Australia is failing to meet almost every target for improving the lives of its Aborigines, including reducing the infant mortality rate, and getting children in school and adults in jobs, according to a government report released yesterday.
Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders make up just 3 percent of Australia’s population of 23 million, but have disproportionately high rates of suicide and incarceration, tracking near the bottom in almost every economic and social indicator.
The ninth annual Closing the Gap report marks 50 years since the Australian constitution was changed to count Aborigines as part of the population and allow laws specifically targeted at their communities in a bid to improve welfare and living standards.
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said there were more Aborigines in school, employment, business and in better health.
NOT FAR ENOUGH
“We have come a long way over the last 50 years ... but we have not come far enough,” Turnbull said in a breakfast address to Aboriginal community leaders. “There are still significant challenges that remain.”
The report said the government’s target to close a 10-year gap in life expectancy between Aborigines and other Australians by 2031 was behind schedule as the rate of deaths from cancer increase.
A target to halve the child mortality rate by next year also missed its target last year, but improvements to antenatal care and smoking rates during pregnancy would help move closer to the goal, the report said.
Australia’s historic apology almost a decade ago for its mistreatment of Aborigines was supposed to herald a new era of race relations, but with progress in addressing inequality stalling, tensions between the two communities are high.
‘INVASION DAY’
Late last month, thousands of Australians marched in protests across the nation, demanding the date of a national holiday be changed.
For many Aborigines, who trace their lineage back 50,000 years, Australia Day on Jan. 26 is “Invasion Day,” the anniversary of the beginning of British colonization of their lands and their brutal subjugation.
The Closing the Gap report showed that education levels are falling behind targets, a key driver for the huge disparity in national employment statistics.
The report pegged unemployment for Aborigines of working age at more than 20 percent, 3.6 times the non-Aborigine unemployment rate.
Aborigine unemployment rates in the remote areas of the nation are in excess of 40 percent.
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