If you say Australia, you say Aboriginals. During my stay in Australia, I had to look long and hard to find natives living in civilized circumstances and a functioning environment. I still don’t think I found the kind of western-like native that I’d expected to find. The non-native Australians that I talked to voiced their discontent or even irritation toward the natives’ behavior. The aboriginals were blamed for the majority of bushfires going on while I was there. Their lack of adaptability, or unwillingness thereof, makes the non-natives look down on them.
One particular person told me about the housing-projects that the government had set up to put the Aboriginals under a proper roof. The “housing innovation” fails, simply because the natives aren’t used to that way of living. He told me how the Aboriginals would rip out the floorboards, just to feel the ground under their feet and how they’d use the thin walls to make fires of. The Closing the Gap movement in Australia tries to close the gap between the natives on the one side and the non-natives on the other side, but they are trying to help in a way that they think will help the natives, even though that’s not the way the natives want to be helped.
Most natives that I ran into were living on the street in some form, especially in Cairns. I may have mentioned elsewhere on this site that the shops had adjusted their opening times to prevent the natives from coming in early in the morning to buy liquor. The Aboriginals roamed around town drunkenly every day, begging for change or food. In Sydney they would take advantage of the interest tourists would take in their cultural inheritance. In Circular Quay, around Sydney’s harbour, there would be a small group of Aboriginals every day, playing traditional instruments and inviting tourists to join them, trying to sell the instruments in doing so.
Of course there's not just the Aboriginals, but the kangaroos that play a big part in the culture as well. A 'fun fact' about kangaroos that might sound a bit grim, is that this national symbol is also one of the most eaten meats they put on the barbie. Kangaroo-meat is cheap and tough and tastes unlike any other meat I’ve personally ever tasted. Besides that, kangaroo-leather is the strongest leather there is, making beautiful bags and wallets and even being used in Nike trainers because of how thin it can be cut while still holding its strength. A common way to make a little money is to work on a farm as a kangaroo-shooter, earning you a couple of Australian dollars per head. The animals are mostly seen as some sort of pest since they eat the crops and are one of the main reasons for car-accidents (besides fatigue). Others do see the cultural and even financial importance of the animals and therefor try to protect the animals, for example by trying to convince the government how much environmentally friendlier it would be to farm kangaroos instead of cows and sheep. Unfortunately, so far, they haven't been able to do that.