Politics Thread

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Why are Aboriginals treated as so backward that they can’t compromise their beliefs for their living standards?
We don’t expect that of Catholics, Muslims, Jews etc. They all make personal choices and have to deal with consequences.

wait wot?

Beliefs?

How does a race of people living where they always have get intertwined with a chosen religion ?

Ben mentioned that one of the primary reasons is to be close to the spirits of their ancestors.

Sounds very much like a religion to me.

Strange isn’t it. Catholics routinely get mocked for believing in heaven and hell but Aboriginals believing in dead spirits wandering around their land is okay.

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LOL and there he goes with the party line and ignoring the facts.

I have read the full point of what he was saying and what he said was offensive and bordered on being racist.

This is not about some white people who just don’t want to work and prefer to spend their days surfing in north Queensland and NSW central coast and expect the tax-payers to help them do it.

This is about a people group who have traditionally lived off the land and had a productive society built around community living and teaching. What the Prime Minister wants them to do is to become white people who work a 9-5 job and have highly educated children who can add back to society in taxes and if they won’t do that then they can fend for themselves. That is old colonialism at it’s racist worst.

Absolute bullocks.

If Abbott cured cancer you would be offended.

It is not me that is offended it is the entire Aboriginal people who are offended and they come out and said so. Don’t be a ■■■■ just because, actually stop and use your brain and think about what is being said to you for a change. Stop towing some artificial party line and realise that real people are involved and are hurt by having their cultural ways labelled as “lifestyle choices”. They lived that way for a long time before we came on the scene and called them lazy and tried to change the way they lived before deciding it would be easy to steal, rape and destroy them instead.

Now we seem to be going back in the same direction and you seem rather supportive of such behaviour.

Go and visit a remote community. Your fantasised notion of how these remote communities live will soon be destroyed. Why you would want people to continue to exist in this way beggars belief.

You don't know what you are talking about
Enlighten me then.

Seriously, do you want to know? If you do I’m more than happy to talk to you about it. I’m not for a second suggesting that conditions in some of these places are not third world, but I’d like to talk to about why they live this way, and more importantly why they have too. We can take it offline if you like.

I’d be genuinely interested to hear your thoughts. I don’t profess to have single clue about what life is like in these communities & I don’t have any solutions either. I’m particularly interested in you saying “they have to” live this way as to me, moving away from the communities just seems logical but again I fully realise I don’t, but want to, understand why people don’t. Growing up I just assumed that eventually some form of integration into western civilisation had to be the end goal, if its not, I’ve not really read a long game alternative.

Reasons differ from communtuy to community, but one common theme to answer that particular question is if family are buried on that land then they have to remain there to protect their spirits. Conservatives have a very hard time understanding why they still adhear to that some even suggest it’s a cop out. But it just can’t happen in the same way as you would not have been able to move out from home as a teen with no job or means to support yourself. You just couldn’t, and they just can leave their family, dead or alive.

This is why shutting down comunties is inhumane. People are going to stay there anyway, because of their spiritual ties to that particular country. They will do so without, power, water, and waste disposal. They will get sick, and they will die.

It’s subtle, strategic genocide.

I don’t think integration is the long term goal, co-existence, improved health care delivery and constituational recognition are key planks to long term success, and a big one for me is community sustainability.

Fine - then they can go back to being hunters and gatherers.

It comes down to choices and consequences.

If I choose to remain in an unsustainable community because I believe in spirits then I will have to go without Western goods and services.
If I want those Western goods and services more than than I believe in those spirits, then I should move.

Why are Aboriginals treated as so backward that they can’t compromise their beliefs for their living standards?
We don’t expect that of Catholics, Muslims, Jews etc. They all make personal choices and have to deal with consequences.

Speechless

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LOL and there he goes with the party line and ignoring the facts.

I have read the full point of what he was saying and what he said was offensive and bordered on being racist.

This is not about some white people who just don’t want to work and prefer to spend their days surfing in north Queensland and NSW central coast and expect the tax-payers to help them do it.

This is about a people group who have traditionally lived off the land and had a productive society built around community living and teaching. What the Prime Minister wants them to do is to become white people who work a 9-5 job and have highly educated children who can add back to society in taxes and if they won’t do that then they can fend for themselves. That is old colonialism at it’s racist worst.

Absolute bullocks.

