Why do you criticise us for not living in the European way? (1) taps (2) bathrooms (3) stoves (4) toilets (5) houses (6) lights (7) kitchen.

When you like us to live in the European way we have to get all these things, but we do not have the money to buy all that. We need assistance of the Government because we had to change to money life and that means that we have to get jobs to get the money. We didnt need that in our way.

It is not easy to live in two ways, the Aboriginal way and the balanda way. You are telling us to combine the two ways, but that is not easy because on the one hand we depend on money and jobs and on the other hand we cannot live without our moieties, skingroups, dreamings, animals, country, totems and so on.

They say we are "full citizen" but we do not know what this really means, some of us think it means that you can drink as much grog as you like. As citizen we live in the balanda law, but we have our own law too.

Jack Mirritji, My People's Life An Aboriginal's Own Story, Millingimbi, 1976, p 71

Latest Papers

The working papers collection comprises historical papers as well as current ideas and works in progress on some of the major issues and topics of our times.

I fear for my country (released 20 July 2010)
There are no drug dealers at my door step. Doormen, salesmen and officials do not expect bribes. I do not hear my neighbours fighting through thin walls. I have clean water to drink and fresh air to breathe. I do not see people being shot in the streets. The only guns in my neighbourhood are used to cull foxes and other foreign vermin. The military is not overtaking the governments and the courts. Large masses of our population are not illiterate. I have access to the best health care in the world. All citizens are paid a minimum sum if they lose their jobs and do not have access to paid work. I live in an environment in which it is still possible to feel the wild quality of nature. There are traffic jams, ugliness and urban congestion and all the resulting problems, but we are as yet better off than other world city dwellers. I do not suffer from many of the afflictions that beset many parts of the world. Yet I fear for my country.
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Sweet Irene Kahn (released 9 July 2010)
When the past Secretary General of Amnesty International, Irene Kahn, speaks she has an incredibly sweet, fluent, pleasant voice. But her sweet words come with a dynamic message. In her interview with Margaret Throsby yesterday she raised several profound questions for Australia. All in the most polite, round about and beautiful way.
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The Death of a Soldier (released 8 July 2010)
John Faulkner was the Labor man who, all in the party, and all in the parliament, respected.
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The Power is Out in Sydney.. (released 7 July 2010)
If you want to understand where Julia Gillard’s most strident critics are, come to Sydney. A word of advice to Tony Abbott disappear...
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Empty Rightousness – the Real Problem of Modern Labor (released 5 July 2010)
The press pack have passed judgement on Kevin. The bureaucrats so abused by the tyrant Rudd have let their views be known. It was inevitable that Julia Gillard would take over it seems. After all every Prime Minister, apart from Rudd, had been 'normal'. Kevin though, well he was off with the pixies, a one man dictator who’s only friends were God and a cat. By now you will have read the accumulated articles and even seen the circulating videos of Hitler in the bunker transposed with Ruddisms. Pardon me to take a different view. The problem was never Kevin. The problem is the modern Labor Party with its empty heart and gut.
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UFOs and Julia Gillard (released 24 June 2010)
The Federal parliamentary caucus of the ALP are under the spell of a UFO.
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After Emancipation: The Pilbara, Australian Aboriginal Economic Development and the Mining Tax (released 16 June 2010)
To make great economic advances for Aboriginal people means making those advances in the regions that Aboriginal people live. Unlike urbanized mainstream Australians, 2/3 of Aboriginal Australians live in regional and remote areas of the country. The current mining boom in Australia is an historic opportunity because the wealth is being generated in the heartlands of where Aboriginal people live around the country...
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The Luckiest of Leaders (released 5 June 2010)
Or why the Australian people are turning against Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott but will not yet vote for the Greens and Democrats.
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Kristina: Reproba Diluculo? (released 29 May 2010)
For a few years they have actually managed to banish all imagination from the world, all enthusiasm, extravagance, everything that makes life worth living. But now with our Nero (Kristina), all these things are back again. With Apologies to Lion Feuchwald, The False Nero, 1936
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Private Misery v Public Misery: Ken Henry, Aboriginal Australia and the Resources Tax (released 19 May 2010)
Ken Henry – King of Canberra – Head of Treasury, Canberra’s most powerful department – says the resources tax will be a winner for Aborigines. Well everything is all right. All is correct in the universe again. Jenny Macklin Minister for Indigenous Affairs says thanks Ken. There is nothing to worry about. We can all sleep peacefully in our beds, our consciences clear. Oh no! If ever there was an indication that this government and this bureaucracy just don’t understand the real problems besetting Aboriginal Australia then his statement that “some of the money raised from the proposed resources tax should be used for indigenous development” is it. What this really means is more of the same.
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