To date much money has been spent on indigenous health and education programmes, but how effective have they really been?

Has the government implemented failed policies, or are they working well?

www.healthinfonet.ecu.edu.au/health-systems/health. Aboriginal health is ongoing, like any other health issues.

worldwatcher,

Governments pay millions for spin. This address comes from a well regarded person who has seen it all at the sharp end. Got to applaud her good will, honesty and guts,

http://resources.news.com.au/files/2012/10/24/1226502/593050-alison-anderson-full-speech.pdf

Onthebeach,

That is a fantastic article, and Alison Anderson' dream is so commendable.

However, I hear this as a very well informed lone voice in the wilderness. She is right on every count, but she needs to emphasis this to her own people too.

As she rightly pointed out, many aboriginals live in the city now, yet financial inducements [ the carrot] to attend school are not working well. Maybe penalties [the stick] applied to the parents for non attendance of their children would work much better. I see my following example as just one of a lost generation.

I know of 2 girls aged 8 and 10 whose parents are on welfare. These girls rarely attend school, and the parents have never worked. The example they set is absymal. For them life is one long holiday which we pay for, and the girls roam the streets, sometimes until after midnight shouting 4 letter words and abuse to neighbours.

Education is certainly an answer to many aboriginal problems. Dietary education also needs addressing, as statistics show too many suffer from diabetes.

I would also add that too many children in general 'wag' school with no consequences, and think there is a need to go back to the days when there was a roll call, and school truancy inspectors were effective in ensuring children and parents had a good reason for a child's non attendance.

To radically change the existing problem could be done in one generation. The education adopted children received in [dare I say] white families, or mixed families with one white parent has been no worse than that of all white children, and they have integrated in the workplace well.

They have also risen above being called a black man in a white man's skin by fellow aborigines. I actually heard one man accused of this, and he said it happens all the time.
cont.

indigenous health is certainly a lot better now than before colonisation. Life expectancy has increased however due to alcholol, poor diet, tribal/family feuds and drugs far to many lives are being shortened. Millions spent on education seemed to have failed. Real answers such as severely restricting grog intake are not pc. More money, more education is the mantra however changed attitudes, tough love and no sit down money would be far far more effective. Ask the Africans and they will tell you how destructive our sit down culture is. We just feed it.

cont.
The remote communities who cry out for help display abandoned cars [some newer than the one I drive], trashed houses,trash everywhere, and parents drinking - sometimes alcohol, sometimes just coke or other sugar filled drinks. In other words, a complete lack of pride or will to change it for themselves.

Our previous paternalistic attitude can in some degree be blamed for this, but it leaves plenty of scope to turn around these communities now, with co-operation from both sides, mixed in with appreciation of the real issues to be tackled properly, rather than just throwing money at them.

So education has to be undertaken in every sphere, not just the scholastic one. Pride must be encouraged to replace apathy.

A Marist brother who had previously been a headmster in a private school left the order and volunteered to get a school up and running in a local aboriginal community for a nominal wage, and was assured he would be paid more once he'd proved it was a success - which he did. It was a success for 2 years until he was told he was being replaced by the elder's uneducated wife as headmistress who applied for, and received a far higher wage than my friend. Six months later the school no longer existed, and the previously well kept grounds now look like a third world country shanty town.