If Abbott cured cancer you would be offended.

It is not me that is offended it is the entire Aboriginal people who are offended and they come out and said so. Don’t be a ■■■■ just because, actually stop and use your brain and think about what is being said to you for a change. Stop towing some artificial party line and realise that real people are involved and are hurt by having their cultural ways labelled as “lifestyle choices”. They lived that way for a long time before we came on the scene and called them lazy and tried to change the way they lived before deciding it would be easy to steal, rape and destroy them instead.

Now we seem to be going back in the same direction and you seem rather supportive of such behaviour.

Go and visit a remote community. Your fantasised notion of how these remote communities live will soon be destroyed. Why you would want people to continue to exist in this way beggars belief.

You don't know what you are talking about
Enlighten me then.

Seriously, do you want to know? If you do I’m more than happy to talk to you about it. I’m not for a second suggesting that conditions in some of these places are not third world, but I’d like to talk to about why they live this way, and more importantly why they have too. We can take it offline if you like.

I’d be genuinely interested to hear your thoughts. I don’t profess to have single clue about what life is like in these communities & I don’t have any solutions either. I’m particularly interested in you saying “they have to” live this way as to me, moving away from the communities just seems logical but again I fully realise I don’t, but want to, understand why people don’t. Growing up I just assumed that eventually some form of integration into western civilisation had to be the end goal, if its not, I’ve not really read a long game alternative.

Reasons differ from communtuy to community, but one common theme to answer that particular question is if family are buried on that land then they have to remain there to protect their spirits. Conservatives have a very hard time understanding why they still adhear to that some even suggest it’s a cop out. But it just can’t happen in the same way as you would not have been able to move out from home as a teen with no job or means to support yourself. You just couldn’t, and they just can leave their family, dead or alive.

This is why shutting down comunties is inhumane. People are going to stay there anyway, because of their spiritual ties to that particular country. They will do so without, power, water, and waste disposal. They will get sick, and they will die.

It’s subtle, strategic genocide.

I don’t think integration is the long term goal, co-existence, improved health care delivery and constituational recognition are key planks to long term success, and a big one for me is community sustainability.

Fine - then they can go back to being hunters and gatherers.

It comes down to choices and consequences.

If I choose to remain in an unsustainable community because I believe in spirits then I will have to go without Western goods and services.
If I want those Western goods and services more than than I believe in those spirits, then I should move.

Why are Aboriginals treated as so backward that they can’t compromise their beliefs for their living standards?
We don’t expect that of Catholics, Muslims, Jews etc. They all make personal choices and have to deal with consequences

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LOL and there he goes with the party line and ignoring the facts.

I have read the full point of what he was saying and what he said was offensive and bordered on being racist.

This is not about some white people who just don’t want to work and prefer to spend their days surfing in north Queensland and NSW central coast and expect the tax-payers to help them do it.

This is about a people group who have traditionally lived off the land and had a productive society built around community living and teaching. What the Prime Minister wants them to do is to become white people who work a 9-5 job and have highly educated children who can add back to society in taxes and if they won’t do that then they can fend for themselves. That is old colonialism at it’s racist worst.

Absolute bullocks.

If Abbott cured cancer you would be offended.

It is not me that is offended it is the entire Aboriginal people who are offended and they come out and said so. Don’t be a ■■■■ just because, actually stop and use your brain and think about what is being said to you for a change. Stop towing some artificial party line and realise that real people are involved and are hurt by having their cultural ways labelled as “lifestyle choices”. They lived that way for a long time before we came on the scene and called them lazy and tried to change the way they lived before deciding it would be easy to steal, rape and destroy them instead.

Now we seem to be going back in the same direction and you seem rather supportive of such behaviour.

Go and visit a remote community. Your fantasised notion of how these remote communities live will soon be destroyed. Why you would want people to continue to exist in this way beggars belief.

You don't know what you are talking about
Enlighten me then.

Seriously, do you want to know? If you do I’m more than happy to talk to you about it. I’m not for a second suggesting that conditions in some of these places are not third world, but I’d like to talk to about why they live this way, and more importantly why they have too. We can take it offline if you like.

