"The right to health is the equal entitlement of all persons but, in Australia, some enjoy the right more equally than others."

Why? If one person smokes a pack of cigarettes a day, and another one doesn't, why should they both have an equal "entitlement" to health? If one is born with a congenital disease, and another is not, why should they both have an equal entitlement to health? Where does this supposed entitlement come from?

RoughHead , You are misleading , you will need to gather up whites with the same bad habits and preference for appalling living conditions and abysmal diet to come up with a bonafide comparison.

Peter the entitlement comes from all of us being members of the human race and Australians.

Why do you hate the idea of equality so much?

"Equality does not mean an equal amount but equal opportunity. . . Do not make the mistake of identifying equality in liberty with the forced equality of the convict camp. True equality implies freedom, not quantity. It does not mean that every one must eat, drink, or wear the same things, do the same work, or live in the same manner. Far from it: the very reverse in fact. Individual needs and tastes differ, as appetites differ. It is equal opportunity to satisfy them that constitutes true equality. . . Free opportunity of expressing and acting out your individuality means development of natural dissimilarities and variations."

Loudmouth

I was thinking along diet and lifestyle lines also. Fresh food in remote Australia is rare, expensive, and not of great quality. The resulting poor diet, high in salt, saturated fat and sugar, and low in fibre and nutrients, would have to be a substantial part of the problem. It would be nice to see horticulturists and agricultural scientists working with outback communities to give them the capacity to produce their own healthy food.

Hi Fester,

Well, many 'communities' used to be missions, where by necessity (i.e. insufficient funding to missions), populations had to be largely self-sufficient in food production, and many had vegetable gardens, orchards, chooks, milk-cows and flocks of sheep for meat.

For thirty years or more, I naively thought that self-determination meant ECONOMIC self-determination (silly me) - it seemed logical that communities would keep those activities going, in order to (a) provide their populations with fruit and vegetables, milk, meat and eggs, (b) provide some employment, with a view to expanding - not winding down - some of those economic activities, and (c) keep their populations relatively healthy.

For example, if the people found that, let's say, olives grew very well in their area, and if they had enough water to keep them flourishing, then expand the orchards to include commercial olive production. But it didn't happen.

What sorts of crops could people grow in remote communities where there was enough water, and which had high value to counteract the negative factor of distance from markets ? Dates, olives, citrus, sandalwood are a few products which come to mind. I'm sure the CAEPR could think of others. (No, perhaps not). A bit of imagination could have seen some of these worked up into quite profitable initiatives. Even camel meat, skins, and live camel exports couldn't be rulled out.

One side of me said, what if you put a thousand Vietnamese people in some of these communities: what could they achieve ? And if they could, why can't Aboriginal people ? They are as able as anybody else, and after all, it's their land, their patrimony.

Surely one factor in general ill-health is continuing unemployment, idleness, despair, boredom, futility and pointlessness. Surely even remote communities can get themselves together, provide employment, provide basic fruit and vegetables, eggs and milk and meat, and kill about three birds with one stone ? Surely they are not completely useless ? Doesn't self-determination mean able people doing things for yourselves ? Or have I been barking up the wrong tree for forty years ?

Joe

"Peter the entitlement comes from all of us being members of the human race and Australians."

Well if it comes from all of us being members of the human race, why aren't all members of human race equally entitled to it?

And what's the answer to my question? Does someone who smokes a pack of cigarettes a day have an equal entitlement to health as someone who doesn't, and why?