Even Australians who take a very, very hard line about asylum seekers - and unfortunately there are more than I would like to think - are probably a bit uncomfortable with the kind of treatment that has been meted out to children in detention by the Australian Government, in their name.

There are no quick fixes to Indigenous poverty and social disaster.

Last year the National Sorry Day Committee consulted with stolen generations people in every State and Territory, and concluded that programmes set up in response to the Bringing Them Home Report are reaching only a small fraction of those they are intended to help.

Health economists have estimated that an injection of $250 million per year in Indigenous clinical care, and $50 million in preventative care, is required to provide services at the same level as for any other group with the health conditions of Indigenous Australians.

People die because they find living too painful.

We are lagging far behind comparable countries in overcoming the disadvantages Indigenous people face.

Genocide involves the attempt to achieve the disappearance of a group by whatever means. It does not have to be violent, it could be a combination of policies that would lead to a certain group dying out.