I’d be genuinely interested to hear your thoughts. I don’t profess to have single clue about what life is like in these communities & I don’t have any solutions either. I’m particularly interested in you saying “they have to” live this way as to me, moving away from the communities just seems logical but again I fully realise I don’t, but want to, understand why people don’t. Growing up I just assumed that eventually some form of integration into western civilisation had to be the end goal, if its not, I’ve not really read a long game alternative.

Reasons differ from communtuy to community, but one common theme to answer that particular question is if family are buried on that land then they have to remain there to protect their spirits. Conservatives have a very hard time understanding why they still adhear to that some even suggest it’s a cop out. But it just can’t happen in the same way as you would not have been able to move out from home as a teen with no job or means to support yourself. You just couldn’t, and they just can leave their family, dead or alive.

This is why shutting down comunties is inhumane. People are going to stay there anyway, because of their spiritual ties to that particular country. They will do so without, power, water, and waste disposal. They will get sick, and they will die.

It’s subtle, strategic genocide.

I don’t think integration is the long term goal, co-existence, improved health care delivery and constituational recognition are key planks to long term success, and a big one for me is community sustainability.

Fine - then they can go back to being hunters and gatherers.

It comes down to choices and consequences.

If I choose to remain in an unsustainable community because I believe in spirits then I will have to go without Western goods and services.
If I want those Western goods and services more than than I believe in those spirits, then I should move.

Why are Aboriginals treated as so backward that they can’t compromise their beliefs for their living standards?
We don’t expect that of Catholics, Muslims, Jews etc. They all make personal choices and have to deal with consequences.

You might have some point, 80 to 100 years ago, but these days the behavior of governments and the expected morals of society are guided by the basic human rights, and we have the right to provide these people with access to these services, now you might feel better if they pay for it, and my visions of sustainability draw into that in some fashion.

You are treading in very murky water when you talk about a culture vs religion, there is a difference. Aboriginal culture is not something that can be compared to a western faith. For starters is about 34,000 years older than any of those faiths, which ethics were formed in a different society.

Please, and I’m being brutally honest here, stop talking about this, you really don’t know a lot about it, and you are coming across as extremely ignorant, and really you cant make any statements or suggestions towards what should or should not be done without having somewhat of an informed opinion.

I know ■■■■ all about cooking, so I’m not going to rant away to someone about what sort of stock to use in a paella.

Food for thought.

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LOL and there he goes with the party line and ignoring the facts.

I have read the full point of what he was saying and what he said was offensive and bordered on being racist.

This is not about some white people who just don’t want to work and prefer to spend their days surfing in north Queensland and NSW central coast and expect the tax-payers to help them do it.

This is about a people group who have traditionally lived off the land and had a productive society built around community living and teaching. What the Prime Minister wants them to do is to become white people who work a 9-5 job and have highly educated children who can add back to society in taxes and if they won’t do that then they can fend for themselves. That is old colonialism at it’s racist worst.

Absolute bullocks.

If Abbott cured cancer you would be offended.

It is not me that is offended it is the entire Aboriginal people who are offended and they come out and said so. Don’t be a ■■■■ just because, actually stop and use your brain and think about what is being said to you for a change. Stop towing some artificial party line and realise that real people are involved and are hurt by having their cultural ways labelled as “lifestyle choices”. They lived that way for a long time before we came on the scene and called them lazy and tried to change the way they lived before deciding it would be easy to steal, rape and destroy them instead.

Now we seem to be going back in the same direction and you seem rather supportive of such behaviour.

Go and visit a remote community. Your fantasised notion of how these remote communities live will soon be destroyed. Why you would want people to continue to exist in this way beggars belief.

You don't know what you are talking about
Enlighten me then.

Seriously, do you want to know? If you do I’m more than happy to talk to you about it. I’m not for a second suggesting that conditions in some of these places are not third world, but I’d like to talk to about why they live this way, and more importantly why they have too. We can take it offline if you like.

I’d be genuinely interested to hear your thoughts. I don’t profess to have single clue about what life is like in these communities & I don’t have any solutions either. I’m particularly interested in you saying “they have to” live this way as to me, moving away from the communities just seems logical but again I fully realise I don’t, but want to, understand why people don’t. Growing up I just assumed that eventually some form of integration into western civilisation had to be the end goal, if its not, I’ve not really read a long game alternative.

