[Decky]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... n-families

Another stolen generation: how Australia still wrecks Aboriginal families
The mass removal of Indigenous children from their parents continues unabated – where is the outrage?

Most Aboriginal families live on the edge. Their life expectancy in towns a short flight from Sydney is as low as 37. Photograph: David Gray/Reuters

The tape is searing. There is the voice of an infant screaming as he is wrenched from his mother, who pleads, "There is nothing wrong with my baby. Why are you doing this to us? I would've been hung years ago, wouldn't I? Because [as an Aboriginal Australian] you're guilty before you're found innocent." The child's grandmother demands to know why "the stealing of our kids is happening all over again". A welfare official says, "I'm gunna take him, mate."

This happened to an Aboriginal family in outback New South Wales. It is happening across Australia in a scandalous and largely unrecognised abuse of human rights that evokes the infamous stolen generation of the last century. Up to the 1970s, thousands of mixed-race children were stolen from their mothers by welfare officials. The children were given to institutions as cheap or slave labour; many were abused.

Described by a chief protector of Aborigines as "breeding out the colour", the policy was known as assimilation. It was influenced by the same eugenics movement that inspired the Nazis. In 1997 a landmark report, Bringing Them Home, disclosed that as many 50,000 children and their mothers had endured "the humiliation, the degradation and sheer brutality of the act of forced separation ... the product of the deliberate, calculated policies of the state". The report called this genocide.

Assimilation remains Australian government policy in all but name. Euphemisms such as "reconciliation" and "Stronger Futures" cover similar social engineering and an enduring, insidious racism in the political elite, the bureaucracy and wider Australian society. When in 2008 prime minister Kevin Rudd apologised for the stolen generation, he added: "I want to be blunt about this. There will be no compensation." The Sydney Morning Herald congratulated Rudd on a "shrewd manoeuvre" that "cleared away a piece of political wreckage in a way that responds to some of its own supporters' emotional needs, yet changes nothing".

Today, the theft of Aboriginal children – including babies taken from the birth table – is now more widespread than at any time during the last century. As of June last year, almost 14,000 Aboriginal children had been "removed". This is five times the number when Bringing Them Home was written. More than a third of all removed children are Aboriginal – from 3% of the population. At the present rate, this mass removal of Aboriginal children will result in a stolen generation of more than 3,300 children in the Northern Territory alone.

Pat (not her real name) is the mother whose anguish was secretly recorded on a phone as four department of child services officials, and six police, descended on her home. On the tape an official claims they have come only for an "assessment". But two of the police officers, who knew Pat, told her they saw no risk to her child and warned her to "get out of here quick". Pat fled, cradling her infant, but the one-year-old was eventually seized without her knowing why. The next morning a police officer returned to apologise to her and said her baby should never have been taken away. Pat has no idea where her son is.

Once she was "invited" by officials to bring her children to "neutral" offices to discuss a "care plan". The doors were locked and officials seized the children, with one of the youngest dragging on a police officer's gun belt. Many Indigenous mothers are unaware of their legal rights. A secretive children's court has become notorious for rubber-stamping removals.

Most Aboriginal families live on the edge. Their life expectancy in towns a short flight from Sydney is as low as 37. Dickensian diseases are rife; Australia is the only developed country not to have eradicated trachoma, which blinds Aboriginal children.

Pat has both complied with and struggled bravely against a punitive bureaucracy that can remove children on hearsay. She has twice been acquitted of false charges, including "kidnapping" her own children. A psychologist has described her as a capable and good mother.

Josie Crawshaw, the former director of a respected families' support organisation in Darwin, told me: "In remote areas, officials will go in with a plane in the early hours and fly the child thousands of kilometres from their community. There'll be no explanation, no support, and the child may be gone forever."

