The Government's 'Closing the Gap' program has seven target areas, six of which are not being met. The one target being met is the rate of completion of Year 12 and my bet is that it is being met entirely in the big cities and not elsewhere, give or take.

It seems that Year 12 is as high as any government dares to think for Blackfellas. Yet there have been more than forty thousand Indigenous university graduates, with around 2,500 more each year (and that growing at about 8 % p.a.), overwhelmingly in degree-level and PG courses, mainstream and not Indigenous-focussed courses, urban and female. Indigenous women are commencing university study at a slightly higher rate, for their respective populations, than non-Indigenous Australian-born men.

Yes, it's probably true that many of those graduates have studied fields which would be useless to Indigenous communities, and too few in fields which would be extremely useful to Indigenous communities. But that's changing too, with commencing numbers of Indigenous students in STEM courses more than doubling since 2005 - in engineering, more than tripling, to 145 in 2015. But improvements in numbers in Agriculture- and Environment-oriented courses remain pathetic, with barely an 80 % improvement in ten years.

So why isn't university participation one of the government's 'Close the Gap' target areas ? Surely every community needs highly skilled people, so why not - if THEY wish - Indigenous graduates ? Or are Blackfellas to remain forever merely recipients ? Is 'Closing the Gap' solely the prerogative, and competence, of whitefellas and their benevolence ? isn't that as racist as buggery ?

Joe

Re: Posted by Loudmouth, Tuesday, 11 April 2017 2:22:14 PM

Yes, it is Apartheid, promoted by Commonwealth.

We lived as a family in the community we helped to establish, until ordered to depart in 1992 by the Central Land Council, purporting to act on instructions of "Traditional Owners".

In 1995 the Central Land Council finally acknowledged rights of my wife, and our children to be at Kintore as "Traditional Owners".

My refusal to answer racial question, other than to say Australian by birth, is claimed to extinguish our otherwise held right to live together in our home.

Aim of campaign leading to 1967 referenda was to eliminate, to extinguish, any and all legislative claims of authority to qualify our rights as Australians using racial identification as the measure.

All Australians share equality of rights and responsibilities, or our nation promotes apartheid.

IMHO Commonwealth unlawfully promoting apartheid, ordering segregation using racial identification.

Need High Court resolve TRUE MEANING of 1967 Referenda amendments as passed, either it was:

(a) Australian voters exercised their RESERVED AUTHORITY to amend THEIR Constitution with THEIR acknowledged purpose being to eliminate, to extinguish, ALL claim of lawful qualification of Australians rights and responsibilities using racial testing as the measure;

Or

(b) Commonwealth's claim as Parliaments purpose for Referenda was to enable Commonwealth practice of wider scale racial discrimination of Australians legal rights and legal responsibilities;

IF (b) Commonwealth defeats reserved authority of Australian voters, is it time for revolution ?

Commonwealth, States, Territories, pre-1967 and post-1967 discriminated using racial identification.

Who amends Australian Constitution, Parliament or Australian Voters ?

.

Sorry, Polpak,

Are you saying that, because you were married to an Indigenous woman (like I was), you were entitled to benefits accruing to indigenous people in remote communities ? I would never have dared to ask for that :)

Joe

Yes it is Apartheid.

Yes appears few provisions for conventional work in many remote communities, particularly full time paid employment.

Without reasonable leases is this really a surprise ?

Challenge is to assist each individual in some lawful means to add something to their Centrelink income, more importantly to their individual self-worth - whether in dollar or reputation.

Obstructing individuals keeps them remote from opportunities, or requires they remote themselves from their communities.

Lack of rational conventional leases is serious obstruction hindering individuals from developing their own ideas, own small business, own legal self-rewarding activity in these communities.

The internet offers considerable opportunity for self-education, even remote employment and self-investment.

Politicians incorrectly seek full-time employment in smaller rural and remote communities thus obstructing creation of more part-time employment.

Consider each full-time position with several part-time trainees, each to undertake long distance training until obtain qualification for full time position, whether within community or elsewhere.

Employment in such part-time positions viable where it adds to the income of Centrelink payments, before punitive deductions occur.

Employment in such part-time positions creates a pool of assistants suitable and available when required.

Working to achieve qualifications, adds to reputation whilst in training, opens opportunities within even outside qualifications sort.

Single greatest reward comes from encouraging individuals to look at where they are, what they do, how to improve themselves, find and develop their own interests.

Financial rewards often limited yet they can add to Centrelink payments, before punitive deductions occur.

Support and assistance to promote learning, volunteering, and most of all self-improvement contributes greatly to improved sense of well-being amongst individuals and community.

Without self-worth, injury and death rates rise.

.

Hi Polpak,

Logically, simply because there are people in one place, there should be work that needs to be done to maintain the group. The problem here is that those services are either being done by outsiders, or the sorts of goods which could be produced on-site are being brought in at great expense. Growing fruit and vegetables, for example. Hmmmmm, what's wrong with this picture ?

Hunter-gatherers historically found it extremely difficult to shift over to being cultivators: it seems, from DNA studies, that the concept of cultivation, farming, growing things and raising animals and chooks, took many thousands of years to spread across Europe - and not because of some diffusion of ideas, but actual physical diffusion of farmers, slowly, slowly, out of the Middle East, across Europe and along the Mediterranean coast. Most people in Britain were still at least part-time hunters and gatherers barely a thousand years ago.

It's probably far easier to move from a foraging economy/society to a totally welfare-oriented one - and then not move onto any other form of economy or society. Hence the problem: communities have running water (check out the most remote one you can think of and look it up on Google Earth: there are the sewage ponds a mile or so out of town. Plenty of ground, too. So why no vegetable gardens ?

Here's a silly question: why are people prepared to pay huge prices for fruit and vegetables (or consume very little of it, instead favouring fast foods) rather than grow their own ? Is it that money is not a particular problem ? It comes every fortnight, so why worry ?

But as long as communities don't initiate even the simplest, and most appropriate, and essential, project like this, don't even think about more complex projects, not if they have to involve actual perceived effort anyway. Been there, done that.

Cheers,

Joe

Closing the gap will remain out of reach as long as it is treated as something the non-indigenous people (or the government) should be doing about, to, or for indigenous people.

There are things individual indigenous people might consider towards closing the gap (as many are doing already as we see from the above very interesting posts).

Incarceration rates. Remedy: obey the law. Obeying the law is a doddle. Just don't commit crimes. Stealing stuff, assaulting others, that sort of thing.

Education gap. Remedy: Go to school every day and pay attention.

Poverty. Remedy: Leave isolated welfare-dependent communities.

Health inequality. Remedy: Follow healthy lifestyle and elect not to self-poison with booze and narcotics and other avoidable poisons.

When indigenous people are seeking to take these gap-closing measures, non-indigenous people through government (with indigenous participation) might ensure that public facilities for doing so are at least as freely available to all indigenous people as they are to non-indigenous people