Once again the United Nations has ranked Australia second behind Norway in its annual Human Development Index – for public health, social wealth, education, even happiness. But if Aboriginal peoples go stand-alone they would not be part of that 2nd rating – they would be 122nd.
The United Nations Human Development Index is a measure of the quality of life across 187 nations.
Aboriginal peoples in various parts of Australia continue to languish in third-world conditions despite Australia powering on as the world’s thirteenth largest economy. The Northern Territory is the worst for Aboriginal peoples but Western Australia’s Kimberley, Western Deserts and the Goldfields and South Australia’s APY Lands are not far behind – and similar with a number of regions in Queensland and NSW.
NT-Utopia
The Northern Territory township of Utopia, 350 km northeast of Alice Springs, is an example of Government neglect – it is third-world and most of its 1,200 Alyawarra and Anmatjirra peoples languish in dilapidated homes and without the suite of public services that most other Australians enjoy. The United Nations Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay condemned the deplorable conditions and described the neglect as racism. Amnesty International’s Shalil Shetty described Utopia as third-world.
Last week the Australian Government finally meted out $4 million to Utopia for housing refurbishments and facilities – this is peanuts and let us hope that most of the $4 million is not eaten up by bureaucracy and contractor payments.
The money was secured by NT Lingiari Senator Warren Snowdon from Federal Minister for Indigenous Affairs Jenny Macklin’s $3.4 billion Stronger Futures.
“Vital community infrastructure will be upgraded in the Utopia homelands in the Northern Territory thanks to a $4.36 million investment from the Australian Government,” said Mr Snowdon.
Ms Macklin naively stands by Stronger Futures despite no evidence to prove the Intervention has improved living conditions – in fact most evidence, anecdotal and research, points to the opposite.
“Stronger Futures has a firm focus on improving living standards for Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory – in the bigger communities and also in remote homelands,” Ms Macklin said.
“The Government is providing $4 million for the Centre for Appropriate Technology to deliver a range of projects to help families in Utopia live more sustainably.”
“These will include critical work to make housing safer, helping residents to reduce their energy consumption and improving the safety and reliability of the local water supply.”
The work to improve housing in Utopia will focus on electrical and fire safety, water and waste management, and washing, cooking and food storage facilities.
Mr Snowdon said the Government will also provide funding of $360,000 over three years for a coordinator position at the Urapuntja Aboriginal Corporation so it can better represent the interests of the Utopia homelands.
“The new coordinator will play an important role in negotiating and implementing a plan with the Government to address the key areas of disadvantage in Utopia,” Mr Snowdon said.
“We will also employ two Indigenous Engagement Officers to be based in the Utopia homelands. They will be locals who understand the culture and can speak the local language.
“I’ve seen how effective Indigenous Engagement Officers can be in linking residents to important services and strengthening relationships between Government and remote communities, and I’m confident we will see the same happen in Utopia,” he said.
Photo – abc.net.au
Despite Stronger Futures, Northern Territory Aboriginal peoples – 30 per cent of the population – do not enjoy the standard of living that the United Nations Human Development Index report lauded on Australians.
The report stated Australians have the world’s fourth highest life expectancy in the world – 82 years. But this is not so for Aboriginal peoples – subtract 20 years from the Australian life expectancy average for Aboriginal peoples, and in some regions of Australia make that 30 years less off the average.
With education – in terms of number of years of schooling achieved and the standard of school performance – Australians are ranked second highest but that would not be the case for Aboriginal peoples who do not enjoy quality schooling in many semi-remote and remote communities.
Australia has the lowest suicide rate of the world’s top ten nations but Aboriginal peoples have the world’s highest youth suicide rates.
Nothing has improved since the 2011 United Nations State of the Indigenous Peoples report, “In Australia, an Indigenous child can expect to die 20 years earlier than his non-native compatriot.”
Last year a Northern Territory Select Committee on Youth Suicides reported, “The suicide rate for Indigenous Territorians is particularly disturbing, with 75 per cent of suicides of children from 2007 to 2011 in the Territory being Aboriginal.”
“For too many of our youth there is not enough hope to protect them from the impulse to end their lives.”
The suicide rate doubled for youth between ages 10 and 17 – up from 18.8 percent to 30.1 percent per 100,000 – in contrast to non-Aboriginal youth suicides which dropped from 4.1 percent to 2.6 percent.
