State governments share blame for (Not) Closing the Gap

Sharlene Leroy-Dyer writes that State governments share blame for (Not) Closing the Gap.

Impending state government plans to cut essential services to remote Aboriginal communities will, on the contrary, widen the gap.

This is one of the richest countries in the world and yet many of my people, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of this land, live in worse than Third World conditions with an average life expectancy gap of more than 10 years.

Liberal-National and Labor governments alike have chronically failed to deliver real land rights and the urgently needed strong measures to redress more than two centuries of violent racism and dispossession.

The latest Closing The Gap Report is a huge fail as it shows little progress in closing the shameful gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people in Australia on health, literacy and education and Aboriginal unemployment and underemployment has steadily got worse since 2008. Yet the few programs to create jobs for Aboriginal people have been cut back.

Emphasis Mine

Destroying a person's self-identity through racism, state violence, cultural annihlation, and learned helplessness destroys their ability to live a healthy life no matter how much money is thrown at a problem.

To really solve this problem requires all non-indigineous Australians to confront their racist attitudes towards Aborigines, and begin to redress the wrongs inflicted on them.

This requires that we acknowledge the racist basis for Capitalism and the invasion of Australia.