Reasons differ from communtuy to community, but one common theme to answer that particular question is if family are buried on that land then they have to remain there to protect their spirits. Conservatives have a very hard time understanding why they still adhear to that some even suggest it’s a cop out. But it just can’t happen in the same way as you would not have been able to move out from home as a teen with no job or means to support yourself. You just couldn’t, and they just can leave their family, dead or alive.

This is why shutting down comunties is inhumane. People are going to stay there anyway, because of their spiritual ties to that particular country. They will do so without, power, water, and waste disposal. They will get sick, and they will die.

It’s subtle, strategic genocide.

I don’t think integration is the long term goal, co-existence, improved health care delivery and constituational recognition are key planks to long term success, and a big one for me is community sustainability.

Fine - then they can go back to being hunters and gatherers.

It comes down to choices and consequences.

If I choose to remain in an unsustainable community because I believe in spirits then I will have to go without Western goods and services.
If I want those Western goods and services more than than I believe in those spirits, then I should move.

Why are Aboriginals treated as so backward that they can’t compromise their beliefs for their living standards?
We don’t expect that of Catholics, Muslims, Jews etc. They all make personal choices and have to deal with consequences.

This is almost certainly the worst thing I’ve read on Blitz, and that’s saying something.

‘Go back to being hunters and gatherers?’ What the actual sisterlicking ■■■■?

Ok then, you’re telling them to do that, so I suppose that you’re going to

  • give them back complete and unfettered access to their historical hunting/gathering lands?
  • go back in time and rewind the cultural destruction that resulted in so much bushcraft etc being lost as stolen kids were given orphan educations rather than learning traditional lifestyles?
  • go back in time and reverse the extinctions and environmental degradation from white farming practices and invasive species introduced by colonists, so that traditional ecosystems exist again for hunter-gatherers to live off?

The hunter-gatherer lifestyle in Australia might cling on by its fingernails here and there, but as an economic system for a large group of people, it’s been irreversibly broken for a very long time for all of the above reasons. Hell, a lot of the massacres of indigenous people even in the earliest days of settlement were triggered by ‘sheep-stealing’ - ie, hunters killing sheep for food cos that was all that’s left after the settlers burnt the bush and chased off the native game to create grazing land. The lifestyle is broken, and it’s broken because of white settlement.

And then you’re going on about ‘unsustainable communities’. Dunno if you live in Vic, but right now there’s a huge kerfluffle cos Abbott is INSISTING that he be able to put billions of dollars into funding the east-west link, the goal of which is … to somewhat cut down on daily travel time for a bunch of mostly non-indigenous people who live in a major city with easy access to education, clean water, health services, jobs, etc etc etc. By your argument, why should we build this road? After all, it comes down to choices and consequences. People living in Melbourne CHOSE to live there, they CHOSE to get jobs in the city and CHOSE to live a bit further out so they’d have a backyard. Why should the govt spend billions just to make their chosen lifestyle slightly more convenient? Greedy buggers, they should either pay a million to live in a shoebox apartment in docklands near their workplace, or else quit their job as a stockbroker in the city and start working at a servo near home. Hell, you could say the same for almost any infrastructure investment ever. Or any other government spending, for that matter. The government pays out huge amounts of money in the form of the age pension, so that older people can spend their later years with a moderate income while not having to worry about work. But this is a lifestyle choice! Why should the government fund these lazy retirees who think just because they’ve turned 67 they’ve got a right to bludge? Choices have consequences! If you want to make the LIFESTYLE CHOICE to quit work when you get older, then maybe the consequence could be that you end up living under a bridge eating dogfood with a stolen spoon, or else rely on your grown-up kids to scrimp on their mortgage and their kids education to support you?

The government indulges all sorts of lifestyle choices with taxpayer money all the time. For instance, the government willingly forgoes tax on the income made by religious organisations. But religious organisations are a lifestyle choice! Why should the zillionaire Catholic Church get subsidies from the government to provide luxurious churches on prime inner-city real estate, while indigenous people are told that they have to choose between religion/culture and decent government services? Why does one religion get helped out but the other doesn’t? Following sport is a lifestyle choice, but the govt contributes to sports stadiums all the time. Private school is the ultimate lifestyle choice, but the govt can’t stop itself from hurling money in their direction so Scotch College can build its third indoor heated water polo complex on its spacious (and I believe tax-free, courtesy of its religious status…) Toorak campus.