It was only a few years ago that the West Australian town of Derby and nearby communities, such as Mowanjum, experienced nearly 30 Aboriginal youth suicides in the one year.
Mowanjum’s Community Director Eddie Bear said every loss is felt right throughout the community. “Everybody feels hurt, we all go through it.”
In NSW, with Australia’s largest Indigenous population, the youth suicide rate is one in 100,000. In the Northern Territory, the rate is 30 deaths in 100,000. In the Kimberley, with an Indigenous population at 15,000, the rate is at a rate of 1 death in 1,200, over 80 per 100,000.
And then there is homelessness – In the Northern Territory nearly 8 per cent of Aboriginal peoples are homeless. The 2012 ABS reported that one of the key three groups of homelessness in Australia remains Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, and little has improved. The ABS reported that in 2011 alone there was a rise in the total number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples – rising by 3 percent.
Seven percent of the Kimberley’s Aboriginal peoples are homeless – the region’s homelessness rate is at least ten times the national average. The State Government cannot even keep a promise to build a $12 million hostel in Broome and instead people sleep rough at One Mile Community, Kennedy Hill and on Broome’s sand dunes.
The United Nations Human Development Index report got this right – that there had been a global improvement in human development led by nations such as Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, East Timor, but Australia’s Aboriginal peoples in the Northern Territory and northern Western Australia remain forgotten.
“The Northern Territory township of Utopia …is an example of Government neglect – it is third-world and most of its 1,200 Alyawarra and Anmatjirra peoples languish in dilapidated homes…”
The people of Utopia didn’t have ANY homes right through the 1970’s! They ALL camped in the open while the (white) station owner had built a huge new homestead. They were wages slaves on their own tribal land… paid a bare minimum + then compelled to buy their supplies at the station store (a small tin shed) on payday… but at whatever prices the station owner charged.
Thus, in white mans’ settler society legalism, they had NO rights + were dictated to by a foreign invader settler who ‘owned’ what was once their land… taken from them at the point of a gun! That was viewed as normal + the gmtt’s Dept. of Aboriginal Affairs made sure it stayed that way…. by doing NOTHING to help them, uhh. Today, they are waiting because the NT gvmt. has chosen to build a $$billion wave pool complex at Darwin Harbour for tourists + foreign workers.
Hi,
– Don’t forget the Yankee Navy…
-they’ll sure make a mess and teach You (as Australian Indigenous) the semantics of ‘primitive’ (not that that is my view of You).
And I can’t understand what it means to say ‘Sorry’. That can mean ‘pitiful’ and ‘worthless’ also. I’d rather ask All to attempt to forgive those of us who took over and are still destroying Your Land and Culture, ways of Life and Existence. And you would surely have noticed, by now, that a ‘good’ Politician can always promise more than possible. That was so just some years ago, too!
Daily borrowed money is hurled out daily, but the throwers are champions with discus,we may discuss, discusting if not kept at home.
Let’s wait… -or try, perhaps it won’t be too long…??
And don’t forget, ‘Statistics’ comes from Ancient Greek /statos/ ‘to stand’, or ‘fix’ or ‘fixed’. So the government can sure fix whatever data needs to be fixed! Reliability and Validity means little to most.
Gerry – your article is, unfortunately, littered with incorrect stats. Would help your credibility if you could try a little harder to get the facts right. Don’t just accept evey exaggerated accusation made by ideologues and dogmatists.
Hi Bob – can you please point out which statistics I have got wrong? At this time I believe them all to be correct, actually I am 100 per cent positive I am correct with all statistics and premises and therefore I throw you out the challenge to prove me wrong, and if so I will apologise and stand corrected. I don’t write articles merely drawing from various sources but also from my own research and various verifications. Kindly, Gerry
What part of this Bob don’t you get? I think Gerry’s stats are correct and in future you should point out errors instead of generalising, which the biased often do. I also agree with everything Gerry has written, how can it be otherwise?
Louis, who generously “agrees with everything that Gerry has written”, asks “How can it be otherwise?”, as though Gerry, like the Pope, by his very nature must be considered to be infallible.
Well, for starters the figure of 30% is wrong: Aboriginal people constitute 27% of the NT Census count in 2011.
