Father Christmas is not coming to Australia on December 25th

Father Christmas has observed that funding shortages are not responsible for the dire state of remote communities. More than $5 billion is being spent annually on specifically indigenous programs, mainly in remote communities, which only account for 15 per cent of Australia's 545,000 Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders. This amounts to $100,000 per man, woman and child.

Father Christmas would not begrudge Indigenous expenditures if they were spent to bring remote Indigenous to mainstream standards. But Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, of course, never see this 'Indigenous' funding. More than 55 per cent of the $5 billion goes to the salaries, profits and expenses of the bureaucrats, consultants and contractors who comprise the 'Aboriginal Industry.' The Department of Finance concluded that $3.5 billion Indigenous funding was wasted annually.

Father Christmas is constantly annoyed by politicians and bureaucrats who attribute illiteracy, alcoholism, violence and other dysfunctional characteristics to 'Indigenousness' to avoid responsibility for the failing policies for which they are responsible.

The Productivity Commission claims that Indigenous people who "experience little or no disadvantage" form "a relatively small group." Yet census and other data show that the majority of Indigenous urban dwellers – more than 60 per cent - work in a range of occupations from semi-skilled through tradesmen to lawyers, doctors other professionals and managers. These Indigenous families send their children to mainstream private and state schools where they have similar results as other children.

There is no education 'gap' between these Indigenous and other Australian children. More than 70,000 young Indigenous men and women were in vocational courses and more than 10,000 were enrolled in university in 2010.

Some 68 per cent of these urban working Indigenous families own or are buying their homes – just like 72 per cent of Australians. They join clubs and participate in civil society without "losing a sense of difference and pride in one's Indigenous background," says Maria Lane.

If Australians want Father Christmas to come back they will have to expose the fraudulent spin that keeps remote Indigenous communities living in Third World conditions.