In 2012 the co-ordinator general of remote services for the Northern Territory, Olga Havnen, was sacked when she revealed that almost A$80m (£44m) was spent on the surveillance and removal of Aboriginal children compared with only A$500,000 (£275,000) on supporting the same impoverished families. She told me: "The primary reasons for removing children are welfare issues directly related to poverty and inequality. The impact is just horrendous because if they are not reunited within six months, it's likely they won't see each other again. If South Africa was doing this, there'd be an international outcry."

She and others with long experience I have interviewed have echoed the Bringing them Home report, which described an official "attitude" in Australia that regarded all Aboriginal people as "morally deficient". A department of family and community services spokesman said that most removed Indigenous children in New South Wales were placed with Indigenous carers. According to Indigenous support networks, this is a smokescreen; it does not mean families, and it is control by divisiveness that is the bureaucracy's real achievement.

I met a group of Aboriginal grandmothers, all survivors of the first stolen generation, all now with stolen grandchildren. "We live in a state of fear, again," they said. David Shoebridge, a state Greens MP, told me: "The truth is, there is a market among whites for these kids, especially babies."

The New South Wales parliament is soon to debate legislation that introduces forced adoption and "guardianship". Children under two years old will be liable – without the mother's consent – if "removed" for more than six months. For many Aboriginal mothers like Pat, it can take six months merely to make contact with their children. "It's setting up Aboriginal families to fail," said Shoebridge.

I asked Josie Crawshaw why. "The wilful ignorance in Australia about its first people has now become the kind of intolerance that gets to the point where you can smash an entire group of humanity and there is no fuss."

To sum up the important points, the abuse of the native people of Australia is not a thing of the past, nor are the abuses just the last relics of a past hatred only carried in the hearts of the the older generation.

Today, the theft of Aboriginal children – including babies taken from the birth table – is now more widespread than at any time during the last century. As of June last year, almost 14,000 Aboriginal children had been "removed". This is five times the number when Bringing Them Home was written. More than a third of all removed children are Aboriginal – from 3% of the population.

If anything the fact that this can happen points to the young white Australians of today having an even worse view of black people than older generations. I find this hard to fathom, after all haven't views been going the other way in the rest of the world with younger people being less bigoted? I just find it strange to imagine that this generation of Australians can be ever more racist than the last but as the article suggests, what other explantion is there for the lack or reaction from ordinary Australians to this travesty of "justice"?

Understanding of this issue eludes me so I would hope that my fellow PoFoers would be able to help me understand what is is about the views of young Australians today that allowes to government to get away with these henious crimes without being punished for them. I would particulaly welcome insights from Australians who would no doubt a have a firmer grasp of the situation than I.

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

Good day, kind sir! I wish to entreat you for permission to post in this most distinguished thread, of sorts. Assuming your consent has been given I shall now commence with the discussions. Thank you, noble sir.

It is a black day indeed for any gentleman to feel pressed to discuss such grave matters as race relations in the colony of Australia. We are often reminded of the violent nature of teenaged aboriginal youth, and their parents, particularly sexual abuse reports.

Reports of sexual abuse of Australian Indigenous children have increased, but many cases are still going unreported, according to a leading advocate of Indigenous rights.

Dr Kylie Cripps, acting director of the Indigenous Law Centre at the University of New South Wales, says reports of sexual abuse of Indigenous children increased to 935 substantiated reports in 2011-2012.

She says the new numbers suggests Indigenous children are four times more likely to experience child sexual abuse than other Australian children.

The figures represented 19.48 per cent of substantiated child abuse reports in Australia, compared to Indigenous children only representing 4.7 per cent of the 0-17 age bracket of the Australian population, she said.

Since the Little Children Are Sacred report released in 2007 concluded child sexual abuse in Aboriginal communities had reached crisis levels, reasons for the increasing number of cases reported may include communities becoming more aware of the issue, as well as mandatory reporting laws in most states and territories.

This is to say nothing about the crime statistics, my good sir, for the aboriginal population legally at large:

A parliamentary report last week called the situation a national crisis, noting the imprisonment rate for indigenous Australians has soared 66 percent in the past decade.