Utopia is not a township – it is the name of the former pastoral lease, bought out by the ALFC in the late 1970s. The lease was converted to Aborigtinal Inalienable Freehold title in a successful land claim in 1981, and has since been known by its Alyawarre name, Urapuntja. There is no town at Urapuntja – there is a small service centre, with a secondary school, community education centre, store and some administrative buildings and staff housing. The vast majority of the population live on outstations scattered around the very large land trust area, with half a dozen primary schools, an art centre, a police station, airstrip, very well resourced health service, and much other infrastructure, all located at a variety of decentralised locations far from the service centre. It is true that much of the outstation housing is too small, or sub-standard in other ways, &/or neglected, but the statement that “most of its 1,200 Alyawarra and Anmatjirra peoples languish … without the suite of public services that most other Australians enjoy” is not a sustainable judgement. Housing is the major problem, and the new NT CLP government of Chief Minister Adam Giles is pledged to begin maintenance and refurbishments on these dwellings in the near future, under a program planned by former Indigenous Advancement Minister Alison Anderson.
Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin’s Stronger Futures grants of $4.36 million announced last week by Macklin and Snowdon (who is an MHR, not a Senator) are mainly for upgrades, major maintenance work and quality and environmental improvements on the power and water supplies, roads and waste disposal systems.
Exactly which services that are available at comparable outstations in other remote areas and are not available at Urapuntja? In fact, the Urapuntja outstations in many respects have better access to some services (such as education and health) than do outstation dwellers in most other parts of the country, thanks to hard work and advocacy of Urapuntja representatives over the last 35 years.
The figure of 20 year gap in national rates of Aboriginal life expectancy is wrong by more than 8 years, and the idea that children being born now can expect to have a life as short as the present older generations is plain wrong.
Recent figures show that life expectancy rates for Aboriginal people in the NT have improved dramatically in the last few years, exploding the idea that Australian government programs and the NTER intervention are worsening things: figures in the Nov. 2012 Closing the Gap Report show the NT is on track to close the life expectancy gap within the period of the Closing the Gap exercise (by 2031). The Report also provided data showing that child malnutrition and anaemia have actually been falling during the NTER period, despite anti-Intervention propaganda alleging that they had been getting worse.
Finally, what better evidence could there be that ideology and dogma are clouding the author’s judgement than the contradiction in the writer’s own arguments: it is stated that $3.6 billion is being expended on the Stronger Futures programs, and other money on hostels etc, but then the article concludes by saying “Australia’s Aboriginal peoples in the Northern Territory and northern Western Australia remain forgotten”. That statement is sheer hyperbole.
Hi Bob, I am happy to engage with you at length. Louis made a comment he does not need to be attacked for a point of view, as neither you nor I should attack each other – effectively we are on the same side of the fence. Conversation is a positive. Firstly, you criticise people as ideologues and city crusaders – I have read your criticisms of those who have issue with the Military Intervention. I understand where you come from and why and we need to understand where others come from and why. My experience is that most critics of the Intervention come from within the NT, not outside of it – if this wasn’t a significant premise there would not be the majorly coalescing of vast influences from across the nation arguing alongside the NT based critics. I am interested in your views of the NT based critics of the Interventions? Please consider reading my two year old PhD-based research “People are not the Property of People. The Northern Territory is a Prison built brick by brick by the Commonwealth.” This was a chapter but I interviewed 100 Northern Territorians. Link: http://thestringer.com.au/people-are-not-the-property-of-people-the-northern-territory-is-a-prison-built-brick-by-brick-by-the-commonwealth/
Bob, in the past you have criticised a number of anti-Intervention groups on the premise that they are naive, effectively armchair critics and ideologue only based. I respect your work over the years, your work in community development and with Tangentyere Council but you and I will obviously differ on some premises of how to go about making real and sustainable differences. The discussion is healthy because for far too many people it hasn’t happened.
My statistics are correct. Bob, you haven’t actually pointed out any inaccuracies other than pull up a rounded figure of the Aboriginal population of the NT – arguing it is a little over 27 per cent rather than my rounded off 30 per cent. The figure fluctuates between 27 to 29 per cent and you and I also know that there are some folk the Census may have missed.
Figures vary – 84 per cent of the NT’s total prison population is Aboriginal but the figure fluctuates from 78 to 85 per cent. Other than 27 per cent or 30 per cent I am sure you agree with the rest of the statistics – and do you agree that from statistics and findings I should be allowed to analyse them and possibly draw conclusions?
I respect that your only issues presumably remain with some of my claims and premises.
