The worst thing perpetrated on Aboriginal people in recent decades is turning them into welfare recipients with ever increasing streams of money with no accountability or reference to outcomes or productivity gains. This has not done them any favours. Many aboriginals have not only entered mainstream society but have prospered and grown holding down jobs, sending their children to school and paying a mortgage like most others so to treat them as though this is impossibly hard is very unhelpful to any debate. It is simply untrue, unhelpful and in my opinion derogatory. Australia as a nation has an absolute duty to preserve culture as in a historical sense but this is the 21st century and no person has the rite to sponge off the hard work of others whether they be indigenous or not. The only way to pride and self determination is to stand on your own two feet with all the ups and downs that involves and push forward and onwards on the same basis as the rest of society so no person can besmirch what you have achieved. Then you can say I'm a proud (what ever) and it comes from the heart as opposed to the brain and nobody can take it away from you.