The report underscores how little progress Australia has made — despite more than 40 years of targeted federal policies — in lifting up a section of its population that is beset by crime, poor health, domestic violence and alcoholism while living on the fringes of society.

At the time of white settlement in 1788, the Aborigine population was estimated to be as high as 1 million. Their numbers crashed dramatically because of new diseases, brutal treatment from colonists, the loss of traditional lands as well as social and cultural disintegration.

Aborigines now number 517,000, or 2.3 percent of the country's 22.6 million people. Yet, about 25 percent of Australia's adult prison population is Aboriginal, according to the report.

It found that Aboriginal children account for 59 percent of inmates in Australian juvenile detention centers and are 28 times more likely than other Australian children to be detained.

Based upon these established facts, the veracity of which is most undeniable of course, it seems clear that the aboriginals are stuck in a cycle of suburban violence. On one hand, they are clearly disproportionately responsible for crime in Australia, and on the other, it is clear that they are not afforded due equality within society. They are marginalized, pushed to the side like unwanted jam upon one's scones, already overloaded with too much delicious summer's strawberry preserves (oh, how I wish I was younger!). They are not afforded equal education and equal employment, and for many aboriginals, it appears addiction and crime is their only option.

Though I am not an Australian my good sir, as an American I have extensive experience with violent black suburban youths having lived near Chicago, Atlanta, and other areas with criminality, whose rates of crime and incarceration are comparable to the plight of the aboriginals; 40% of the prison population is black, while blacks make up only about 10% of the overall population.

I do not claim to be an expert in this area of expertise and thus I shall take my leave and graciously yield to an Australian with more experience in these matters. Good day.

[ThirdTerm]

She and others with long experience I have interviewed have echoed the Bringing them Home report, which described an official "attitude" in Australia that regarded all Aboriginal people as "morally deficient". A department of family and community services spokesman said that most removed Indigenous children in New South Wales were placed with Indigenous carers. According to Indigenous support networks, this is a smokescreen; it does not mean families, and it is control by divisiveness that is the bureaucracy's real achievement. I met a group of Aboriginal grandmothers, all survivors of the first stolen generation, all now with stolen grandchildren. "We live in a state of fear, again," they said. David Shoebridge, a state Greens MP, told me: "The truth is, there is a market among whites for these kids, especially babies."

The situation may not be as bad as it sounds and interracial adoption has become a cultural taboo because of the controversy over the Stolen Generations of mixed race children, who were removed from indigenous communities. The Australian government now makes sure that these removed children are being looked after by Aboriginal carers and it's extremely difficult for white families to adopt Aboriginal children. I might have come across one of the victims in Australia and she was a mixed race woman in her 40s, who acquired cultural values of non-indigenous Australians, and multiracial children may have better opportunities in life if they are raised by white families. The issue here is the overrepresentation of indigenous children in the child-protection system, which is somewhat different from the forced integration policy implemented in the past, and 10% of indigenous children live in out-of-home care in New South Wales due to higher poverty or crime rates in indigenous communities.

[Rejn]

They are not afforded equal education and equal employment, and for many aboriginals, it appears addiction and crime is their only option.

Indeed they are not afforded equal education or employment. Quotas in universities and the Australian Public Service guarantee Aborigines employment and tertiary education despite poor performance in exams/life. Combined with their high crime rates, it is easy to see how resentful Australian youth are towards the Aborigines.

[Pants-of-dog]

Indeed they are not afforded equal education or employment. Quotas in universities and the Australian Public Service guarantee Aborigines employment and tertiary education despite poor performance in exams/life. Combined with their high crime rates, it is easy to see how resentful Australian youth are towards the Aborigines.

And what is the post-secondary enrollment rate among Aborigines compared to non-indigenous people, i.e. settlers?

And is the percentage of Aboriginal workers in the APS equal to the percentage of Aboriginals in the general population?

[Rejn]

And what is the post-secondary enrollment rate among Aborigines compared to non-indigenous people, i.e. settlers?

