Aboriginal Welfare

735 Words3 Pages
Welfare Is Killing Indigenous Australians As part of 'the gat' program (group of Australian organisations working together to achieve health and life expectation equality for Australia's Indigenous people) welfare was first introduced to Indigenous people in 1959. Since, it has only caused further problems to the livelihood of these traditional land societies particularly vulnerable to these funds. Little progress has been made in fixing the dire conditions on Indigenous lands, where approximately 75,000 Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders languish on welfare. This is where Indigenous dysfunction; literacy, poor health, alcohol and drug abuse, and violence is concentrated. Welfare essentially prevents indigenous people from seeking jobs…show more content…
As human beings, optimal health is dependent on making valuable contributions to the community in which we live and paid employment is one of the most common ways to achieve this. A lack of proper education is also contributing to the inability to obtain employment, leaving the future of the younger generation of these communities in jeopardy. This is due to cultural practices being emphasised over mainstream schooling and education. It is hardly surprising that Northern Territory students in 40 'Homeland Learning Centres'- so called schools that do not have qualified teachers every day- cannot read, write, or count with programs like teaching children to count with rocks and leaves. In 1988, the Government set a target to 'close the gap in Indigenous education' within four years, unfortunately this did not happen. So in 2008 the government halved the original target and doubled the time frame. While the COAG (Council of Australian Governments) Reform Council has highlighted progress in four indicators, the extreme lack of progress in the other 16 measurements shows we are not on track to meet their target of halving the gap by…show more content…
The lead of other key opinion holders must be followed such as Marcia Langton who summed it up well when she said 'We must not become dependent on governments, we must teach our children to work". In conclusion welfare should only ever be considered a short-term solution. A long term solution will mean ensuring Indigenous people have access to real jobs, quality education and training, and other resources many of us take for granted. Currently a generation of children in some remote communities see their parents collect pensions. Let's change our ideas before we lose another
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