In reference to Closing the Gap on the fact that Aboriginal peoples in terms of life-expectancy do a median of less 20 years I stand by this. The major reason that some claim it has significantly closed as you write by 8 years is because of a new trial data method by the ABS. ABS folk and I have discussed this and it is a trial despite now a couple of years old. For me the gap is still 20 years and in many areas as I stated 30 years. I’m writing a research piece at this time, “Aboriginal Clock” and I have a go at explaining all this – I’ll present it in article form for this site when ready – Bob, when ready I’d be happy to email you the draft.
Disagreeing over the nature of what constitutes a township and communities or the presumption of Utopia’s centrifugal calling card is not worth either of us arguing about – let us skip past the demography. I am aware how vast Utopia is and of their facilities and services centres location. Of course I know of the pastoral leases in terms of underwriting the region’s 1,200 thereabouts population. Urapuntja or Utopia is not an issue.
We both agree on the pertinent issue of housing, or lack of it, and the dilapidated state of a majority of the houses. Many are devoid of the full suite of services the majority of Australians take for granted. Most remote regions in Australia have the full suite of services and utilities, so why not Utopia?
The $4.36 million is peanuts.
If Adam does anything about housing and facilities well then great, we will both be one of the first to applaud – however I haven’t seen anything of note from anyone – not from Commonwealth and Territory jurisdictions.
The $3.6 billion Stronger Futures is a failure – having failed to remedy housing, service infrastructure and lack of facilities in Utopia or through Urapuntja. A demarcated, independent inquiry is long overdue into the allocation and its disbursement.
Why did Elcho Island families languish in tents for six months while waiting for refurbishments? Monsoonal rains approaching. It took news media to shame the Government in hurrying up. I can go on about the housing, transport, education and health issues right throughout the Territory, as obviously you can and do, and also about the right to self-determination (I look foward to engaging with you too on this).
What about the transport issues in and out of Utopia considering the relative close proximity to Alice Springs?
Bob, there have been small gains here and there throughout the Northern Territory but for the majority of Aboriginal people life is one without adequate progress and opportunity. I can continue to rattle off the statistics and the facts but I won’t. You didn’t respond to the youth suicide statistics from the NT’s own parliamentary inquiries and I consider this one of the most damning statistics.
It is not a progressive outcomes based approached to argue with people on the premise or supposition of ideologue or to make assumptions of them. You may believe some people, as you have described them, are city crusaders – I do go to where it matters and work from within, not from the outside. We have to discuss premises, facts, and ways forward and not what each may or may not believe in terms of world views – we have to carry one another to outcomes and not divide ourselves.
I look forward to continuing this engagement with people like you and as noted we are on the same side of the fence despite perceived political leanings and world views.
In closing I would ask you to consider commenting on what Shalil Shetty (Amnesty Secretary-General) and Navi Pillay (UN High Commissioner) had to say of Utopia – and in general of many regions in the NT. Shalil described Utopia as third-world and Navi slammed the Australian Government’s neglect as racist.
Kindly, Gerry
My apologies Gerry, but I do not have time to read your PhD chapter now, nor to get involved in extensive debate; I have too many other commitments.
Obviously the Animal Farm-like tone of much comment on these type of ‘left/activist’ sites gets right up my nose. They often seem to consist of endless streams of poorly informed but strongly opinionated people speaking in clichés, and claiming that everything is bad, nothing has been done, and nobody except them and the blog’s author has any knowledge, commitment, intelligence, sincerity or track record in working productively on addressing some of the problems.
Incidentally, the ‘city crusaders’ headline phrase was not mine: it was, predictably, the product of some Murdoch sub-editor’s fevered imagination, and I was dismayed by it, as it struck a tone that I had not intended in that particular piece of commentary.
As you may have already seen, I reject completely that the alleged “Military Intervention” was “militaristic” or violent in anything other than propaganda terms: both the opportunistic Liberal-National right and the infantile oppositionist green ‘left’ found it useful from their opposing ideological viewpoints to choose to run with the great propaganda opportunity, and tell anybody who would listen that it was in some sense a ‘military’ intervention, when in fact the only role played by the Norforce volunteers was to drive doctors and nurses around and cook meals and put up tents for them (and of course, be filmed for background footage in Howard’s election publicity, or the anti-Emergency Response “rollbackers'” own propaganda efforts).
As with Fred Hollow’s trachoma program, which I worked on many years ago in central Australia, the military were only present in a supportive, logistical role.