For universities specifically, 4.9% and 23.9%. (2006)

http://www.creativespirits.info/aborigi ... university

And is the percentage of Aboriginal workers in the APS equal to the percentage of Aboriginals in the general population?

2.1% and 3%, so no. (2009)

http://www.apsc.gov.au/publications-and ... -workforce

For the figures to be equal, and be equitable ratios, you would be relying on the assumption that they are equal performers.

[Pants-of-dog]

For universities specifically, 4.9% and 23.9%. (2006)

http://www.creativespirits.info/aborigi ... university

2.1% and 3%, so no. (2009)

http://www.apsc.gov.au/publications-and ... -workforce

If Aboriginals are under-represented in PSE and the APS, why are Australians resentful?

For the figures to be equal, and be equitable ratios, you would be relying on the assumption that they are equal performers.

Are you assuming that they are not?

[Rejn]

If Aboriginals are under-represented in PSE and the APS, why are Australians resentful?

If an Aborigine who scores a 60 in the university entrance exams gets accepted, and a non-indigenous person who scores a 70 doesn't, it's not equitable.

Identifying as an Aborigine gives you 10 additional aggregate points.
http://www.monash.edu.au/admissions/seas.html

Are you assuming that they are not?

If we go by results, then no.

NAPLAN scores in 2013 - Reading
17% of Aboriginal students have unsatisfactory results
3% of Non-Indigenous students have unsatisfactory results

And this is despite discretionary investment targeting Aboriginal children.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-13/n ... nt/5154482

[Pants-of-dog]

If an Aborigine who scores a 60 in the university entrance exams gets accepted, and a non-indigenous person who scores a 70 doesn't, it's not equitable.

Lots of things are not equitable. Aboriginals have to deal with all sorts of problems that settlers do not. Why is equality so important when it comes to settlers with 70 scores, but not when it comes to Aboriginal land claims or access to health and educational services?

Besides, as your stats show, this situation almost never happens.

Identifying as an Aborigine gives you 10 additional aggregate points.
http://www.monash.edu.au/admissions/seas.html

And we see that this still does not seem to address all the problems that Aboriginals have in terms of accessing PSE.

If we go by results, then no.

I am sure that many blacks during the slavery era had poor literacy skills. Therefore we should assume that the vast inequality there was also due to poor black performance?

NAPLAN scores in 2013 - Reading
17% of Aboriginal students have unsatisfactory results
3% of Non-Indigenous students have unsatisfactory results

And this is despite discretionary investment targeting Aboriginal children.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-13/n ... nt/5154482

According to that article, indigenous students have made great gains, and are close to their settler counterparts. This is after the gov't started the Closing the Gap strategy, which includes higher levels of funding as well as higher levels of community consultation. Maybe if the settler gov't had implemented these changes twenty years ago (instead of taking away children at incredibly high rates), things would be different for indigenous Australians.

[anarchist23]

Australia is inherently racist.The Australian Constitution is racist and the politicians pander to the racism.I have lived there for 20 years and most Australians are racists,conditioned by the gutter press.Aborigines and refugees are on a daily basis demeaned by the media,treated like second rate humans.
Where is the outrage?There are a few lone voices but they are in the minority.The media and the politicians drown out the few, appealing to the common denominator.
The Australian government needs to invest in the future of the aborigines.Many aborigines live in abject poverty,living a third world existence in one of the richest countries.
In 2008 Kevin Rudd apologized to the Indigenous Australians for the mistreatment suffered by them.But there was no mention of compensation and little has been done.Aborigines are politicized and just need to be listened to,they know what is required.

[JRS1]

Ive got a soft spot for these indigenous people - there's only about 700K of them. About the size of Leeds, UK.

Even if they do have big problems, is there nothing you can do for them? 3% of your nation. Send them all to Uni, it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference to anybody else.

[anarchist23]

Ive got a soft spot for these indigenous people - there's only about 700K of them.

