We cant simply turn the clock back 200 plus years, pete
Whilst what you are suggesting would work well (and is) for some communities, it could not work at all in others.
GZ, your post earlier was fairly similar to my recolections as a kid in the top end, the govt built a couple of quite nice homes, roughly 20mile south of Darwin on the highway, within weeks of handing them over to the locals, everything that could be sold was removed, the rest got burned in campfires, and the $$ they got from the stuff salvaged was spent on grog, so same as your experience, we would often hear campfires at night, and the next day all you would see was a huge pile of empty stubbies, hence I grew up in a very anti aboriginal home, call it racist if you like. I went to a catholic school in darwin and got on well with the aboriginal kids that attended, mind you these would not have been the local kids, so from a relatively early age, I had seen both sides, the good and the bad.
I joined the navy at 15, and was lucky enough to serve with a couple of indigineous Australians, one from the mainland and one from the Islands up north, both nice guys, but got to know the Islander quite well, we were often on the same shift and would stand on the bridgewing talking for hours at night, watching the moon and waves, told him about my experiences growing up with the locals and the likes, talked about life. The memory was one of the most positive things I took from my years in the navy. This guy was one of the smartest and quick witted people i have ever met, we were both still teenagers at that time.
I remember him talking about being owned by the land, and not owning the land, or anything else, ownership is not part of thier makeup, but it is what drives most whites. Us whites have quite different values, whose right, whose wrong, just like people from other nationalities, we are all different.
Where the locals asked whether they wanted these new houses, probably not, it is just what we think they should have and need, its not always so. We talked about Grog and the problems it was causing in the communities, it came across to me that despair and low esteem was the main problem and grog was used as a way to mask that. Once Australia was colonised and the indigineous peoples connection to the land broken and their traditional way of life altered, you cant just say 'go back to the way it was before we came'.
We have to give the peoples who want to assimilate with us whites a chance to do this, whoever says that there is no racism against Aboriginals is kidding themselves, we have to open our hearts, (just like kevin did with sorry), the outback communities that work well, leave them be, if they want help give it, but dont be always shovin it down their throats, the communities that dont work well (like the earlier pic) maybe some cant be salvaged, but some could, Twiggys idea would be great, OZs prominent hill already does something similar I believe. How do we turn around the kids in the pic, I dont know the answer to that, but if we look hard at our own communities, we could take a pic of a not completely different group of louts, pi##ed on a friday or saturday night here in Melbourne or Sydney, there is hope.
I suppose there is not just one answer, some communities probably cant move forward, and cant go back either. We will more than likely be having the same conversation in a couple of decades, but I really hope not.