Your experience may well be “that most critics of the Intervention come from within the NT”. My experience is that the most of the more vocal critics come from interstate capitals, including those who have come to the NT from interstate for the express purpose of fostering anti-NTER feeling and activities, encouraging ideologically-based analysis of the situation, and discouraging constructive engagement with the NTER programs and productive discussion with government about the issues.
There are some long term locals who are critics of the NTER, but most of these critics are somewhat ambivalent (like the highly respected CEO of the CLC, David Ross, and other key organisation leaders), and tend to get railroaded by the simplified and formulaic interpretations expounded with great emotional force and sometimes great eloquence by a few key orators and prima donnas.
Certainly rank and file people who are most affected by the NTER and its programs have very mixed feelings, but their views are not uniform or terribly predictable. Many value greatly the extra security provided by a police presence and a reliable Night Patrol, and the safer roads, quieter nights and reduced grog-related violence that come with them. Others resent these things.
Many love the food security, safety, reliability, convenience and stability provided by the BasicsCard system and the enhanced access to Centrelink assistance and advice. Others dislike the BasicsCard, don’t care about the increased wellbeing of the children and vulnerable people, and don’t want to know about Centrelink’s helpful social workers. Most people liked getting their houses repaired, but some rightly complained about the shoddy quality of some of the work, or the shortfalls in funding that meant some upgrading had to be abandoned.
Children love getting good breakfasts and other meals through the school nutrition programs. Many people appreciate the extra teachers and upgrading of the school facilities, the hugely expanded health services, and much improved youth programs. The stores are more reliable, and have better stocks of fresh food, less outrageous prices, and rarely plunge into administration or bankruptcy, which is what used to happen with frightening regularity. Thousands of people now have good, properly paid, well-managed permanent jobs working in community and government programs.
But to listen to some of the more vocal Intervention critics, you would hardly know about these significant advances in peoples’ lives and community wellbeing. A few “squeaky wheels” are given privileged hearings and support without reservation by the alleged “progressive left” and “concerned Australians” within and without the NT. (By the way: I have formally interviewed far more than 100 “Nothern Territorians” about these matters, most of them in remote communities, and using random sampling techniques, in teams consisting of people who have mostly been more skeptical than supportive of the NTER).
On the (old) alleged national “20 year gap” versus the revised, current “11 year gap” in life expectancy: I am happy to have a look at your draft paper on this, but I would seek your permission to show it to people with whom I work who have far more expertise than I do in interpreting statistical data. My understanding is that there are very compelling reasons to believe that the historic calculations of Aboriginal life expectancy at the national level have been strongly skewed towards inaccuracy, partly because of unreliable data collection systems and unsophisticated analytical processes.
However, my point about the Closing of the Life Expectancy Gap in the NT was not related to this debate about national rates and trends, as the NT data collection and analysis has not been anywhere near the problem that it has been in some of the bigger states’ health systems. You seem to have missed my point that the NT life expectancy gap has been closing fairly rapidly over the last few years, quite separately from whatever is happening nationally with re-interpretation of the stats. The NT improvements correlate very strongly with the increased investment in the health programs in many remote communities, as well as other factors such as reduced rates of alcohol consumption and other improvements, some of which I have referred to above.
Another point that you misinterpret: the $3.6 billion of Stronger Futures funding is new, post-NTER money. Very little of it has been distributed for spending at this point, so it is inaccurate to state “Stronger Futures is a failure – having failed to remedy housing, service infrastructure and lack of facilities in Utopia or through Urapuntja.” Stronger Futures was only passed last June, is only starting to be distributed and spent now, and you appear to be confusing it with Mal Brough’s SIHIP construction and refurbishment money, and the separate NTER housing repairs and maintenance projects, which applied from 2007 until 2012. The fact of families languishing in the Elcho monsoon in past years has nothing to do with the Stronger Futures programs.
Transport to and from Urapuntja: it is not in “relative close proximity to Alice Springs”, as it is 250 km from Alice, but there is a major gravel arterial road maintained for the 150 km along the Sandover route to the bitumen on the Plenty Highway, an airstrip, and charter buses through the Centre Bush Bus service when needed for school trips etc. The Urapuntja Health Service has a fleet of vehicles for medical purposes, and the Barkly Shire has its own fleet in the area.
That’s enough for now, I am late for my walk group, so other matters must wait for another day.
