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| An Obvious Forgery | |
Philip (boundless-compassion) Ruddock has rejected the recent aboriginal
demands for guaranteed Aboriginal parliamentary representation as 'intellectual
pursuits'. Presumably these are things which the intellectual elites
engage in between dipping their hands into the taxpayer's pocket. Of course the
demands could be taken a bit more seriously if anyone was able to define what an Aborigine actually was. Some of us were taught in school that the Tasmanian Aborigines were totally
wiped out (they didn't use the word 'genocide' back then). So it
came as a bit of a surprised to see so many Tasmanian Aborigines on the ABC's Four Corners last Monday
arguing over who were 'real' Aborigines and who weren't. One fellow thought that ATSIC should buy $5000 motor cycles for his children to ride around his
farm because it would reduce the chances of them taking drugs. His blonde-haired kids
thought this was a pretty good idea too, and when asked whether they were
Aboriginal were happy to reply 'um, I suppose so'. All parties in the 'who is the real Aboriginal' debate had some common ground
though - they all agreed that it was about money. Everyone agreed that the
others just wanted to get their snouts into the big ATSIC honey-pot. The funny thing is that none of them could see an obvious solution - removing
the funding, and therefore the financial gain resulting from fabricating an
Aboriginal identity. It is impressive that their strong cultural ties have survived
several hundred years of neglect, dispossession and persecution. One wonders if
it would also survive the removal of the subsidies which it now
brings.
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