[jaguar]

You had me to reply on this one =)

I have to say, tip of the iceberg, this an enormous issue that cuts at teh heart of australian culture, the individual arguements, debates, slanging matches and levels is almost limitless, every week another indicent seem to accour (the latest is the rape charges leveled at the head at ATSIC (Aboriginal and Torries Strait Islanders Comittee, which deal with the govt on all Aboriginal issues)

I'm going to outline a few key FACTS then ramble on for a while =)

1: When we got here we slaughtered them in large numbers.

2: After that we took them from thier mothers and put them in orphanages in an attempt to make hte assimilate to our culture.

3: NOw they are virtually second class citizens.

4: Our Prime Minister refuses to say sorry, on the basis that he refuses to appoligise for what thsoe before him did.

There was, and still is that blacks are lazy, useless and often dangerous. I mean geez, all we did was take all their land and slaughter their people and they start stealing our sheep!!!

Now this is continued because they live in terrible conditions, with astronomic unemployment and crime is the obvious soltuion, drug and alcohol abuse are widespread.....In recent times there have been large reconciliation moves, but most of it is purely symbolic (half a million people marched over the Sydney Habour Bridge in support of reconciliation, real kodak moment, didn't really achieve anything though. Better if they'd all give a a dollar.

Now that we've stopped trying to stamp them out we might be able to slowly change things, but its going to take a long, long time.

This is such a.........topic i've never really paid *that* much attention in the end....