^
A quote from the Guardian by John Pilger.21st March 2014
"Today,the theft of Aboriginal children-including babies taken from the birth table is now more widespread than any other time during the last century.
As of June last year,almost 14,000 aboriginal children have been removed (in 9 months).This is five times the number when Bringing Them Back Home was written.More than a third of all removed children are aboriginal-from 3% of the population."
Something's got to be done now.At this rate over 180,000 aboriginal children in the next ten years will have been kidnapped by the state out of a total population of 700,000 aborigines.
There must be some alternative???

[JRS1]

Exclusively Aboriginal social services and schools would be a good start. Reporting exclusively to Aboriginals.

[Rejn]

Lots of things are not equitable. Aboriginals have to deal with all sorts of problems that settlers do not. Why is equality so important when it comes to settlers with 70 scores, but not when it comes to Aboriginal land claims or access to health and educational services?

Besides, as your stats show, this situation almost never happens.

What Aboriginal land claims? Honestly, we came here in the late 18th century. The land is ours through Terra Nullius, or if you want to ignore that, Right of Conquest. They were generously allowed into our society, but if they want to continue living in desert/scrubland towns with no facilities, that's their problem. They're not my family, they're not the family of most Australians.

The stats demonstrate inherently poor performance, like I said.

And we see that this still does not seem to address all the problems that Aboriginals have in terms of accessing PSE.

And you know, if they were completely wiped out, we wouldn't be having these problems today.

I am sure that many blacks during the slavery era had poor literacy skills. Therefore we should assume that the vast inequality there was also due to poor black performance?

They are free people, not slaves, who receive free housing, education, health as well as uni admission advantages that any other ethnic group can only dream about. The thing is, most don't utilise those advantages in a way that helps them, and instead spend their time drunk off their face.

According to that article, indigenous students have made great gains, and are close to their settler counterparts. This is after the gov't started the Closing the Gap strategy, which includes higher levels of funding as well as higher levels of community consultation. Maybe if the settler gov't had implemented these changes twenty years ago (instead of taking away children at incredibly high rates), things would be different for indigenous Australians.

What it tells me is that even with loads upon loads of money and time thrown into these people, almost one in five are incompetent.

Here, I'll give you more stats. Even after getting into uni, the more than half of the best of the best of the Aborigines are unable to finish their studies and drop out.

http://www.creativespirits.info/aborigi ... rsity#toc2

[Solastalgia]

What Aboriginal land claims?

Hey, maybe if you aren't versed on a subject, you shouldn't be voicing your ignorant opinion about it. Eh? I recommend doing some reading before making baseless statements suggesting that there isn't such a thing as Aboriginal land claims.

Honestly, we came here in the late 18th century.

And Australian aboriginals have been there for 60,000+ years. So what's your point?

The land is ours through Terra Nullius,

Terra Nullius is land that doesn't belong to anybody. But the Australian land certainly belonged to it's indigenous inhabitants. So you're wrong in thinking that you and the rest of your colonist cohorts have a right to the land because it didn't belong to anybody beforehand. It definitely did.

or if you want to ignore that, Right of Conquest.

Right of conquest? You mean war of aggression, the most supreme international crime. That's why you think the land is yours now?

They were generously allowed into our society, but if they want to continue living in desert/scrubland towns with no facilities, that's their problem.

You're so smart, it's amazing. Tell me more about how you generously allowed them into your society, by putting them on reservations in the middle of nowhere in desert/scrub land towns without any facilities. Tell me about how you generously allowed them into your society when you forcefully removed their culture and identity in your rehabilitation camps. Tell me more about how you generously allowed them into your society when you took their children from them?

I'm not sure if you're aware of this yet, in life, but poor people don't want to live in their terrible conditions. Suggesting that aboriginals want to live in a bad environment is just ridiculous. This kind of attitude was very prevalent in the institutionalized racist politics of the Australian government.

They're not my family, they're not the family of most Australians.

They're not the family of most Australians? What's that supposed to mean?

They're the real Australians. The original Australians.

They are free people, not slaves, who receive free housing, education, health as well as uni admission advantages that any other ethnic group can only dream about.