The fact is that all of these ‘lifestyle choices’ are continually indulged and funded by government. But apparently wanting to live in a remote community close to your heritage and the foundation of your spiritual beliefs, and at the same time also have running water, is just faaaaar too picky and undeserving. FFS.

Oh spare me please.

Some of you need to get your stories straight. First they have to remain on the land because they are hunters and gatherers however when I play it back then its me who is racist and ‘its the worst thing I’ve read on Blitz.’

And to be honest comparing adult Aboriginals as being as helpless as 87 year old pensioners is grossly offensive.

Some of you need to stop being so ■■■■■■ patronising. I would be appalled if I heard people talking about my race of people as if we were inferior beings.

Aboriginals are not stupid, they are not helpless and they can make their own decisions. Stop treating them as idiots and maybe we and they can move forward.

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Why are Aboriginals treated as so backward that they can’t compromise their beliefs for their living standards?
We don’t expect that of Catholics, Muslims, Jews etc. They all make personal choices and have to deal with consequences.

wait wot?

Beliefs?

How does a race of people living where they always have get intertwined with a chosen religion ?

Ben mentioned that one of the primary reasons is to be close to the spirits of their ancestors.

Sounds very much like a religion to me.

Strange isn’t it. Catholics routinely get mocked for believing in heaven and hell but Aboriginals believing in dead spirits wandering around their land is okay.

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■■■■■■ well said.(written). But you won't get a response, too much reality.

I think Tripper works for ASADA. respond only to the “evidence” which suits your belief. Disregard facts that don’t.

Inability to deal with cognitive dissonance is substantially corelated to lower intelligence. As is conservatism.

Ray Martin earlier today.

 <blockquote>"This is a debate we’re going to have to have…a political hot potato I think, it’s going to be ugly, it’s going to be confrontational.
It’s almost unviable, it’s almost unsustainable to have these tiny communities out there that are so dysfunctional.
They are communities of sickness….
The truth is Tony Abbott knows more about this than any other Prime Minister I‘ve seen in my life time – he’s been out to these places he’s aware of what goes on."</blockquote>

And yet people want to see this continue.
All so they can sneer and pretend they care at their little inner city dinner parties.

Pathetic.

Is Ray Martin more or less right than the others who have spoken out against the Prime Minister, including his advisers?

Oh, well if Ray says it…

FFS, it’s like talking to a shoe. I can’t even…

To be fair Rays ‘The Great Divide’ was quite compelling viewing and was on SBS and NITV. It did attract some criticism IIRC but can’t remember exactly what that was.

Quoted Some of you need to stop being so ■■■■■■ patronising.

YO, Pot. meet my man, kettle.

One of these days when DT responds to a post he might actually engage in some analysis of the points made in that post.

One day.

Personally I would probably speak to the traditional elders in the communities about devising ways to assist them.

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LOL and there he goes with the party line and ignoring the facts.

I have read the full point of what he was saying and what he said was offensive and bordered on being racist.

This is not about some white people who just don’t want to work and prefer to spend their days surfing in north Queensland and NSW central coast and expect the tax-payers to help them do it.

This is about a people group who have traditionally lived off the land and had a productive society built around community living and teaching. What the Prime Minister wants them to do is to become white people who work a 9-5 job and have highly educated children who can add back to society in taxes and if they won’t do that then they can fend for themselves. That is old colonialism at it’s racist worst.

Absolute bullocks.

If Abbott cured cancer you would be offended.

It is not me that is offended it is the entire Aboriginal people who are offended and they come out and said so. Don’t be a ■■■■ just because, actually stop and use your brain and think about what is being said to you for a change. Stop towing some artificial party line and realise that real people are involved and are hurt by having their cultural ways labelled as “lifestyle choices”. They lived that way for a long time before we came on the scene and called them lazy and tried to change the way they lived before deciding it would be easy to steal, rape and destroy them instead.

Now we seem to be going back in the same direction and you seem rather supportive of such behaviour.

Go and visit a remote community. Your fantasised notion of how these remote communities live will soon be destroyed. Why you would want people to continue to exist in this way beggars belief.

You don't know what you are talking about
Enlighten me then.

Seriously, do you want to know? If you do I’m more than happy to talk to you about it. I’m not for a second suggesting that conditions in some of these places are not third world, but I’d like to talk to about why they live this way, and more importantly why they have too. We can take it offline if you like.