If the NT intervention is so successful, as described by many, when is it going to be rolled out to the rest of the country, and to non-Indigenous people as well. Surely if it’s so effective it should apply to all, no?
i think this is ludicrous bob
Gerry, this is a very good article and once again you hit the nail on the head. This whole site is an inspiration, just fantastic to see out there bringing us news few others do. I’ve been reading this site every day for the last two weeks and felt I need to congratulate the Stringer team. Look forward to more articles and the real news.
Hi Bob, thanks for this response – I found it quite interesting reading. I don’t dispute much of what you’ve written but suffice to say I also do not accept the premises for the manner of the Intervention, nor have I been shown any verifiable evidence to show the Intervention, be it through SIHIP or through Stronger Futures has worked or will work. I argue that as SIHIP failed so will Stronger Futures – it is already a failed instrument because of the situational trauma it is inflicting, and hence continuing stress syndromes – Bob, for myself, the real damage being done is the brutal trauma being delivered into people’s lives and which contaminates their psyches – that is by the manner and methods of the Intervention – it is an unjustified custodial predicament. I accept that you’ve talked to many hundreds of people and I too have and we have analyses hence, which sometimes surprises me – and I did 100 formal interviews. I accept your imputations about what an interview may and may not mean.
With life expectancy, yes I am aware of all those arguments and the reasons for the new trial methods, now in place presumably for good, by the ABS – but you can’t go to some regions of north western Australia and to regions of the NT and argue that the median average attributed by the new set of criteria is corroborated by these regions – indeed they are outliers (hence forgotten peoples)… With homelessness the Kimberley rate is ten times the national average – so do we buy a national average or the regional one in this instance in order to address abject poverty and dire circumstance? – and the NT too has a homelessness rate at more than 700 per 100,000 while NSW and Victoria are each at 42 per 100,000.
Thanks for your response Bob, kindly, Gerry
I wouldn’t have thought 122nd, I would have thought even worse like in the 170s or 180s. It is a bloody disgrace our country, how can we have the third world in our country?
Hi Gerry,
I downloaded the full report and tried to find a reference to the separate rating of Australia’s Aboriginal people but couldn’t find any.
Where did you get that figure from?
Cheers!
Hi Jens,
In 2010 it was a 103 ranking of Aboriginal Australians in referende to the United Nations Index of Human Development – which considers life expectancy, literacy and standard of living, etc – while all Australians were at 4. This one is all over the web.
Last year Stolen Generations head James Morrison concluded the ranking for Aboriginal peoples at 130. We were also both speakers at an event together – Humaninside – last November at Fremantle Prison where he raised his ranking of Aboriginal peoples standalone during his presentation. I’ve been following the rankings since 2006 and doing my own sums – there always variables but we are all pretty much within vicinity of each other.
I did my own research and took all the stats and variables in reference to a standalone Aboriginal population with GDP, income medians, proportion to population to stats on health, equity, education, various social health and so on – drawing from a number of sources predominately the ABS and the Australian Institute on Health and Welfare and compared with other countries. The reason that it is 122 instead of worse inherently takes into account some of the countries – especially the ones 150 and above – which are holistically troubled, for instance wartorn and in various civil strife.
In the end whether I am right with 122 or James with 130 or if it’s 103 it isn’t 2nd! The figures take in all people who identify as Aboriginal in Australia and therefore also those doing quite well and those who are out of poverty but are part of the relevant population numbers, therefore indicting how bad the worst is for those at the bottom.
Hi Gerry,
Thanks for bringing this into sharp focus, ironic that a place facing such hardship should have a name like Utopia, another cruel twist in the fate of the most marginalised people in this country. I am very disappointed at Bob’s arrogance and another apparent irony that he referred to your post as a “PhD chapter” and then proceeded to write a rather thesis like response himself. Gerry, be encouraged that you are doing a fantastic and very important job. Don’t let the critics detract from your great work.
Libby
Hi All,
About time a larger number of us became more interested in such topics, overall and specific, to obtain as complete-a-picture as possible and act accordingly.
I’d also be interested in data of Disability and what has been done in this area.
Also, check article by Suresh Rajar some time ago, re: possible change of Ministry’s name!
Regards,
Gustav.
The extended missives above are, unfortunately, a perfect illustration of what is going wrong in Australia. While intellectuals engage in technocratic bickering, real human beings continue to live in conditions that are tolerated for no other cultural group in Australia. Slow motion genocide.
