Lived in remote Australia for many years and have witnessed first hand how aborigines were treated at times, and it wasn't good.
Having said that, I can see your reasons for thinking they were better off then, but it was never going to be sustainable in a nation that was becoming more sophisticated....and hopefully respectful of each other.
Our society has changed so much since then that it is almost futile comparing the situations. Many of the wrongs that were committed then are what we are still trying to rectify now. The gap has widened and the consequences are seemingly unfixable.
Enter the complications that have come with our technological advances etc, and it's inevitable that the problem was going to get worse, especially when many of us still blame them for everything that's gone wrong in their lives.