Free housing?! Yeah, this is what Australian aboriginal free housing looks like:



Aboriginal healthcare is notoriously terrible, underfunded and sometimes entirely lacking.

The same goes for education, and any uni admission advantages are much needed, as otherwise they wouldn't be able to go to uni like you and the rest of privileged Australia.

Anyways, the Australian govt just announced a new budget that would see funding cuts to aboriginal social programs by half a billion bucks. So you can stop pumping up their social programs as if they have life made, as it's never been that way. Stop lying to yourself.

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014 ... udget-cuts

The thing is, most don't utilise those advantages in a way that helps them, and instead spend their time drunk off their face.

This is utter rubbish. Blaming the victim. The problem with aboriginal social programs does not lie in the people, but in the government itself. Saying that aboriginals would rather get drunk than have healthcare is ridiculous. Of course there are higher rates of alcoholism and drug abuse in impoverished communities. That's not the reason why they're impoverished, that's a symptom of their impoverishment.

What it tells me is that even with loads upon loads of money and time thrown into these people, almost one in five are incompetent.

You act as if aboriginals are the most privileged people in Australia, when they have been grossly neglected and oppressed by the Australian government for many, many years.

Here, I'll give you more stats. Even after getting into uni, the more than half of the best of the best of the Aborigines are unable to finish their studies and drop out.

http://www.creativespirits.info/aborigi ... rsity#toc2

Is this because of their incompetency, again? Like you said in your previous statement? Because if you actually took a second to read what you linked to, you would find that the reason they have such a high drop-out rate is due to financial issues. Obviously, an ethnicity that's socio-economically poor will have high drop-out rates. You seem to be stuck in this racist alternate reality that thinks aboriginals drop out because they're all incompetent drunks.

[Rejn]

Hey, maybe if you aren't versed on a subject, you shouldn't be voicing your ignorant opinion about it. Eh? I recommend doing some reading before making baseless statements suggesting that there isn't such a thing as Aboriginal land claims.

Every Australian who went through high school in the 21st century knows about Mabo, Wik, Native Title etc. I was expressing my revulsion at the idea that such claims should be heard at all.

And Australian aboriginals have been there for 60,000+ years. So what's your point?

My point is that our rule over them is established.

Terra Nullius is land that doesn't belong to anybody. But the Australian land certainly belonged to it's indigenous inhabitants. So you're wrong in thinking that you and the rest of your colonist cohorts have a right to the land because it didn't belong to anybody beforehand. It definitely did.

The aborigines that were encountered didn't have the concept of land ownership, or were not citizens of an organised, recognised nation. This is why Terra Nullius was applied by the settlers.

Right of conquest? You mean war of aggression, the most supreme international crime. That's why you think the land is yours now?

Yes. This is why I pointed out that the settlers came in the late 18th century i.e. before people started claiming it to be a crime. Would you try to undo previous conquests simply because they were wars of aggression?

Tell me about how you generously allowed them into your society when you forcefully removed their culture and identity in your rehabilitation camps.

Not all cultures are equal. Aboriginal culture and identity is not useful to Australian society.

Tell me more about how you generously allowed them into your society when you took their children from them?

They were deemed unfit to be parents.

They're not the family of most Australians? What's that supposed to mean?

It means the bleeding hearts have the wrong idea. We should not need to care for them at all.

They're the real Australians. The original Australians.

The new takes over the old.

The same goes for education, and any uni admission advantages are much needed, as otherwise they wouldn't be able to go to uni like you and the rest of privileged Australia.

If they can't do well in their exams, they shouldn't be allowed to go to uni.

Anyways, the Australian govt just announced a new budget that would see funding cuts to aboriginal social programs by half a billion bucks. So you can stop pumping up their social programs as if they have life made, as it's never been that way. Stop lying to yourself.

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014 ... udget-cuts

Good news.

