Talking Footy

I agree totally. Kinda contradicts what TLPG just said though about our responsibility toward the welfare of the Aboriginals. I applaud anyone who has a dip, so if as an individual or a group you can try improve yourself, then Kudos.

but than can only happen when people stop presuming they know how to fix problems ???? but hey the biggest problems is what they are surrounded by interesting enough but to find the solutions it must be ABoriginal people that do that for themselves and well we know that is not an objective of the current Government the first thing on their agenda eliminate ATSIC yes OUR democratically elected leaders unlike their tokenised Jackies who they have appointed as our leaders

Thats a fair call on ATSIC. Though, growing up in the Warrnambool area, I can assure you Geoff Clarke is a very bad egg! Not the man you want in charge. The allegations about him that surfaced have been very common knowledge in that area for a long time. He is a thug, standover merchant. You do have more upright Aboriginal citizens out there. You only have to look at the cooshy jobs his children have, while the rest of the Koori people continue to struggle.

I know Geoff and he is not a Jackie Jackie either and the media made sure they persecuted him .... I actually knew Geoff and he was always a gentleman to me ... But no I didnt live in his community ... but hey he was democratically elected ...

even some of our elected politicians on the mainstreams credibility can be questioned and well honest John is not all that honest either

you got that right. lol]

ps, not sure what a Jackie Jackie is.

I think a Jackie Jackie is a slang term for a white fella, Dogsact. Yeenar is free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Look, I'm all for people having a dip. It's those that feel they can't I was talking about - and reasons behind why they feel that way. As a general rule, I don't like "force feeding" (so to speak) but sometimes the situation demands it - a la the child abuse problems. The thing is, there is such a low level of self esteem out there amongst the young Aborigines they just couldn't be bothered with school, when in fact school is their ticket out of that hole.

It tends to be a tricky situation because the extremist Aborigines would turn around and question the commitment to the Aboriginal culture (ie trying to wipe it out as nearly happened in the 50's with the "stolen generation"). So the government kept it simple and took out the front line problem - alcohol. Then they went to the second line - welfare. And frankly this should be done to any family who neglects their child's education.

On ATSIC - unfortunately Yeenar, the Council had a lot of unanswered questions about it's budget. Pauline Hanson called them corrupt - which was BS of course. But there was a problem. The funding ATSIC controlled wasn't getting to the right places. Why we'll probably never know because there was never an enquiry as it was resisted (which was not smart because such a thing would have rescued ATSIC in the best possible way - showed the Aboriginal people what theire own was actually doing with THEIR money).

And I'm not sure if anyone wanted to be on the council any more anyway.

dogsact wrote:

Thats a fair call on ATSIC. Though, growing up in the Warrnambool area, I can assure you Geoff Clarke is a very bad egg! Not the man you want in charge. The allegations about him that surfaced have been very common knowledge in that area for a long time. He is a thug, standover merchant. You do have more upright Aboriginal citizens out there. You only have to look at the cooshy jobs his children have, while the rest of the Koori people continue to struggle.

Same could be said for many other people in charge. Ive heard the same things about Geoff from many members of both his community and the community at large.

Unfortunately its not just Aboriginal communities who have these very issues...power hungry thugs like to think they can control every situation and often have no regard for others...its a sad sad thing to know that most communities bow to this pressure. (with both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities).

Now I hate to sound like a nag, but I believe the topic is about the citizenship test and how if one passes they might be able to gain Aust. Citizenship, can we please get back on topic. If people want a more in depth discussion about Indigenous affairs then I suggest that a new topic be started..