The Forum > Article Comments > Closing the gap report revelations reveal nothing new > Comments
Closing the gap report revelations reveal nothing new : Comments
By Jack Wilkie-Jans, published 11/4/2017Continuing down the path of throwing cash at the problems without any difficult-to-swallow scrutiny of existing outlooks, processes and policies will only continue to exacerbate the problems.
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Every Indigenous community needs to develop an economic base to be viable in the long-term, otherwise they risk becoming, in time, not much more than pensioner villages. Given how difficult devising an economic base in many communities may be, this will take imagination and, inevitably, people, ideally Indigenous people, with a wide range of expertise.
I could be wrong but I suspect that not too many Indigenous people qualify these days in all those essential trades that every community needs. One hears stories, perhaps completely untrue, of plumbers flying in hundreds of kilometres, and costing a huge amount, just to change tap washers. So TAFE/VET, perhaps on-site, has a huge role yet.
But there are currently more than forty thousand Indigenous university graduates, overwhelmingly in mainstream areas - and overwhelmingly in urban areas. total graduate numbers are growing by around 6 % p.a., so a target of fifty thousand will be reached before 2020, and a hundred thousand by 2030-2032. Yes,some of them have graduated in fields which are completely useless to communities, and there are nowhere near enough graduates in some crucial fields, such as agriculture, agribusiness and genuine conservation management. And of course, most will understandably seek to remain in the urban areas that they have been born and bred in.
But some will want to work in more remote communities. One problem though is that they may have the precise skills which a completely-welfare-oriented community may need, but not many will have the skills, nor may there be any development plans, that may be essential for any genuine economic growth, in infrastructure and enterprises, to help people move away from lifelong welfare, to viable enterprises and genuine economic self-determination.
[TBC]