People must be made to understand that self-determination for indigenous people is the attainment of the opportunities and control, and the political, civil, economic, social and cultural rights, that white Australians take for granted. The fact is that in this third year of the Decade of the World's indigenous People, and despite the increased volume of federal legislation and financial assistance designed to benefit the country's indigenous inhabitants from the seventies onward, Australia's indigenous people still face gross inequality and a variety of disadvantages deeply rooted in history and the attitudes of the white community. They have been denied education and training, and therefore job opportunities, and generally have received nothing like the health care, roads, housing and almost the whole gamut of public and social services available to everyone else. Many Aboriginal towns and villages still have no sewerage, garbage removal, parks, swimming pools, libraries and so on. Unemployment among Aboriginals is a chronic human problem.
Education is therefore of fundamental importance.
Closely allied to these deprivations are the new white, not black, land claims brought to light by the irrational and divisive debate that has followed the Mabo and Wik decisions. Australia was very late to the idea of native title. The High Court's decision in Mabo was largely drawn from United States and Canadian decisions, many going back 40 or 50 years and more, when these countries recognised the right of their indigenous inhabitants to native title. Australia has been exceptionally slow in recognising the land rights of indigenous people. Even the H igh Court was only willing to act when it recognised that, left to the political process, Aborigines were unlikely to get any significant advances at all, let alone recognition of title to land.