Aboriginal Living Standards

30.4.08

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare relased a report today that documents troubling statistics about the living standards and health conditions of Aboriginals in occupied Australia.

Jenny Macklin, the Indigenous Affairs Minister, says the report is "shocking" but she was careful to add that "The Australian government is determined to tackle these unacceptable levels of indigenous disadvantage."

Just an aside here, why is a white woman in charge of Indigenous Affairs? Just wondering aloud.

Anyway, it is said that there are only 450 thousand Aborigines left among the other 21 million people who live in occupied Australia. This is the most disturbing statistic in my mind because it reflects the brutal weight of occupation.

The report references the fact that the life average expectancy of an Aboriginal is 17 years less than that of a white Australian.

Only 23% of all Aboriginal kids in school finish high school. And if you think this number is ridiculously low then you should know that this number reflects an increase of 3% between 2001 and 2006.

During the same period, Aboriginals were unemployed at a rate three times higher than the national average.

Given these oppressive conditions one should hardly be surprised that Aboriginals are 50% less likely to own their own homes and are hospitalized at a rate that is twice that of other Australians.

And, given the high-handed and unjust intervention in Aboriginal communities and lands, we should note that the government is six times more likely to remove an Aboriginal child from its parents than any other child in Australia.

To say that Aborigines are suffering a continuing genocide in occupied Australia is hardly hyperbole, it is the truth.

Ridwan Laher