Five Steps to a Better Black Life in Australia by Chris Graham

Aboriginal Lands

This is an abbreviated and edited version of an article written by Chris Graham, founding editor of the National Indigenous Times newspaper, for another Australian newspaper the Sunday Telegraph, July 12, 2009. I edited the original for a more general and international audience. The article is not available online but I think it is of great importance, hence, the reproduction here. Full article (scanned).

“The gap between black and white has increased over the past decade in the areas of health, housing, educational outcomes, child mortality, imprisonment rates, and even child-abuse notifications.

Some suggestions to improve things …

1. Educate yourself and others and accept a few “home truths”. The problems in Aboriginal Australia are entrenched They came about as a result of decades of government neglect. They will not be solved quickly or easily. Facts about Aboriginal disadvantage are all over the Internet and readily accessible. Make an effort to become informed. The annual excess mortality rate of Aboriginal people in Australia (that is, the number of Aboriginal people whose death each year is avoidable) is worse than it was for Iraqis during the first Gulf War.

2. The solutions might no be politically palatable, but that doesn’t mean they’re not solutions. The international experience is very clear on this: Aboriginal people must own and drive the solutions. If they don’t, it doesn’t matter what the government “intervention” is, it will fail … We send in the Army when we want to fix Aboriginal problems. We need to stop and think why? The US, Canada, and New Zealand all have treaties with their indigenous peoples. Australia does not.

3. Stop the denial. As a nation, we have a problem with racism. We need to stop and think on the front, too. We’ve also argued with the United Nations against the removal of “Nigger” from a sports oval grandstand in Toowoomba, Queensland. We’re a nation that doesn’t understand the offence caused when we climb Uluru. This is regardless of the fact that we also accept the place as being of great spiritual significance to Aboriginal people. Yet can you imagine the reaction if a bus load of blackfellas turned up to the Australian War Memorial in Canberra (capital) and began abseiling on the roof?

4. Ultimately, politics is what kills Aboriginal people. Can you imagine government’s playing political games over, say, the Victorian bushfires? A total of 173 people dies in those fires – a horrendous figure. But more than that number of Aboriginal children aged under five die avoidably every year. The major parties know that governments have lost seats – and maybe even elections – because they have been seen to be providing too much to Aboriginal Australia. The fact is, until politicians begin losing seats over Aboriginal disadvantage we’ll continue to see negative reports …

5. The media are there to keep the bastards honest. But sometimes the media are the bastards … if we’re to tackle all the horrendous problems in black Australia such as suicide rates, diabetes, heart problems, neglect, lack of education, poor housing – the list goes on – then we need the media to better scrutinise politicians. Imagine Prime Minister Kevin Rudd getting away with standing up at a press conference and telling a room full of journalists he was “devastated”, before announcing: “We must redouble and triple our efforts …” Well that’s just what he did … A week later the media had already moved on. Our media has the attention span on this issue of a goldfish. Unless that changes, there’s very little to motivate politicians to change.
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Many people have suggested to me that if I don’t like Australia – if I think it’s so horrible and so racist – I should just leave. I don’t because I love my country enough to want to stay and fight to make it better. I don’t want to be a citizen of the country that has the worst human rights record (and indigenous life statistics) on Earth. I don’t want to leave that country to my children or their children. And black, white or brindle, neither should you.”