I’d be genuinely interested to hear your thoughts. I don’t profess to have single clue about what life is like in these communities & I don’t have any solutions either. I’m particularly interested in you saying “they have to” live this way as to me, moving away from the communities just seems logical but again I fully realise I don’t, but want to, understand why people don’t. Growing up I just assumed that eventually some form of integration into western civilisation had to be the end goal, if its not, I’ve not really read a long game alternative.

Reasons differ from communtuy to community, but one common theme to answer that particular question is if family are buried on that land then they have to remain there to protect their spirits. Conservatives have a very hard time understanding why they still adhear to that some even suggest it’s a cop out. But it just can’t happen in the same way as you would not have been able to move out from home as a teen with no job or means to support yourself. You just couldn’t, and they just can leave their family, dead or alive.

This is why shutting down comunties is inhumane. People are going to stay there anyway, because of their spiritual ties to that particular country. They will do so without, power, water, and waste disposal. They will get sick, and they will die.

It’s subtle, strategic genocide.

I don’t think integration is the long term goal, co-existence, improved health care delivery and constituational recognition are key planks to long term success, and a big one for me is community sustainability.

Fine - then they can go back to being hunters and gatherers.

It comes down to choices and consequences.

If I choose to remain in an unsustainable community because I believe in spirits then I will have to go without Western goods and services.
If I want those Western goods and services more than than I believe in those spirits, then I should move.

Why are Aboriginals treated as so backward that they can’t compromise their beliefs for their living standards?
We don’t expect that of Catholics, Muslims, Jews etc. They all make personal choices and have to deal with consequences.

This is almost certainly the worst thing I’ve read on Blitz, and that’s saying something.

‘Go back to being hunters and gatherers?’ What the actual sisterlicking ■■■■?

Ok then, you’re telling them to do that, so I suppose that you’re going to

  • give them back complete and unfettered access to their historical hunting/gathering lands?
  • go back in time and rewind the cultural destruction that resulted in so much bushcraft etc being lost as stolen kids were given orphan educations rather than learning traditional lifestyles?
  • go back in time and reverse the extinctions and environmental degradation from white farming practices and invasive species introduced by colonists, so that traditional ecosystems exist again for hunter-gatherers to live off?

The hunter-gatherer lifestyle in Australia might cling on by its fingernails here and there, but as an economic system for a large group of people, it’s been irreversibly broken for a very long time for all of the above reasons. Hell, a lot of the massacres of indigenous people even in the earliest days of settlement were triggered by ‘sheep-stealing’ - ie, hunters killing sheep for food cos that was all that’s left after the settlers burnt the bush and chased off the native game to create grazing land. The lifestyle is broken, and it’s broken because of white settlement.

And then you’re going on about ‘unsustainable communities’. Dunno if you live in Vic, but right now there’s a huge kerfluffle cos Abbott is INSISTING that he be able to put billions of dollars into funding the east-west link, the goal of which is … to somewhat cut down on daily travel time for a bunch of mostly non-indigenous people who live in a major city with easy access to education, clean water, health services, jobs, etc etc etc. By your argument, why should we build this road? After all, it comes down to choices and consequences. People living in Melbourne CHOSE to live there, they CHOSE to get jobs in the city and CHOSE to live a bit further out so they’d have a backyard. Why should the govt spend billions just to make their chosen lifestyle slightly more convenient? Greedy buggers, they should either pay a million to live in a shoebox apartment in docklands near their workplace, or else quit their job as a stockbroker in the city and start working at a servo near home. Hell, you could say the same for almost any infrastructure investment ever. Or any other government spending, for that matter. The government pays out huge amounts of money in the form of the age pension, so that older people can spend their later years with a moderate income while not having to worry about work. But this is a lifestyle choice! Why should the government fund these lazy retirees who think just because they’ve turned 67 they’ve got a right to bludge? Choices have consequences! If you want to make the LIFESTYLE CHOICE to quit work when you get older, then maybe the consequence could be that you end up living under a bridge eating dogfood with a stolen spoon, or else rely on your grown-up kids to scrimp on their mortgage and their kids education to support you?