This is utter rubbish. Blaming the victim. The problem with aboriginal social programs does not lie in the people, but in the government itself. Saying that aboriginals would rather get drunk than have healthcare is ridiculous. Of course there are higher rates of alcoholism and drug abuse in impoverished communities. That's not the reason why they're impoverished, that's a symptom of their impoverishment.

If your argument is that they're suffering because they're poor, then there should be equal support for all ethnic groups who are poor instead of special treatment for aborigines.

Is this because of their incompetency, again? Like you said in your previous statement? Because if you actually took a second to read what you linked to, you would find that the reason they have such a high drop-out rate is due to financial issues.

And academic issues. Clearly it was you who didn't read.

[anarchist23]

Rejn."Not all cultures are equal.Aboriginal culture and identity is not useful to Australian society."


Are you opinionated?
Are you ignorant.
Are you a bigot?
Are you a white supremacist?
Are you a racist?
Are you an apologist for the inhuman treatment of the aborigines?


Possibly others can answer for you if you can't give an honest reply.

[layman]

The new takes over the old.

This.

Grow up, hippies!

[ThirdTerm]

The Sami people in Norway, Sweden and Finland have been discriminated and abused by the dominant cultures for centuries and Aboriginal Australians and British settlers also have had difficult relations since Australia was first founded as a penal colony with the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788. Unlike the Maori people in New Zealand who enjoy certain indigenous land rights endowed by the British, Aboriginal Australians have not developed a culture sophisticated enough to counter European colonisation and they simply moved further inland when Europeans settled in coastal areas. Australia is a vast continent and there is enough room for two cultures to coexist and Aboriginal Australians are still largely confined to their reserves. The forced integration policy in the past did not work and most Aboriginal Australians would be happier to live in their own communities while maintaining their distinctive culture and lifestyle. Aboriginal Australians and Papua New Guineans are known to have inherited Denisovan DNA (up to 7%) unlike mainland Asian populations according to recent genetic studies.

Like other populations outside Africa, the Australian Aboriginal man owes small chunks of his genome to Neanderthals4. More surprisingly, though, his ancestors also interbred with another archaic human population known as the Denisovans. This group was identified from 30,000–50,000-year-old DNA recovered from a finger bone found in a Siberian cave5. Until now, Papua New Guineans were the only modern human population whose ancestors were known to have interbred with Denisovans. A second study incorporating genomic surveys from different Aboriginal Australians paints an even clearer picture of their ancestors' exploits with the Denisovans. Researchers led by Mark Stoneking at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, calculated the portion of Denisovan ancestry found in the genomes of 243 people representing 33 Asian and Oceanian populations. Patterns of Denisovan interbreeding in human populations could reveal human migration routes through Asia, reasoned the team. The paper is published today in the American Journal of Human Genetics6. This comparison revealed a patchwork in which some populations, including Australian Aboriginals, bore varying levels of Denisovan DNA, while many of their neighbours, like the residents of mainland Southeast Asia, contained none. Stoneking says that this pattern hints at at least two waves of human migration into Asia: an early trek that included the ancestors of contemporary Aboriginal Australians, New Guineans and some other Oceanians, followed by a second wave that gave rise to the present residents of mainland Asia. Some members of the first wave (though not all of them) interbred with Denisovans. However, the Denisovans may have vanished by the time the second Asian migrants arrived. This also suggests that the Denisovan's range, so far linked only to a cave in southern Siberia, once extended to Southeast Asia and perhaps Oceania.
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110922/full/news.2011.551.html

[Pants-of-dog]

What Aboriginal land claims? Honestly, we came here in the late 18th century. The land is ours through Terra Nullius, or if you want to ignore that, Right of Conquest.

If you capitalise words, you don't somehow make them not theft.

I realise that English imperialists have tried to (retroactively) claim that terra nullius is applicable, despite the fact that everyone agrees that Aborigines were already living in Australia when they got there, and they had their own property laws. Since these two facts contradict terra nullius, this claim is laughable.

As for the right of conquest, this is even more laughable, since there was never a war or any military occupation.

