ANALYSIS: Australia despairs of easing Aboriginal suffering

By Sid Astbury Jul 8, 2009, 4:26 GMT

   Sydney - Children six times more likely to be the victims of neglect, adults seven times more likely to be murdered, women 34 times more likely to need hospital treatment after being abused at home and men 13 times more likely to serve time in prison.

   On and on it went - the government's latest lack-of-progress report on the welfare of Australia's 500,000 Aborigines.

   'It's unacceptable, and it requires decisive action,' Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said when releasing the report showing no improvement in 40 of the 50 indicators of disadvantage that researchers quantified.

   It's all been said before. New prime ministers promise to bridge the gap between white and black yet leave office achieving little. The frustration is palpable that spending, which this year is to reach 4.6 billion Australian dollars (3.6 billion US dollars), is not affecting change.

   'White Australia, I would say, has just about given up,' Melbourne reader David Blackman wrote to The Australian newspaper. 'We do care and care a lot, but charity has been shown to make things worse in the long run.'

   Measure after measure in a report that comes out every two years showed the 2 per cent of the 21 million Australians who are indigenous are slipping backward.

   Almost a quarter of male prisoners, a third of female prisoners and half of all detained juveniles are Aborigines. Infant mortality, even suicide, is double the rate for other Australians.

   The report released last week showed no advance in reading and writing skills with 60 per cent of indigenous children failing to finish high school.

   Ted Wilkes from Perth's Curtin University said he also despairs of government attempts to better the welfare of his fellow Aborigines - particularly programmes to keep them away from alcohol and drugs and keep them out of prison.

   'It's not working for Aboriginal Australians,' Wilkes said of the criminal justice system. 'Aboriginal people don't fit into the mainstream. We live on the margins. And consequently, this system needs major repairs. We don't want these statistics and these incarceration rates around when our grandchildren turn into adults.'

   Everyone agrees things are dire, that something must be done. But finding a consensus, fixing on a solution, eludes leaders.

   For some, politics blunts progress; for others, the stumbling block is white Australia's focus on welfare issues rather than big-picture political ones.

   Darwin Aboriginal Rights Coalition spokeswoman Alyssa Vass said she is suspicious of the government's motives in its schemes to address indigenous disadvantage in the far north.

   'The federal intervention seems to be part of a broader assimilationist agenda of trying to make Aboriginal people just like white fellas,' she said. 'Respecting people's connection to land and their different world view doesn't seem to be a factor in the way policy is developed for indigenous people.'

   She, too, attested to a weariness with failing government programmes. 'I've seen enormous frustration, anger and despair amongst community leaders at this happening time and time again,' she said.

   Aboriginal elder Joy White, speaking in Darwin, said lack of respect for Aborigines held them back.

   'All our people are dying, and it's through alcohol and drugs,' she said. 'And we are struggling, our people, because we don't have the same rights as any individual living in Australia. We have no name whatsoever.'

   Assimilation is taking place regardless. Most Aborigines live in towns and cities. The traditional Aboriginal lifestyle is a thing of the past.

   Adelaide University's Peter Sutton, a specialist on Aboriginal issues, noted that assimilation is not the dirty word it once was.

   'It would actually be quite socially acceptable if you referred to it as modernization and development,' he said. 'I don't see any real difference. What a lot of Aboriginal people want, actually, is modernization and development.'