It's called AbStudy genius. Free tertiary education as well as a fortnightly allowance significantly greater than the equivalent payment to everyone else.
I don't care whether someone is black, white or purple. I DO care when they get access to free education and centrelink payments and take it for granted, while everyone else has a huge HECS debt to pay off and needs to work through uni because Youth Allowance simply isn't enough to live off.
Academics know sweet f*ck all about anything in the real world. I did my degree in Economics, and you can be damn sure anything you learn in an economics textbook doesn't work in the real world.
Like that other guy said, get out of the lecture theater and go and visit some Aboriginal communities and see for yourself. Part of the problem is that opportunities are limited, but most of the problem is that they don't make the most of the opportunities they DO have.
EDIT: Back to the topic. Mundine is an idiot and anything that comes out of his mouth is drivel. We would all be better off if the media shunned him.
I know what Abstudy is, I'm not Indigenous so I don't get it. He was having a go at me for wasting his money by going to uni.
Racism is ingrained into White Australia's culture. There can be no f*ckin denying it. You may say that giving Aboriginals money should help them - but we have been doing this for 30+ years and the fact is that Aboriginal's life expectancy is 20 YEARS LOWER than white Australian's, 13 times more likely to go to jail, Aboriginal youths are 26 times more likely to be involved in the criminal justice system. The list goes on.
You have to think of the last 200 years of disadvantage they have experienced. Who are we to tell them how to live? We give them money - a lot of it just feeds their alcohol/drug addictions (one of our lovely gifts to them?)
There's no easy answer to this at all, I don't know what the government should do, but I'm pretty sure it's extremely obvious whatever is happening now isn't working. They're in a hard place, but it's not just the government's responsibility, it's all of Australia's. Everyone's attitude has to change, Aboriginals in today's society are pretty much immediately labeled as 'deviant' - they are extremely over policed because of this and in turn they have way too much contact with the criminal justice system which pretty much stuffs up any chance they have of making a successful life for themselves.
This is why things like Johns' comments mean so much to Aboriginals, there needs to be a change, and good on Tahu for sticking with what he believes in. Mundine is a jerk no doubt, but he is not a racist. He is talking the truth in his articles (about Indigenous Australians anyway - not Muslims/911) and Australia does need to change.