What’s the difference between an african in poverty and an aboriginal in in poverty?
The difference is that Aboriginal people in poverty are in poverty in a first world country, and therefore it is an utter disgrace that some communities are living in horrific conditions. And they are closer to us.
Good points in this article. My only criticism would be that other groups such as men and the disabled wouldn’t rank as highly either.
Good article and i give you all respect for attempting to represent this information with all you can. Thank you.
What i do want to say is those who are pettily trying to correct you on 3% differences, 8 year imclines in life expectancy etc etc, REALLY? does any of the ‘correction’ to this article make any difference to my people?
Does the small 8 year add on for life expectancy add any quality of life for my people?
Does the housing, living, interventions, increases in illness, the injustices, the past laws & policy, the devastation of lands, race, well being and existence of my people AND ANY small percentage you try to correct this article on for your own ego boost ACTUALLY make a difference in the REAL reality of my people?
I think the answer is NO. So while people search for their statistics, research till the cows come home , NONE of the corrections, add ons, picky pathetic ‘corrections’ will know the REAL complexities, damage, barriers, struggles or loss of ANY of what my people face on a daily basis of living in a world of being An Aboriginal person today in ALL of Australia not just NT.
Thank you Gerry, from a Jaara woman of central Victoria 🙂
Like some other people have commented, it also saddens me terribly that people want to bicker about indiscrepancies of small percentages and try to prove you wrong instead of admitting that the situation is totally disgraceful. The Indigenous population are by and large, the forgotten population by the government and by mainstream society, a situation which cannot be deemed anything but unjust. You cannot deny this reality no matter what statistics you argue against, and why you would want to try is beyond me and a very sad measure of your quality as a human being.
Sorry i just caught up (1year later) with this great rhetorical data analysis of a group of people, one of the oldest living cultures of the World – something we should be all proud of. Bob might not agree with this.
But leaving that a side, lets keep this discussion going and keep it burning, to get some positive outcome to the JaaraWoman’s people with real action to bring about some social balance in the right perspective of treating each other with respect and as dignified human beings.
Lets do the right thing to our own people first, before we try to tell the World what to do.
Gerry and others
Nice information to read. Can I please ask the reference for HDI (122nd) for Indigenous Australians?
Thanks.
kamal
Yes, and the real tragedy is that Australia pours $24billion a year into trying to improve that quality of life for Aborigines who make up 3% of the population, although the real problems are with traditional Aborigines who probably make up 1% of the population and after years and billions of dollars, probably trillions, and as much time and effort it is clear that nothing has worked but not from want of money, effort, wishing or wanting.
The policy of supporting traditional aborigines in being separate from the greater community has been as much of a disaster in Australia as it has in Canada and the US. If quality of life is to be improved and to reach that of non-traditional Aboriginal Australians then Aboriginal Australians need to move into the broader community and assimilate.
The policy of land rights has patently not worked and even former extremist radicals like Marcia Langton and Noel Pearson are now saying that the only answer is jobs – and that means joining the broader Australian community and forcing Aboriginal parents to send their children to school as happens with non-Aboriginal Australians, or, as Pearson suggested, taking children away from their parents and sending them to boarding schools so that they will have a future.
Traditional Aborigines have been treated leniently by comparison with non-Aboriginal Australians in terms of domestic abuse, child abuse and domestic violence, alcoholism and living in unsanitary conditions. We now have, despite the billions of dollars, generations of brain-damaged and dysfunctional people and another generation on the way.
Only a fool keeps doing the same thing and expecting a different result. Being colonised is traumatic but it has happened to people in every nation on earth. The ongoing dysfunction has arisen in those groups which have been encouraged to remain separate, chasing some delusional notion of ‘holding on’ to a long-gone, supposedly traditional way of life. Nomadic life was brutal and as the earliest records show, Aboriginal society was violent toward other tribes, war and fighting were constant; men were violent toward women and children and the realities of living as a nomad necessitated cruelties which have no place in a modern world.
If other colonised peoples, have managed to survive and maintain the best of their culture as they assimilate then so can and must Aborigines. As an Australian I would have been absolutely delighted to see the separate development Aborigines were told they wanted, work, and I would not have cared how much money was poured into the issues if they brought a better quality of life. But they have not and they will not and now it is time for change.
