National Aboriginal Alliance federal intervention database

The respected medical journal, The Lancet, published this editorial on 15 September 2007.

The Lancet 2007; 370:910

Editorial
Aboriginal health: a decade-old election promise

Last week, the Australian Medical Association (AMA) released Key Health Issues for the 2007 Federal Election—a document that highlights areas of the health system which are currently failing some or all of the population. At the top of the AMA's list of 18 issues is Indigenous health. When John Howard's Government came to power over 11 years ago they promised to improve the health and social wellbeing of Aboriginal people. To date there is no evidence that this pledge has been met.
Indigenous Australians have a greater burden of ill health than the rest of the Australian population, experience lower levels of access to health services, are more likely to experience disability and reduced quality of life due to ill health, and die at younger ages.

This dire situation now looks set to worsen. On Aug 17, the Australian Senate passed the Northern Territory National Emergency Response Bill 2007. This Bill, which was rushed through parliament, is Howard's reply to Little Children Are Sacred: Report of the Northern Territory Board of Inquiry into the Protection of Aboriginal Children from Sexual Abuse. The legislation allows the government to take control of 73 Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory, boost police and army presence, enforce bans on alcohol and pornography, abolish the permit system—which restricts access to Aboriginal land by non-Indigenous people—and limit welfare payments.

But few of the aggressive measures in the Bill address child abuse; most are only likely to exacerbate the problem. The proposed interventions also do not tally with the report recommendations and contradict the approach called for by the authors, who emphasised the “critical importance” of consulting with Aboriginal people when designing initiatives for Aboriginal communities.

Indigenous health is a national emergency that requires investment in health services and the social determinants of health—education, housing, economic development—which underlie the appalling inequalities that Aboriginal people face. The Howard administration's latest approach to Indigenous health will not fulfil its decade-old election promise. John Howard's legitimacy to govern seems fatally compromised based on this critical health failure.

The Lancet