...and here we are a year later - which means Sunny has now lived with us officially for more than 5 years and so qualifies as a dependent child. It's great to know we'll be helping to improve her life because she's certainly improving ours! 

Sorry to interrupt the avatar comments but my two-bob re "problems with indigenous people" is that I had only been in Australia for a few weeks/months when I went to Tennant Creek in the mines and we spent a lot of down-time under the local trees drinking beer with the local aboriginals and they were always entirely hospitable (could have been because we usually paid for the grog, but still...). However, down in TC (32 km away) it was a different story - one pub for whites and one for blacks. It was the local cops who enforced that rule but whether they caused the problems with it or just exacerbated them I don't know - but there was not a lot of sympathy for them from blacks or whites after a gang of bikies had ridden through town and humiliated the cops on the main street in front of the entire population!

We, Meg and I never experienced any 'nastiness' from Australia's 'first nation peoples".
If there was ever any 'racist' comments then it more than likely, came from 'local born' ethnic euro Australians. It was always sufficient to 'give as good as you got' to resolve any 'tense' situation. It should be said that in those days (70's and early 80's) it was sufficient to have a beer and a laugh about it and get on with life.
Cheers
LeeB

Was there ever any nastiness from the indeginous population though? 

That sounds like the infamous Ocker, Pam - insulting people was his role in life, so don't take it personally! I read an article about the 10 pound poms program and it seemed to focus on the multinational Aussies feeling that the poms were given an unfair advantage over migrants from other nations. The only bit that annoys me in retrospect is that I was so keen to get downunder for the good weather and skydiving that I sold my parachute and hopped on the first boat I could find, the SS Britannis - it cost me 237 quid from memory, and I never knew about the 10 quid program until I actually arrived in Australia. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!