They were generously allowed into our society, but if they want to continue living in desert/scrubland towns with no facilities, that's their problem. They're not my family, they're not the family of most Australians.

When you say "generously allowed", do you mean "forcibly assimilated"? Because that's what my understanding of Australian history looks like.

The stats demonstrate inherently poor performance, like I said.

What do you mean by "inherently"?

And you know, if they were completely wiped out, we wouldn't be having these problems today.

Are you advocating that as a (final) solution?

They are free people, not slaves, who receive free housing, education, health as well as uni admission advantages that any other ethnic group can only dream about. The thing is, most don't utilise those advantages in a way that helps them, and instead spend their time drunk off their face.

I actually doubt that Aboriginals receive free housing. In fact, I bet that Aboriginal communities suffer from housing shortages.

All Australians receive free education and health care.

We already discussed university admission and we found out that Aboriginals have trouble accessing PSE.

Please provide evidence that over 50% of Aborigines have drinking problems. Because tio looks like you are saying that Aboriginal people are lazy drunks.

What it tells me is that even with loads upon loads of money and time thrown into these people, almost one in five are incompetent.

Except the article says that they are almost caught up, despite the fact that the gov't is only beginning to fund them properly and listen to them respectfully.

Here, I'll give you more stats. Even after getting into uni, the more than half of the best of the best of the Aborigines are unable to finish their studies and drop out.

http://www.creativespirits.info/aborigi ... rsity#toc2

No doubt you have some racist interpretation. When white kids drop out, it's because they have some good reason. When Aboriginals do it, it is because all Aboriginals are lazy drunks.

Every Australian who went through high school in the 21st century knows about Mabo, Wik, Native Title etc. I was expressing my revulsion at the idea that such claims should be heard at all.

Yes. it is awful they way that the Australian gov;'t should be expected to follow its own laws. We should be allowed to ignore Aboriginal land claims because revulsion.

My point is that our rule over them is established.

And you guys are doing such a good job.

The aborigines that were encountered didn't have the concept of land ownership, or were not citizens of an organised, recognised nation. This is why Terra Nullius was applied by the settlers.

Yes, they did have land ownership.

Yes, they did have organised nations.

They were simply not analogous enough to British systems and the Brits simply ignored these systems of governance so that they could conveniently steal all the land.

Yes. This is why I pointed out that the settlers came in the late 18th century i.e. before people started claiming it to be a crime. Would you try to undo previous conquests simply because they were wars of aggression?

Funny, I must have missed the Great War of Australian Conquest in my history classes.

Not all cultures are equal. Aboriginal culture and identity is not useful to Australian society.

I don't care if it is useful to you. That has nothing to do with it.

They were deemed unfit to be parents.

You must not know Australian history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Gen ... n_practice

In 1915, in New South Wales, the Aborigines Protection Amending Act 1915 gave the Aborigines' Protection Board authority to remove Aboriginal children "without having to establish in court that they were neglected"; it was alleged by Professor Peter Read that Board members sometimes wrote simply "For being Aboriginal" as the explanation when recording a removal, however the number of files bearing such a comment appear to be on the order of either one or two with two others bearing only the word "Aboriginal". At the time, some members of Parliament objected to the amendment; one member stated it enabled the board to "steal the child away from its parents", and at least two members argued that the amendment would result in children being subjected to unpaid labour tantamount to "slavery".

It means the bleeding hearts have the wrong idea. We should not need to care for them at all.

Appeals to emotion are not arguments.

The new takes over the old.

Well, since the old ones are still here, you're not doing a good job of replacing them.

If they can't do well in their exams, they shouldn't be allowed to go to uni.

You seem ignorant of the other reasons why someone might be unable to go to university.

Good news.

As long as we are no longer pretending you have valid arguments.

If your argument is that they're suffering because they're poor, then there should be equal support for all ethnic groups who are poor instead of special treatment for aborigines.

I bet there are more services available for poor settlers than for poor Aborigines.

And academic issues. Clearly it was you who didn't read.

It's hard to study when you're a single mom.