Once upon a time, Australia was a great place, filled with animals and trees and not much else. The ice age led to some land bridges with Polynesia, and people walked across, happily living off the land for the next 40 or 50 thousand years.

Then the English rocked up and, deciding that the locals were clearly not capable of running the country, preceeded to kill off many of the Aboriginal people. Some were shipped to England as a scientific curiosity, others subjected to cruel tortures, and most were forced to live in ever decreasing areas they once called their home. As recently as 50 years ago, there were programs in place in some areas that forced the separation of children from their parents so the kids could be raised religiously in the hope it would make them nicer people (yes, that is sarcastic, but many religions have been doing just that for 2,000 years).

Around 30 years ago, 'white' Australians decided it was time to do something about the terrible living conditions and high mortality rates of Aboriginal people, so we threw them in jail for petty crimes, at which pioint many promptly committed suicide. After that small hiccup, progress was finally made. Programs were introduced and more money put towards improving standard of living and improving health.

Around 10 years ago, reconciliation took another step with a famous court case known as Mabo, which basically says that if nobody else wants an area of land, provided the region's Aboriginal people can show it was once their home, they can take owenership of the land. Of course, if some farmers want to use it, that's just tough beans. We then renamed Ayres Rock as Uluru and let the Aboriginal people run that as well.

Then on Sunday night, we had a riot in Redfern. It is too easy to say the riot was a 'race' riot. Yes, the riot was fuelled by Aboriginal people. But many of those getting involved where young and drunk and just causing violence and mayhem for the sake of it. Others were just caught up in mob mentality. The police stood back and contained them to let them vent their anger.

On the whole, there is still racism towards them, but I will be blunt in saying that some of it is deserved. The Aboriginal community have the highest levels of unemployment and alcoholism, a combination of which does not make for particularly enjoyable living conditions. While many have gone on to excel in their chosen fields, whether sport, entertainment or academic, many have chosen to live a life on welfare handouts. They are still looked on with suspicion, though in the vast majority of circumstances, it is wholy unjustified.

I don't know where the balance should be between moving on from the past, living in the present and striving for the future should be. How long is the son expected to pay for the sins of the grandfather and great-grandfather? Should the victims over time agree to become part of the society that killed their families?

These are issues that Australia had made no effort to deal with of late, largely due to the curent Prime Minister, John Howard. He has steadfastly refused to apologise to the Aboriginal people for the atrocities committed against them in the past. The man truly believes that if we all ignore the bits we don't like from the past, they will just go away. Another politician questioned the level of welfare given to the Aboriginal people a few years ago, and went on from there to form her own political party that attracted the redneck vote of the country.

Put simply, while most Australians claim to be racially tolerant, there is still a large amount of racisim, but it is important to understand that some people are just bums, regardless of the colour of their skin or the history of their people.