The government indulges all sorts of lifestyle choices with taxpayer money all the time. For instance, the government willingly forgoes tax on the income made by religious organisations. But religious organisations are a lifestyle choice! Why should the zillionaire Catholic Church get subsidies from the government to provide luxurious churches on prime inner-city real estate, while indigenous people are told that they have to choose between religion/culture and decent government services? Why does one religion get helped out but the other doesn’t? Following sport is a lifestyle choice, but the govt contributes to sports stadiums all the time. Private school is the ultimate lifestyle choice, but the govt can’t stop itself from hurling money in their direction so Scotch College can build its third indoor heated water polo complex on its spacious (and I believe tax-free, courtesy of its religious status…) Toorak campus.

The fact is that all of these ‘lifestyle choices’ are continually indulged and funded by government. But apparently wanting to live in a remote community close to your heritage and the foundation of your spiritual beliefs, and at the same time also have running water, is just faaaaar too picky and undeserving. FFS.

Oh spare me please.

Some of you need to get your stories straight. First they have to remain on the land because they are hunters and gatherers however when I play it back then its me who is racist and ‘its the worst thing I’ve read on Blitz.’

And to be honest comparing adult Aboriginals as being as helpless as 87 year old pensioners is grossly offensive.

Some of you need to stop being so ■■■■■■ patronising. I would be appalled if I heard people talking about my race of people as if we were inferior beings.

Aboriginals are not stupid, they are not helpless and they can make their own decisions. Stop treating them as idiots and maybe we and they can move forward.

WTF, who said anything about being inferior beings?

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Ray Martin earlier today.
 <blockquote>"This is a debate we’re going to have to have…a political hot potato I think, it’s going to be ugly, it’s going to be confrontational.
It’s almost unviable, it’s almost unsustainable to have these tiny communities out there that are so dysfunctional.
They are communities of sickness….
The truth is Tony Abbott knows more about this than any other Prime Minister I‘ve seen in my life time – he’s been out to these places he’s aware of what goes on."</blockquote>

And yet people want to see this continue.
All so they can sneer and pretend they care at their little inner city dinner parties.

Pathetic.

Look, i agree that they cant go on like they are, but shutting them down is not the right answer.

where did Ray say that by the way?

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Quoted Post
Ray Martin earlier today.
 <blockquote>"This is a debate we’re going to have to have…a political hot potato I think, it’s going to be ugly, it’s going to be confrontational.
It’s almost unviable, it’s almost unsustainable to have these tiny communities out there that are so dysfunctional.
They are communities of sickness….
The truth is Tony Abbott knows more about this than any other Prime Minister I‘ve seen in my life time – he’s been out to these places he’s aware of what goes on."</blockquote>

And yet people want to see this continue.
All so they can sneer and pretend they care at their little inner city dinner parties.

Pathetic.

Look, i agree that they cant go on like they are, but shutting them down is not the right answer.

Good. I’m glad you don’t want to see it continue.

I’m happy to hear alternative solutions.

Why do you lot bother with this guy? He cannot answer questions, refuses to do any sort of investigation, ignores enormous amounts of compiled evidence, relies heavily on people who provide no true insight and simply trolls many of the posts, while engaging in purile behaviour.

Move on, put him on ignore or simply ignore him and life will get better. Treat him the same way you treat SWSNBN.

Here are some facts.

  • we spend twice as much money per head on indigenous people than we do on non-indigenous people.
    *most of those remote communities (not all) are a shambles where violence and alcoholism reigns supreme.
    *they are arguably worse off than 30 years ago despite being given more welfare.

Now the definition of insanity I believe is repeating the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

Throwing money at the problem has not worked. I would argue its made things worse.

So its time to have a proper debate on how to go forward. That debate is for those that want to see peoples lives improve not as a tool to sooth their ego or play politics with.

Quoted Post

Here are some facts. * we spend twice as much money per head on indigenous people than we do on non-indigenous people. *most of those remote communities (not all) are a shambles where violence and alcoholism reigns supreme. *they are arguably worse off than 30 years ago despite being given more welfare.

Now the definition of insanity I believe is repeating the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

Throwing money at the problem has not worked. I would argue its made things worse.

So its time to have a proper debate on how to go forward. That debate is for those that want to see peoples lives improve not as a tool to sooth their ego or play politics with.

If you want to have a proper debate, get rid of terminology like ‘throwing money at the problem.’
I’d also like a working definition of ‘lives improve.’