People are the same the world over....

This is what i got when i typed in federal budget into google...

In some ways, it is nice to know that Australian Aboriginal people are not alone in their fight to secure rights from a government that continually wants to back-pedal back to the days of Queensland's revered Joh Beijke Peterson.

But in other ways, it saddens me that governments can act so much the same - even with such an ocean between us.

That's why, it was with a heavy heart that I read of the plight of the First Nations in Canada - who this month only secured about $9 billion in the federal budget for a people who suffer under living conditions like that of a third world country (see any similarities between them and Australia? Australia only gave 1.5 per cent of the federal budget this past year to Indigenous people - it is estimated that there needs to be about $500 million more funding allocated to Indigenous health alone!)

Like Australian Indigenous people, Aboriginal people in Canada also suffer under second rate living standards, placing them at disadvantage in housing, health, education, employment and more.

So you would think, with such a crisis, the conservative government would allocate just a bit more to Aboriginal people????

If you thought that you would be wrong of course.

In 2005, the then Prime Minister Paul Martin, a member of the nation's Liberal party, pledged to spend a total of $5.1 billion over ten years on raising the standards of Aboriginal living. It was a deal called the Kelowna Accord.

The aim was to close the gap between non-Indigenous and Indigenous Canadians by 2016. It was passed as a private member's bill in the House of Commons. Aboriginal leaders hailed it as a step forward, with Assembly of First Nations Chief Phil Fontaine describing it as a breakthrough for his people.

""All of the targets we've set are achievable," Mr Fontaine told CTV. "We're driving this process and we're forcing government to respond to our plan."

But success was shortlived.

When the new PM, Steve Harper was elected and the conservatives took hold of the country, the Kelowna Accord was scrapped. The budget now aims to cut national debt and taxes but does not give a damn about Canada's first peoples.

Shouldn't the government at least be mildly concerned about paying back the debt they have against the Indigenous peoples of their country?

"Frankly, our people do not see any reason to believe that the government cares about the shameful conditions of First Nations," Phil Fontaine says in a statement.

"This federal budget goes far towards cutting taxes and paying down the national debt - but there is no mention of dealing with the huge debt to First Nations in the form of nearly 1,000 outstanding land claims."

"...Instead, we see billions of dollars in spending on everything from museum interns, to foreign workers, and to tax cuts benefiting the wealthiest in this country.

".... We have to show them that the $9.1 billion they repeat so often does not get to our communities. In fact, our governments have suffered under declining resources because of discriminatory fiscal treatment, and that our schools, our community centers, our essential community services, and our people are suffering as a result."

People think colonialism and thoughts on white superiority ended ages ago and do not affect us now. But it's exactly the opposite. Indigenous people all around the world are being squashed and beaten down. The rights of Indigenous people seem to be deteriorating on a daily basis.

Each federal budget (in Australia I'm thinking about) seems to prevent little light for Indigenous people. And with the mainstream media, and the general public, constantly spewing out the ideology that "oh...they get enough as it is", the problem becomes worse.

In Australia, I have a couple of friends who believe in the Pauline Hanson doctrine of "reverse racism". That is that white people in Australia are getting worse deals because they are not Aboriginal.

Hanson said this in her racist maiden speech:
"We now have a situation where a type of reverse racism is applied to mainstream Australians by those who promote political correctness and those who control the various taxpayer funded `industries' that flourish in our society servicing Aboriginals, multiculturalists and a host of other minority groups. In response to my call for equality for all Australians, the most noisy criticism came from the fat cats, bureaucrats and the do- gooders. They screamed the loudest because they stand to lose the most--their power, money and position, all funded by ordinary Australian taxpayers."

If this is reverse racism than I am a terrible racist.

I'm sorry but maybe if European Australians had had their land taken off them, had their children taken off them, had their wages taken off them, had their remains taken off them, suffered under some of the worst living conditions in the world, had the highest unemployment rate in Australia, died about 17 years younger than Aboriginal Australians, were suffering a cultural breakdown, were being exploited by unscrupulous art dealers, were being beaten to death in police custody, were being constantly stereotyped by the media as "petrol sniffers" and "wife beaters", were living in houses with 17 other people and still were only receiving about 3.3 billion in government funding (which is still underspent!) then yes maybe I would agree with reverse racism.

But until then I think the Canadian and Australian governments have to stop being such lazy, tight idiots and get their acts together.

Mr Prentice and Mr Brough...I know there aren't any votes in standing up for the Indigenous communities of the world but there's more to life than climbing up the greasy pole of politics.