The name is absent

288

Natasha McNamara fin Gilbert, 1977:107) remarked on the fact
that there was a middle-class in the Aboriginal world in Adelaide.
⅛

Thus the Aboriginal people in Adelaide cannot be said, as a
whole, to form a coherent group. Nor do they see themselves as a
coherent group.

Membership is not of an Aboriginal community as such, but of a
kinship grouping.
*
' ♦

The lack of cohesion is reflected also in the services available
fl

to Aborigines.

In Adelaide, the State Health Authority is responsible for an
Aboriginal Health Unit, staffed by white professionals and
Aboriginal field officers; its aim is to encourage Aboriginal
people to use established health facilities.

An alternative medical service for Aborigines was set up in
1981 at the Aboriginal Community Centre, based on a quite different
rationale.

Similarly, programmes for alcoholics are run by two different
groups, the Aboriginal sobriety group and the Methodist Mission,
t

The body set up to monitor and coordinate funding and programmes
for Aboriginals is a government-established body, the Aboriginal
Advancement Committee.

In general, there are tandem initiatives - those which are
government sponsored and controlled, and those over which Aboriginal
people exert control.
«

The existence of these programmes with different rationales
show the different needs of different clienteles, and underline
the fact that the Aboriginal people do not form a cohesive group.

The model proposed (Figure ʒ, p. 7_χ2) for city Aborigines would
seem to need further refinement.

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