Close the Gap between Indigenous Health and that of White Australian's
This is an issue
that I do feel very strongly about and as Australians we should feel ashamed
that it is even an issue in our affluent country.
Don't believe that the Australian Government is already putting enough money into the welfare of Indigenous Australians, because they are not.
Don't get drawn into that racial crap that gets bantered around all too often.
Indigenous Australian's are disadvantaged through racism and therefore lack of opportunities in the work force and the education system.
We as White Australians also have a lack of understanding of their culture and then in turn a lack of understanding of what their actual needs are, as distinct from what we as White Australians believe their needs are.
Below is an email from GetUp. Please take the time to read it and take action.
Dear friends,
Today, an Indigenous baby born in is statistically likely to have a shorter
life than a child born in remote rural or Bangladesh or Nigeria. We can take a real step towards ending
this disgrace at next Tuesday's federal budget by demanding the
Treasurer commit just a small portion of our bumper $16 billion surplus to
ending this preventable injustice. The budget decisions are being made right
now, so put your name to the petition and together we will end the inequality
within a generation.
www.getup.org.au/campaign/CloseTheGap
The solution to this problem is within our grasp - all that is lacking now is the political will to fund and implement it. A fully costed health strategy has already been approved by the health experts, including the Australian Medical Association. We have the support of Cathy Freeman and Ian Thorpe. Given the surplus, it would be inexcusable not to use next Tuesday's budget announcement to make the plan a reality.
Working together with the Close the Gap Coalition, GetUp is presenting our politicians with a plan to achieve health equality for Indigenous Australians. For an additional $460 million a year, coupled with targeted housing, education and nutrition policies, we can relegate third-world levels of diabetes, heart disease and pneumonia to the history books. The money is needed for doctors, clinics and a national roll-out of Indigenous health professionals - just a drop in the ocean when compared to last budget's tax cuts.
The challenge is great but the solutions exist. Success stories in Indigenous health are blooming around the country, but are largely small in scale due to lack of resources. The power, understanding and strategies are within our community to rise above complacency, disadvantage and despair. We can't afford to let another fat budget come and go. Tell the Treasurer today to put our money where the need is great and we'll deliver your urgent petition to Treasury before final decisions are made.
www.getup.org.au/campaign/CloseTheGap
We're swimming in surplus - all that we need now is to show our politicians that Australians want to use this historic opportunity and end the inequality forever. Tell them, on the eve of the budget, and before they begin to congratulate each other over another great year, that we can begin this journey to close the health gap right now.
www.getup.org.au/campaign/CloseTheGap
Thanks for taking action,
The GetUp Team
PS Please donate to this crucial campaign here or join
the discussion on our blog
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Comments
This is a serious fissure in our society. When I first got here, it was an issue that got flung my way as "that's another ballgame altogether"; almost as though it has been consigned to the too-hard basket. Years later, I think it is a shame. When you consider that it took all of a matter of months just very recently to reverse our national objection to uranium mining. Yet we couldn't move with equal haste to clean up this whole debacle of inequity for our indigenous members of society. Until recently, the Ninja clan lived in a very black neighbourhood. We moved out after 15 years as we got tired of the violence and crap.
That wasn't the thing that got to me; it was why the youngsters were not in school when other kids their age were. Such a damn waste of our human capital in this country. Everybody is born equal - I believe that. It is what happens the next day that sets up the pattern for the child's life ahead. That's where this country's leadership has failed an entire community of Australians.
Until I moved to the town I now live in 16 years ago, I had barely seen an Indigenous Australian, there weren't any in the town that I grew up in and I would say none for 150kms.
So when I moved to this town that I am in, I had a very welcoming open mind and heart to the 'Koories' that live here. But I soon found out that they were very difficult to approach and they had a huge chip on their shoulder (unstandable), so it is very difficult to gain their trust. The racism here between the white and black population is quite strong which is a real shame.
It breaks my heart to see Koorie kids staggering the streets due to 'chroming'.
There are some excellent programmes in the local schools to try and keep the kids in school, but it is so difficult because the generations before them have lived a tough and violent life and it is so difficult to break the cycle.
As far as employment is concerned, I only know of a couple of Koories actually employed, not because they all don't want to work, but because the equal footing opportunities aren't there for them due to racism. I know of a carpenter who can't get work because of the colour of his skin.
If I was an employer in this town and I had a white kid and a black kid just out of school or looking for a part time job while still attending school and I felt that they were close to being equal in their abilities, I would let the black kid have a go - because they need all of the breaks in this world they can get.
It is no use just throwing money around, we also have to give the ones that really want to work and achieve their goals the opportunites and we need to ignore the racism towards them.
Everyone should be judged on their qualities and never the colour of their skin.
True as well. I agree that throwing money around doesn't work. I''ll tell you a real story that to this day still has my head shaking in disbelief.
It was when I was working in the 'Territory in mining. Where we worked (the company shall remain nameless), the land belonged to the local Aboriginal clans and the relevant land council. On one special day each - euphemistically called "Black Christmas' by the jaded miners - the mining company literally handed out bags of cash (mining royalties) to the relevant clan members through the local bank branch. I saw kids as young as 10 walk out from the local bank with wads of cash, and straight to the tucker shop to buy heaps of junk food. The adults would head straight to the ad hoc car dealers on the waterfront (these guys knew when the royalties would be handed out and came over with their used cars the day before). We'd see near-new 4WDs being bought in cash at the jetty and the new owners driving off in droves. The next 2-3 days, we'd see these same vehicles abandoned on the highway.
That sort of thing has seared in my mind why largesse like that is not the answer.
I shake my head in total disbelief.
Thanks for the comment though Ninja, these are the sort of things that should be known and non-indigenous Australians should be ashamed that these sort of things could happen.