Michelle Harris is right - Government polciies are badly failing the Aboriginal people of the Northern Territory, especially all those people who live in communities other than the 15 arbitrarily chose priority communities. Thus communities big,medium and small are missing out on the 'Closing the Gap' resources. This is all to establish an ideologically-driven concept of what a 'good' Aboriginal community is like, and what a 'good' Aboriginal person is like. In the meantime there is massive over-crowding and an irresponsible failure to maintain and renew existing investments in public housing and related infrastructure representing millions of dollars. These assets are to be allowed to rot into the ground just to satisfy the assimilationist fantasies of various senior and unaccountable bureaucrats. Outstations are where assets last longest, with houses often lasting 30 or 40 years, yet these are absolutely discriminated against.

These comments are based on 40 years close involvement with and experience of the Northern Territry.

Here you go, runner,

http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/health/aboriginal-life-expectancy.html

Poirot

No one is disputing that todays life expectancy for aboriginals is less than that of others. You miss the point completely (and quite likely deliberately).

The reasons given on the link you provided have one major omission. I wonder why? Spin, spin and more spin. That is why we are worse off than 50 years ago with all these 'éxpert' reports that always fail to address any sort of personal responsabilities. You are adding to the failure not helping it with spin. Thankfully Loudmouth seems to know what he is talking about.

Hi Zelig,

I'm a bit worried that some people seem as if they would be quite happy if Aboriginal people were all driven out into the desert, as Mr Neville used to do (according to Mrs. M.M. Bennett, a great fighter for Aboriginal rights): their 'natural habitat', is it ?

Just a question about housing: elsewhere in Australia, public housing is built on land that public housing authorities either own or lease. In remote communities, Aboriginal people quite rightly own their own land. So - this is not a rhetorical question - why do, or should, public housing authorities build houses for people on their own land ? Where else do they do that ?

Another question: in the NT, Aboriginal people in remote communities get mining and conservation park royalties - isn't that so ? These royalties amount to quite a few thousand dollars per person per year, which cracks out to tens of thousands a year for some families. If communities had the gumption to lease out housing blocks, the blocks that people currently live on, why can't people pay for their houses from royalties and own them outright, just like people in Canberra can ? Why should it be a responsiblity of public housing authorities ?

Another question: about infrastructure - roads, public buildings, schools, clinics, airfields, etc.: you suggest that these should be funded adequately, and fair enough. But in Australia, ALL of the public is allowed to use public roads ,take their children to public schools, use publicly-funded clinics, etc. So why should 'outsiders' have to apply for permits in order to use those facilities, mainly the publicly-funded roads ? Is there a differentiation between public-'public' and public-'Aboriginal only' ?

These are cruel questions, I know, but they need answers. Think of me as, inter alia, a sort of devil's advocate :)

Joe

Thanks for your praise, Runner. I'm really done for now with my Left friends.

Poirot,

Those figures - as they are - are quite dishonest and misleading. For urban population, particularly those people who are working, their indices are not all that different from those of other Australians.

But the actual situation in remote communities is so dreadful that to lump the figures together, for urban and remote populations, blurs the real picture: if only someone had the courage to make a study of remote communities on the basis of those indices - they would find that the gap in life expectancy, for instance, is not twenty years but forty years.

Hospitalisation is far higher for remote than urban Indigenous people. Morbidity, young adult mortality, incidence of diabetes and a host of other diseases, is far higher.

Right ? Wrong ?

So I reluctantly have to conclude that those of us who would advocate sending people out to even more remote camps and out-stations, away from schools in particular, is either a half-wit or a racist.

Joe

I would gladly give up my job if the Govt gave me a house & all other support to live out in those beautiful places. I see it everyday & to be brutally honest I get rather envious at times.