Australia Rejects Recognition of Aboriginals - For Shame

Not a bit surprised, like yourself I spent a few months there in 2000 and found them just like you.

The indigenous people were at the very bottom of the ladder and the attitude of the whites was that it was their own fault for being there.

They are the Donegal of the southern hemisphere.

At least they had a referendum, unlike here

Again, having been there about 20 years ago myself, I'm not surprised, but am disappointed. They won't revisit a vote like that for decades. I find it v difficult to understand what problem people would have had with the proposal.

Only something like 6 referendums out of 44 over the last 100 years have been passed

If you mean in Ireland, 31 referenda received a Yes vote.

Maybe it's a similar relationship we have with our ethnic minority

Don't know anything about this referendum or the small print so I won't comment on that but one or two points to puts things in perspective:

Aboriginals in Aus benefit from affirmative action recruiting. IOW they are given paid jobs based on their minority status.

In the Congo and other parts of Africa, the indigenous hunter-gatherer remnants like Pygmy tribes are still displaced, murdered and persecuted - as in, this is happening right now. Some countries, like Uganda, were only settled by Bantu-speaking agricultural peoples as late as the 17th century. So these indigenous Africans peoples are an almost exact parallel with Aborigines and American Indians except they have it much, much worse.

Indigenous Christian communities in the Middle East like Assyrians and Copts are still persecuted. They are almost wiped out in some places.

People are shockingly racist there. Very surprising considering they are immigrants themselves and I don't think a lot of them realise that. You have lads going around with Irish/UK surnames racially abusing people from Ireland and the UK calling them POMs sir Paddy's. **** jokers.

Aboriginal people are the real Australians.

I didn't want to go near the traveller thing, but the parallels with what Enda Kenny did are quite apt.

He created a them and us scenario and how did that work out? Is anybody happy about it still?

You recognise and respect peoples ethnicities, but ffs you don't treat them differently to anybody else. That way leads to nothing but trouble.

How the flip did Enda Kenny create an us and them re travelers?

There was a them and us sentimate long before Enda Kenny was even born.

"If you don't know vote No" Probably the best slogan you can have for a referendum, but that get's written off as "project fear" by any yes campaigners doesn't matter if it's for this or Brexit or the repeated EU ref.

Seen some of the Yes supporters trying to argue against peoples reason for voting No, such as not know the details that would be legislated after the vote. No voters saying they didn't want to give the government a blank cheque or take "trust us" as an answer, with Yes campaigners saying they've already have that but if so what's the point of the referendum.

If you don't know vote no....

I'd have voted no personally on the small bit I read about it.

If you own the land you're not an immigrant