Sydney - Children six times more likely to be the victims of
neglect, adults seven times more likely to be murdered, women 34
times more likely to need hospital treatment after being abused at
home and men 13 times more likely to serve time in prison.
On and on it went - the government's latest lack-of-progress
report on the welfare of Australia's 500,000 Aborigines.
'It's unacceptable, and it requires decisive action,' Prime
Minister Kevin Rudd said when releasing the report showing no
improvement in 40 of the 50 indicators of disadvantage that
researchers quantified.
It's all been said before. New prime ministers promise to bridge
the gap between white and black yet leave office achieving little.
The frustration is palpable that spending, which this year is to
reach 4.6 billion Australian dollars (3.6 billion US dollars), is not
affecting change.
'White Australia, I would say, has just about given up,' Melbourne
reader David Blackman wrote to The Australian newspaper. 'We do care
and care a lot, but charity has been shown to make things worse in
the long run.'
Measure after measure in a report that comes out every two years
showed the 2 per cent of the 21 million Australians who are
indigenous are slipping backward.
Almost a quarter of male prisoners, a third of female prisoners
and half of all detained juveniles are Aborigines. Infant mortality,
even suicide, is double the rate for other Australians.
The report released last week showed no advance in reading and
writing skills with 60 per cent of indigenous children failing to
finish high school.
Ted Wilkes from Perth's Curtin University said he also despairs of
government attempts to better the welfare of his fellow Aborigines -
particularly programmes to keep them away from alcohol and drugs and
keep them out of prison.
'It's not working for Aboriginal Australians,' Wilkes said of the
criminal justice system. 'Aboriginal people don't fit into the
mainstream. We live on the margins. And consequently, this system
needs major repairs. We don't want these statistics and these
incarceration rates around when our grandchildren turn into adults.'
Everyone agrees things are dire, that something must be done. But
finding a consensus, fixing on a solution, eludes leaders.
For some, politics blunts progress; for others, the stumbling
block is white Australia's focus on welfare issues rather than
big-picture political ones.
Darwin Aboriginal Rights Coalition spokeswoman Alyssa Vass said
she is suspicious of the government's motives in its schemes to
address indigenous disadvantage in the far north.
'The federal intervention seems to be part of a broader
assimilationist agenda of trying to make Aboriginal people just like
white fellas,' she said. 'Respecting people's connection to land and
their different world view doesn't seem to be a factor in the way
policy is developed for indigenous people.'
She, too, attested to a weariness with failing government
programmes. 'I've seen enormous frustration, anger and despair
amongst community leaders at this happening time and time again,' she
said.
Aboriginal elder Joy White, speaking in Darwin, said lack of
respect for Aborigines held them back.
'All our people are dying, and it's through alcohol and drugs,'
she said. 'And we are struggling, our people, because we don't have
the same rights as any individual living in Australia. We have no
name whatsoever.'
Assimilation is taking place regardless. Most Aborigines live in
towns and cities. The traditional Aboriginal lifestyle is a thing of
the past.
Adelaide University's Peter Sutton, a specialist on Aboriginal
issues, noted that assimilation is not the dirty word it once was.
'It would actually be quite socially acceptable if you referred to
it as modernization and development,' he said. 'I don't see any real
difference. What a lot of Aboriginal people want, actually, is
modernization and development.'
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