embrace capitalism - aboriginals told

Yahoo News;
Aboriginal people must embrace capitalism or risk being left behind in the modern world, a prominent indigenous leader says.

Warren Mundine, the incoming federal president of the Labor Party, said during a speech that Aboriginal people had to change to survive, The Weekend Australian newspaper reported.

"It is neither the strongest nor the most intelligent species that survive; it is the species that is most responsive to change," Mr Mundine said in his address to the Bennelong Society.

"How very true those words are to the situation of indigenous Australians.

"Communities must, in all seriousness, question whether the old-style welfare days of self-administration and the rights agenda have delivered a worthwhile result.

"They must also question whether it is reasonable to disengage from society and yet still expect to be maintained by the taxpayer."

Mr Mundine criticised Northern Territory Chief Justice Brian Martin, who handed a one-month jail sentence to a man who had anal sex with a 14-year-old who had been promised as his wife when she was four.

Mr Mundine also attacked some indigenous leaders who he said wanted "to preserve us as museum pieces as well and keep us locked in poverty and socially dysfunctional communities", the newspaper reported.

Dave R.