Special treatment does not extend THAT far...

[fireheart]

Short sighting from the welfare office this morning!

While I was waiting in line, a couple of Aboriginal folks wandered in and headed over to the Medicare line (long story short, Medicare decided to merge their offices with Centrelink. They have a separate queue though). After a while, they came back and spoke to the guy who was booking people in to see somebody.

Turned out that they believed that since they were Aboriginal, they could immediately jump to the head of the queue and see somebody immediately.

Needless to say, the guy booking us in told them to go to the back of the line. They repeated that they were Aboriginal, but the guy wouldn't have any of it.

They got pissy and decided to jump across the street to use the phone box there.

[Sandiercy]

In my more unfortunate years, I spent once a month in line at the welfare office. This unfortunately was a common occurrence. I will share my most memorably moment:

This lady decided she wanted to skip the line that stretched around the block and was several hundred people long. She went right to the front of the line at which point everyone in line that saw this were telling her "no way Jose". The security guard tells her to get in line like everyone else so she bursts into tears and whines and cries to the security guard. Needless to say, she did not get her way and left with a refrain of "nah, nah, nah, nah, heeey heey goodbye" from the rest of us.

[fireheart]

I'm lucky in that I only need to access the welfare office for:

-assessments.
-granting exemptions.
-when something goes belly-up for whatever reason and I can't report online.

Lately I've just taken to reporting online. Saves my butt immensely.

ETA: In case people are wondering what I'm referring to by the title, the Aboriginal population can receive certain benefits that only they can access, which sometimes (but not always) have a general population equivalent. They have also had a few programs established which help address certain issues that are relevant to the Aboriginal population (such as healthcare and education)

[telecom_goddess]

Since I don't know much about Australia or aboriginal people I looked it up. 350 languages and 600 dialects were spoken at one point in time. WOW! I don't think Europe has that many for god's sake. How could so many different languages get formed? I guess most of them are gone now and only about 20 are used today.

[fireheart]

Since I don't know much about Australia or aboriginal people I looked it up. 350 languages and 600 dialects were spoken at one point in time. WOW! I don't think Europe has that many for god's sake. How could so many different languages get formed? I guess most of them are gone now and only about 20 are used today.

Something like that. As far as I'm aware in my state, there are three main groups of languages spoken: Kaurna (sounds like Ghana), Pitjantjatjara (normally pron. pit-jan-jara, without the "jat") and Ngarandjerri (I know I spelt that wrong). But you are right, a number of them are dying out and in fact, Kaurna is/was a revived language. It's now taught in a few schools within the Kaurna region (which covers most of Metropolitan Adelaide) while Pitjantjatjara is taught in some Anangu schools (which are somewhat straddling the borderline between South Australia, Northern Territory and Western Australia)

The other major ethnic group is the Torres Strait Islanders, who are based more in Queensland and up north. They have a different language altogether.

Both groups do receive support from the welfare office and there are programs put in place to assist them. In particular, the Aboriginal population are more susceptible to Otitis Media (chronic middle-ear infections) and the kids frequently have hearing issues. So programs are usually set up with both that and the fact that their first language is usually the Aboriginal one, rather than English.

[Pagan]

Since I don't know much about Australia or aboriginal people I looked it up. 350 languages and 600 dialects were spoken at one point in time. WOW! I don't think Europe has that many for god's sake. How could so many different languages get formed? I guess most of them are gone now and only about 20 are used today.

Not that surprising. There's 10 languages spoken now to some extent here in New Mexico and 11 in Arizona (although 2 overlap with NM). People get spread out and somewhat isolated and they start talking their own way....

[telecom_goddess]

Not that surprising. There's 10 languages spoken now to some extent here in New Mexico and 11 in Arizona (although 2 overlap with NM). People get spread out and somewhat isolated and they start talking their own way....

Really? I figured it didn't extend much beyond English and Spanish.....

[Pagan]

Really? I figured it didn't extend much beyond English and Spanish.....

Well, considering that NM has 22 Pueblos/Indian Nations....

English
Spanish
Diné
Tiwa
Tewa
Towa
Keres (language isolate)
Zuni (language isolate)
Mescalero-Chiricahua Apache
Jicarilla Apache

with a little bit of Hopi and Lipan Apache thrown in for good measure