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Stanhope / Out of sight, out of mind

RECENTLY, the Federal government released the Implementation Plan for the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Plan 2013-2023.

jon stanhope
Jon Stanhope.
The plan is designed to achieve health equality for Aboriginal people by 2031, consistent with the COAG health targets adopted by all governments in Australia.

Last year, the latest COAG “Closing the Gap” report revealed that only marginal gains have been made in the seven years since the targets were agreed by all governments. In fact, the report notes that of the seven agreed targets only two are likely to be met and that three of the seven are not even on track to be met.

The Australian Medical Association, in its 2015 Position Statement on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health, confirms the slow progress in closing the gap in life expectancy for Aboriginal people and of “the stubbornly high levels of treatable and preventable conditions, high levels of chronic conditions at comparatively young ages, high levels of undetected chronic conditions and high rates of co-morbidity in chronic disease.”

There are regular reports on the condition of Aboriginal communities and people from all round Australia in our newspapers and on television and radio. However, the majority of the reporting is focused on remote and rural communities.

We see relatively less reporting on the circumstances of city dwelling, urbanised Aboriginal communities such as the one that is very much part of the fabric of our city. I am sure that most Canberra residents would be surprised to know that there are between six and seven thousand Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living in Canberra.

I feel equally sure that most residents would not be conscious of the circumstances in which many Aboriginal people in Canberra live or of the social, economic and health indicators pertinent to them.

We have, as a prosperous city with a relatively highly educated and wealthy citizenry, managed to very successfully disguise disadvantage and hide our poor and underprivileged out of sight and consciousness.

The reality is that a significant cohort of the Canberra Aboriginal community lives in poverty and leads lives that reflect in their health status and in other ways including all of the most disturbing of the social and health indicators affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people throughout Australia.

We find, therefore, that here in Canberra while less than 2 per cent of the population is Aboriginal, more than 25 per cent of all children in care and protection are Aboriginal.

Attendance rates of Aboriginal children in year 10 in ACT government high schools are low and actually declined in the last year to the point where an Aboriginal child in year 10 missed, on average, three days of school a fortnight.

People of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heritage make up 25 per cent of the prison population and assuming a level of non-disclosure of Aboriginality it is possible that, at times, up to 30 per cent of the inmates at the Alexander Maconochie Centre are Aboriginal.

In Australia, an Aboriginal woman is 34 times more likely to be hospitalised as a result of a criminal assault than a non-Aboriginal woman and 11 times more likely to be killed.

Across the full range of health indicators Aboriginal people in Canberra disclose the same persistently poor health outcomes.

It is, of course, to be hoped that this latest plan to achieve health equality for Aboriginal Australians will succeed. To be fair, it is detailed, comprehensive and has had the benefit of substantial input from the indigenous community and there is certainly a great will for it to succeed.

However, particular challenges that the Canberra Aboriginal community continually faces are firstly, to have its very existence recognised and acknowledged and, secondly, to have decision makers and funding agencies at an ACT and Commonwealth level understand that its needs are no different than the more high profile and visible communities whose needs are regularly featured in our media. It is one thing to have a plan, but it will not succeed if it is not universally and equitably implemented.

Jon Stanhope was Chief Minister from 2001 to 2011 and represented  Ginninderra for the Labor Party from 1998. He is the only chief minister to have governed with a majority in the Assembly.

 

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One Response to Stanhope / Out of sight, out of mind

luxxikins says: 27 January 2016 at 6:07 pm

Indigenous Canberrans receive the same welfare payments and have the same access to public housing, assistance with alcohol and drug dependency as non-Indigenous – and they have a dedicated health care system due to those exact Gap issues, so Indigenous Canberrans have the same opportunity as anyone else to care for their kids well and keep them out of care.

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