"I’ll say first that I do believe that the current situation has been caused by both current and past governments. At the start of the 20th century, the Aboriginies generally had a poor standard of living and, accordingly, it was seen as proper that we “take care of them”, be it by establishing reserves in the first half of the century or, more recently, welfare to support communities run by elders. The key problem is that, despite all the issues that appear in these communities, the approach has only ever been slightly tweaked, but never changed.
The communties display all of the most horrible consequences of the welfare state: high unemployment, substance abuse, poor education, high crime rates, etc, and yet we continue to pump money into them without questioning our methods. The fact is that there are no jobs where these people live. Without jobs, there is no choice but to remain on welfare for the rest of their lives, and with the welfare in place there is no real incentive to move to areas where employment is available. This attitude filters down to their children, who have no aspirations because their main role models, being their parents, have never held down jobs, and who lack the educational qualifications to seek work because they are not being encouraged to go to school.
It’s easy to blame alcohol, paint thinner, petrol or glue for all of these problems, but the fact of the matter is that if you don’t have welfare money you cannot purchase such intoxicants, and so must seek work. We then reach a stage where you can’t hold down a job while high on solvents, and the problem corrects itself. We must, therefore, offer packages for these people to move to areas where jobs are available, and if they choose not to take them they will have their welfare cut off. This may seem harsh, but one cannot take the benefits of Western society without accepting its responsibilities, and if they wish to outright reject both to live on their sacred lands they can continue to do so as they have for thousands of years; there was no welfare prior to 1788.
The current bipartisan measures do nothing to bring us towards a situation where welfare dependence is not longer an issue, because they attack the symptoms, rather than the cause, of the problem. There needs to be pressure placed on both parties to completely overhaul their strategies, because only then will we see change in the indigenous community.
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Something I wrote a while ago on the aboriginal issue...