SYDNEY — The richest man in Australia has come up with the first solid plan to get "lost" Australians off welfare dependence and into dignity-rewarding jobs. It's a breakthrough that has been 200 years in the making.
For the first time since white settlement, the minority Aboriginal population holds hope of earning its way up to the living standards of the prosperous majority. Even skeptics among long-disheartened indigenous leaders are looking with hope toward the first real break by private enterprise into the failed ways of government-lead paternalism.
Andrew Forrest owns a big chunk of vast West Australian iron ore deposits that Japanese and Chinese steelmakers are outbidding each other for. Other Australian billionaires talk about ways of getting Aborigines "out of trouble." Forrest is putting his money where his mouth is.