Aboriginality test changes

[Skids]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-22/concerns-for-tasmanian-aboriginality-test-changes/7106664


Aboriginal people do have entitlements as original owners and by diluting those entitlements, by swamping with people who aren't really Aboriginal, there's going to be big implications for the community.

Heather Sculthorpe, Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre

This makes me laugh. I've got nephews that are Mostly of Mexican and English descent, their Mum is a quarter aboriginal and they claim all the benefits.
Both parents work in well paid jobs yet they go to school early and get the complimentary food for the disadvantaged. One has travelled internationally with the 'Indigenous' Australian baseball team. He also got the same teachers qualifications as one of my daughters a hell of a lot simpler than what she had to do. He also get paid a higher rate than she does.

How long can these scams continue to bleed the economy?

[Wokko]

Andrew Bolt got sued for saying things similar to this. IMO there should be a 50% rule for receiving these benefits rather than the current free for all. Identify yourself however you like, but someone with one Aboriginal grandparent doesn't need special help.

[David]

I certainly support these concessions in theory as a necessary way of boosting Indigenous representation and overall performance, but I would prefer if it wasn't framed solely around ethnicity. As Skids points out, it's kind of puzzling that someone from a middle-class background and little connection to Aboriginal culture can have access to entitlements purely by virtue of one grandparent's (or great-grandparent's) ethnicity. It's not so much that it's a drain on the system - this stuff has a more or less negligible impact on the budget - but that these benefits could be better targeted. Perhaps location (i.e. rural vs urban) and socioeconomic background need to be more actively taken into account.

[stui magpie]

Geezus, this topic is like clog dancing in a minefield while drunk and blindfolded. I'll have a go.

Should Skids nephews be getting benefits they don't need just because of a racial connection? Nope. But how you make the system better without messing it up further I have NFI. Every proposal will piss off some lobby group so you're on a hiding to nothing.

I totally support providing support to Aboriginals, but I think the whole approach could do with some stepping back, reviewing and starting again because despite best intentions a lot of what's currently being done just aint working. I'm not suggesting stopping any funding or programs, I just think the whole multitude of things needs to be looked at in serious detail to get a better result.

[pietillidie]

^And, to reiterate: The cost of policing marginal cases, and the folly of directing energy towards ubiquitous regulatory boundary issues, says more about those obsessing about it than anything else. Take just one other area of life: Some absurd number of transactions a year rest on the ambiguous boundaries of the tax code. But, the vast portion of those transactions are accepted without comment.

Also, by now we all know there is that whole area of identity and the right of self-identity determination, and in addition the definition of identity from certain Aboriginal cultural perspectives. Those things make the natural problem of boundaries even more complicated.

(One of my pasty white best mates has been bestowed with full tribal acceptance for adopting an Aboriginal boy at the blessing of his extended family due to child welfare issues; he doesn't draw on that formally, but he certainly values the honour, and like it or not it is a pertinent example of the known and documented fact that a very different model of identification does exist in Australian history).

So, we have a logical boundary problem overlain with cross-cultural and historical complexities, dwarfed by far more consequential matters. That leaves intelligent folk to conclude there is zero gain, economic or otherwise, to either imposing oneself on the matter, or thinking one has identified the key to the decline of civilisation.

Which, of course, is a completely reasonable and balanced judgement.

As a beautifully-timed point of contrast, consider a tax case which is potentially of major consequence to national revenue shortfalls:

[think positive]

why would you bring up Apple in Ireland? Just another anti USA rant?

If you had brought up their atrocious treatment of their indigenous people, fair enough, and they also have the same problem we do here of people basically taking advantage of the system at the expense of those really entitled to the benefits.

Ok let's go there, Muslims. Well they are in every other thread

[HAL]

[Mugwump]

[stui magpie]

^

Exactly. Chucking money at the problem hasn't worked, it's created a welfare dependant culture. It's needs a complete review of everything to develop a fully integrated approach that has a chance to work, start from scratch, but I can't see that happening because the shriekers would pick said approach apart and focus on the negative elements rather than the whole picture and we're back where we started.

[pietillidie]

[pietillidie]

[think positive]

[pietillidie]

^No, but that's a false urban myth. It costs more to police the ambiguous fringes. Did you know that?

(Mugwump thinks anything that's not defending 17th-century rural European thought is an affront to his identity ).

[David]

I think there are legitimate questions over welfare dependence vs incentive, etc., but I'm with PTID on the Apple stuff – to claim that (possible) Indigenous welfare rorts are "bleeding the economy" is nonsense when scams involving thousands of times as much money are perpetuated with little outrage. It does indeed say a lot about the priorities of those who are particularly fixated on issues like these.

That's a criticism of the rhetoric, though; it doesn't mean that this system can't be improved or critically discussed. Given the ongoing disparities in standard of living, education, crime, etc. in remote rural communities, it should surely be self-evident that a large number of government policies directed at Indigenous Australians are either counterproductive, useless or (best case scenario) working well but only producing gradual returns.

Perhaps that latter category is the best we can possibly hope for, and radical change for the better is impossible; perhaps it's our frustrated desire to see radical positive change that is leading to a lot of the counterproductive and useless policies. Either way, we shouldn't be inhibited from discussing these things.

It sometimes seems that the only time this topic comes up in cultural discourse at all (and we really do avoid it as much as possible) is either when a) people on the right are whinging about supposedly unfair Aboriginal entitlements or b) people on the left are in the mood to be outraged over some incident of racism. I admire all of the people quietly working away in government, public service, business and NGOs to improve Indigenous standards of living and basing their strategies on evidence and consultation, but I wish that that drive could somehow be reflected in public discussion. Instead, all we see is dead silence broken by occasional finger-pointing.

This is one thing I'll say about Tony Abbott: for all his many failings, he was able to bring attention to Indigenous affairs graciously and constructively. Whether he or his government were capable of turning that into effective policy is another question.

[stui magpie]