For most Australians every one of their ancestors has had to assimilate and in the doing created Australia and Australians. Aborigines are no different if they are to have the quality of life which most Australians have.
Hi Roslyn, agree with you on so many counts. On the spend on disadvantage you may be interested in reading this: http://thestringer.com.au/25-4-billion-spent-on-aboriginal-disadvantage-is-a-lie/#.U5Q0Lyhhvqw
Bob,
Having known people who have been in that area for about a decade I can freely say that you seem to be out of your depth as to real details. Trivial comments such as to whether the community exists, as I assure you that it does, show the lack of real information which goes around the white world and its’ press. I wonder how much money is spent on the people in the same in situation in the outer west of Sydney. Saying that aboriginals get too much funding and preferential treatment shows the the hypocrisy of the system.
In the case of Utopia a coordinator position will be created but at what cost $360,000. It seems that the government is the one which is responsible for creating a level of bureaucracy which is taking tax payers money away where from where it should be going.
In northern Queensland mining companies have persistantly done there best to take minerals and provide minimal funding to local communities. Giving them access to income flow such as exists with Indian tribes in the US which would allow them to be strong once the minerals have been exhausted.
$3.m million dollars is a trivial amount of money to pay given that suicide rates however you look at them are ridiculously high. I can’t recall of hearing about people living in urban areas having trouble getting to sleep because the youth have been sniffing paint and other toxic substances because they have no future. They can’t even afford ‘main stream’ drugs which we have on the streets in places like Perth or Sydney.
The aborigines are poverished but so is the information which we get about them. Nice article.
Australia’s Human Rights Score Card
WGAR News: Nearly 200 organisations outline concern for UN over Australia’s declining human rights performance: HRLC
https://indymedia.org.au/2015/04/08/wgar-news-nearly-200-organisations-outline-concern-for-un-over-australias-declining-human
Contents:
* Audio Interview: CAAMA: National Congress lobbying for first peoples human rights [Featuring Les Malezer]
* News Analysis: Human Rights Law Centre: Nearly 200 organisations outline concern for UN over Australia’s declining human rights performance
* Submission: Australia’s Human Rights Score Card: Australia’s 2nd Universal Periodic Review: Joint NGO Submission on behalf of the Australian NGO Coalition
* News Analysis: Max Chalmers, New Matilda: Australia’s Human Rights Community Has Dobbed Us In To The United Nations
* Background & Key Dates: HRLC: Universal Periodic Review of Australia
WGAR News – Working Group for Aboriginal Rights (Australia)
Reps from KLC will travel to NY for 20 April meeting of permanent forum on Indigenous issues
WGAR News: Kimberley Land Council to ask UN forum to condemn Indigenous community closures: Calla Wahlquist, The Guardian
https://indymedia.org.au/2015/04/10/wgar-news-kimberley-land-council-to-ask-un-forum-to-condemn-indigenous-community-closures
Contents:
* Video: Rachael Thornton, The Feed, SBS: Indigenous communities facing closure [Featuring Aboriginal people from WA homelands]
* Personal Story: Samantha Martin, Sunday Style, news.com.au: It’s more than just a ‘lifestyle choice’, it’s my home
* Analysis / Opinion: Calla Wahlquist, The Guardian: Kimberley Land Council to ask UN forum to condemn Indigenous community closures
* Analysis / Opinion: Michelle Lovegrove & Andrea Booth, NITV: Indigenous MP Linda Burney condems WA remote community closures
* Analysis / Opinion: Bridie Jabour, The Guardian: SA Indigenous figures fear funding dispute could lead to ‘cultural genocide’
* Analysis / Opinion: Catholic Communications, Sydney Archdiocese: Funding Cuts to Remote WA and SA Communities Will Destroy Aboriginal Life
* News Analysis: Natalie Whiting, ABC News: Remote SA Aboriginal communities reassured they will stay open in face of national funding cuts
* Audio: Natalie Whiting, The World Today: SA Aboriginal groups assured communities won’t close
* WGAR News: Breaking News – 10 April 2015: Over Thirteen Thousand People Shut down Melbourne: CAAMA
* Poster: Stop the Forced Closure of Aboriginal Communities in Australia, facebook: “We would like to confirm that that 2nd National Call of Action will be held Friday 1st May 2015.”
* Facebook: Stop the Forced Closure of Aboriginal Communities in Australia
* WGAR Background: Plans to close Aboriginal homelands / remote communities in WA and SA