and viewed as illegitimate and legitimate in part at the same time?
If there are land rights at all then it logically follows that John Batman’s descendants have land right interests similar to Aboriginals in Victoria today.
Land rights are an absolute mess. Part of it arises from the ALP’s insistence that traditional landholders should not have been able to own freehold land (or shares thereof) and be able to liquidate their interests, except to the Commonwealth.
Truly the Commonwealth is the villain; taking greater prominence than the British Monarchy or Parliament ever did.
Furthermore, these claims should have been settled in the early 2000s once and for all.
I believe Jacinta is also pushing for an inquiry into the land councils and how they disburse their funds. If I’m not mistaken Lidia Thorpe has joined her on this.
They are two separate issues which would require different terms of reference.
Not sure who I despise more – white idiots claiming to be aboriginal or the stinking politicians who stoke this divisive racist rubbish.
Sick to death of hearing about it, just as I’m absolutely sick of having my taxes wasted on a bunch of useless stone age savages with nothing better to do than spend their waking hours blind drunk bashing and raping women and children – all while accusing people such as the commenters here as somehow being responsible for this appalling inexcusable behaviour.
Message to all aborigines (fake or otherwise) – I don’t give a rodent’s backside about you or your (imaginary or otherwise) self inflicted problems – now FOAD.
Restricting the number of those recognised as Aboriginal – and thus qualifying for special status – to genetics, would mean fewer opportunities for the management/consultant/activist class to mismanage, steal from, and misrepresent.
Aboriginal issues and Aboriginal people are another tool to be used, abused, manipulated, and fed from. (See also females, gays, economic refugees, transsexuals). If there was not an abundance of nutrients (courtesy of the taxpayer), to be sucked from them, there would be very little interest (aside from a core of genuine individuals not motivated by selfishness, whom history tells us have always existed).
It is this long-term, intentional failure of ‘leadership’ that needs to be emphasised, rather than remaining in the defensive ‘I’m not a racist’ posture which changes nothing.
By continuing to engage in the type of interaction the parasites set in place – they accuse, ‘we’ defend, repeat ad nauseum – as though our opponents are genuine in desiring a mutually agreeable outcome, we keep ourselves distracted from the manipulations of the puppeteers, and permit them to continue pulling everyone’s strings.
A defensive posture, playing by the rules our opponents set for us, will never produce any positive, measurable outcome. What is required is to claim and then maintain, the initiative, which partly includes the direction mentioned above: shifting the focus to the string-pullers.
Providing welfare on the basis of need rather than race would enable the aboriginal industry to be dismantled entirely.
In a supposedly egalitarian democracy where individuals are meant to have the same legal rights and civic responsibilities, it’s the only just solution.
Two great articles in the Oz. One by Gemma on that attractive and feminine Jewish woman gang raped and over the page the woman writing about how effed child care is.
Admit it took all my strength to read through these articles as they argue against the depraved ideas of lefties.
Now I have ammunition to fire back.
In the 90s there was a “study” done on children with one parent at home looking after the child. Usually the mother.
Result – these children did not engage anti social behaviour, got socially productive jobs, were able to conduct a conversation with others.
Woops wrong thread re above.
From Newc Bruce-
The hypocrisy was totally evident after the referendum when the ALP and Greens rejected Jacinta’s royal commission into child abuse in Aboriginal communities.
Yep an important qualifier to my Rubicon question is to note that any human in Australia must be afforded the same human rights. It has been a multi-generational disaster to sacrifice children to live with the peril of cultures which have less than fully Christian regard for their wellbeing.
Whilesoever the emotion-based concept of ‘social justice’ dominates public and private policy-making, selective inequality will be perceived as justified, due to the social value ascribed to various categories of human.
Using logic and rationalism will never win an emotion-based argument, but for some reason, conservatives persist with this decades-long, ineffective, reactive, tactic.
One potential alternative is as I’ve hinted above: Cease defending, and begin attacking; not in an ad hoc manner, but by questioning the credibility and history of those who push these concepts, rather than the concepts themselves.
It’s one thing to chant the glib phrase ‘Go woke, go broke,’ but the damage incurred while ‘going broke’ affects us all, and will seldom be reversible (See gerbil worming/Fantasy Energy Policy(FEP).
We have diagnosed these problems until our wazoos bleed, but something must follow ‘raising awareness’ if we are genuine about wanting influence positive change.
‘to’
Thousands of people world-wide pay companies to use their DNA profiles to trace their ancestry. Australian Aboriginals refuse. I guess that says it all.
They stand in front of a TV camera, and declaim that they’re a ‘proud’ whatever, but refuse a DNA test to establish whether or not they have a fraction of aboriginal ancestry.
I’m a proven descendent of a Sicilian convict. How far do you think I’d get lecturing Italians about their domestic policies? (sarc)
But a British novelist, of no particular distinction, declares himself an authority on ‘aboriginal agriculture’, and is rewarded with a Professorship, by the University of Melbourne. Beyond parody.
It doesn’t need DNA, and DNA only indicates statistically possible biological ancestry.
If someone claims aboriginality, insist they demonstrate knowledge and daily and seasonal practice of their ancient traditions. That should instantly rule out those born again abos who discover a great grandparent via DNA or genealogical research. If they don’t live it in ritual and world view, they don’t have a right to claim it.
Katz
Demand proof of full initiation. It usually involves scars on various parts of the body, and a detailed knowledge of tribal lore.
Then send them on a 30 day walkabout, equipped only with a loin cloth, spear and boomerang.
We don’t ask that of the Irish, Wally.
This opens it up to contradictions and hypocrisy.
We are going to bring up owe granddaughter (who has a Aboriginal grandfather not me) with the knowledge of all her ancestors. If she picks one, all or none later on in life that’s OK.
BTW: a governmet department told us she identified as Aboriginal before she was two.
That is the problem. Mandated identity.
1000%
“It doesn’t need DNA”
Well, what else? Oral history pushed by “Aunty’ Joan and “Uncle” Jack? Most of us grew out of fairy stories by the time we were in our teens. Rainbow serpents and whale songlines, swallowed whole by high court justices. Jesus wept.
People want to downtick and not make any meaningful discussion.
Sad.
Sigh!
Not you too Dot!.
The neuroses is spreading.
Mining royalties to aboriginal tribes should be discontinued as they are simply citizens like everyone else, royalties paid to the government then benefit everybody. Besides, it would not have been so bad if the royalties were divided equally among all members of the tribe or even the community resident on the land being mind but they are paid to the Big Man who does with the money as he likes. How is that fair to anyone?
There is another culture among us that has no hesitation in sacrificing their children, those children rallied at the Opera House steps in October and demanded the death of other Australian citizens not of their group. They demand it still.
I remember back in the 70’s and 80’s the Aboriginal issue was that they were subject to unequal treatment and discrimination. The goal was to make them equal to the rest of Australia.
Now the complaint is that there is not enough discrimination and not enough of additional rights for them.
Originally it was merely a matter of human rights.
Now they have had to spin a fantasy about magical connections only available to Aborigines which must be pampered. We, a secular nation, already have laws founded on an assumption of magic. Albo and the activists (sounds like a band) wanted magic inserted in the constitution.
Punks.
Eliminating government welfare entirely (and reverting back to private charity) would be better. It would bring accountability back for the recipients (you are a widow with 2 kids – happy to help, you are a deadbeat drunk? – happy to help once you give up the booze).