Crossposted from No Right Turn.
Australia has some of the worst racial disparities in the developed world. The average household income of indigenous Australians is only 60% of the average. The proportion with high-school or higher educations is only half that of the average (a fifth for university qualifications), while their unemployment rate is triple that of non-indigenous Australians. Their health statistics are equally appalling, with complication and disease rates at least double the average, with a consequent effect on life expectancy. The average indigenous Australian dies a decade earlier as a result of poverty, disease, poor access to health services and institutionalised racism.
The Australian Federal Government spends billions trying to correct these disparities, with apparently little effect. But that’s because most of the money never actually reaches its target, instead being diverted to buy votes in marginal seats:
THE Northern Territory Labor government has for the past five years diverted $2 billion earmarked for indigenous disadvantage and other key services to mainstream spending in marginal Darwin seats.
Detailed figures obtained by The Weekend Australian reveal that hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ dollars provided by the commonwealth and intended for indigenous health, homelessness, delivery of services and families have been used to service debt and bolster superannuation payments.
The figures come as the Territory government continues to defend its handling of the $672 million Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Project, which has so far failed to result in one new house being built, despite $45m being spent in the first 15 months of the project.
This is not a new story; the National Indigenous Times highlighted it back in 2006, the Sydney Morning Herald in 2005. But still it goes on – and indigenous Australians suffer as a result.
It is time to end this organised racist theft, and for state governments to spend the money they are allocated for indigenous peoples for its proper purpose, rather than misappropriating it. But that would require Australians to accept that indigenous people matter, that they are human beings equally deserving of government attention. And looking across the Tasman, even after Rudd’s historic apology, that acceptance is still a long way away.
I should note: New Zealand has racial disparities too (though far less severe – check the Social Report for the gory details), but FFS, at least when the government says its spending money, it actually gets spent, rather than stolen for pork-barrelling. This is simply obscene.
Rather than force the state governments to spend it on what it was intended for, I just wouldn’t give it to them in the first place, but fund the programs directly.
So much for the improvement in the Transparency International CPI. I guess “international expert and business surveys” didn’t ask too many questions about Aboriginal funding.
Preventing remote and rural Aborigines from using what land they’ve been able to keep or wrest back as a private asset is one of the reasons that this disparity continues. When will Australia get serious about treating Aborigines as more than living museum pieces?
On housing, I was speaking to someone spending quite a bit of time in the Northern Territory looking at social problems, and she said that the housing being proposed is very inappropriate for the familial-cultural setting. Instead of the typical suburban 2- or 3-bedroom plus 1.5-bathroom template, the cheaper and more useful and suitable solution is one that reflects the very different living patterns of the Aborigines she was meeting. Her off-the-cuff proposal was – a kitchen, bathroom, one medium-sized airconditioned room, then the rest of the house being one large open(ish) room/veranda combo.
I have too little knowledge to judge that particular proposal, but thinking beyond the suburban model and really letting form follow function seems to be an excellent general plan.
I despair when the policies of an obstensibly non racist party are virtually indistinguishable fron a openly racist party.
And here’s hoping that governments pay back all the stolen wages. This is another example of the racist theft you speak about but certainly one issue that likes to be put on the back burner.
Mind you, if you look at the National Imprisonment Rates, that are now up on Pollytics, most states have no problem spending large sums of money incarcerating indigenous Australians.
Their presence in jail is way out of proportion to the general population, particularly in W.A., where the government cannot build prisons quick enough to provide accommodation at around 250 dollars a day.
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/2009/11/27/national-imprisonment-rates/
Why leap to the conclusion that government misappropriation of funds is based on racism? Governments do the same thing with money intended for other ethnic groups all the time. In fact, by your reasoning the government is probably most racist against white people.
Governments spend far more on Aborigines per head of population than any other ethnic group. It is inevitable that more of it will be wasted or syphoned off for improper purposes. Doesn’t make it right, but it doesn’t make it racism.
Just had a quick look at the blog you linked to. It mocks elderly white New Zealanders as “dead pakeha”. Classy.
And yet the Federal government has no hesitation leaping in when a territory government is doing something they don’t like. I’m still waiting to see if they rescind the civil partnerships in the ACT.
I don’t know that it’s actively racist, but it is unforgivable. The ALP have picked a page out of the old CLP playbook: government in the NT lives and dies in the Northern Suburbs of Darwin. The remote seats which are largely aboriginal are basically rusted on ALP voters, and as such, are ignored by both parties. Hence the jiggery-pokery accounting tricks to effectively repurpose the money.
Jacques @9 is right. it has always been like this. The old CLP government had some very creative accounting tricks to make it look as if they were spending money when they weren’t. A lot of money was siphoned off closer to the ground. Very little got through to where it was supposed to be.
Jarrah @ 3 Sounds like more or stage 2 transitional housing. Been there.
“But that would require Australians to accept that indigenous people matter, that they are human beings.” What a self loathing embarassment you are IS. State governments mis-appropriate money for indigenes = thieving racist nation. If a state government mis-appropriates any of the education revolution money, does that make us a thieving kid hating nation? Nice logic.
How about we take note of the $2,000,000,000 allocated. There are about 70,000 nominally indigenous people in NT which is almost $30,000 per head. This is in addition to normal welfare entitlements. Nation of racist thugs we are. No question.
Well, this would be all very well if the Oz article bore close scrutiny.
However, interest costs are generally fixed indendently of Government, and so are its super liabilities. ie the question NOT answered or even posed by the Oz was whether or not the NT Govt had any choice but to pay up.
eg, could the NT Govt just say it wasn’t going to pay the super? Could the NT Govt just have said to its financiers: “Sorry, the agc sez we don’t have to pay that amount of interest?”
Sounds to me like the Oz is pandering to the prejudice that the NT is racist. (And of course all southerners are not).
Of course well meaning but ignorant people from down south have never imposed ‘solutions’ that have turned out to be disastrous have they?
Racism must be resisted at all levels and in every instance – however, half arsed sloppy journalism appealing to other prejudices ain’t helpful at all. They just ‘prove’ to the rednecks how stupid the southerners are.
Well what would the NT government have done if they hadn’t been given the money by the federal government that was intended for indigenous australians?
At the very least it shows very poor planning – how could they not have known well in advance what their superannuation payment requirements were going to be? And why did they decide to divert money from the pile intended for indigenous australians instead of from the pile that funded services in mainstream areas?
It may well not have been racist in intent, but they certainly had a choice where they took the money from and they chose the route that would harm them politically the least. Maybe the lesson here is – make sure you don’t live in a safe labor or liberal seat!
The important thing is to call as many people racist as often as you can.
You’re all raaaaaaacists.
Hey, I feel better already.
Especially as we all know that pointing out racism/racists for what they are is a MUCH more serious matter than racism is.
Especially as we all know that pointing out racism/racists for what they are is a MUCH more heinous crime than racism.
Well, Chris @ 13 those are good questions. Did the journo in the Oz put them to say the NT Undertreasurer? Just to see whether ther might have been a non-racist answer?
Or did the Journo just ASSume?
Sounds like a puff piece dressed up to appeal to those who hold certain opinions and want those opinions pandered to.
Just a thought, maybe some people decide for themselves when they want to retire and grab their super payouts? Maybe the NT Government does not determine the interest rates it spends? Maybe the money for aboriginal people was not spent because the consultation processes took longer than the people ‘down south’ determined it should be? Maybe aboriginal people might want to think a bit longer about some issues than bureaucrats ‘down south’ think appropriate? Maybe the money is actually still there, just not spent yet because of those consultation processes?
Just a few questions that should have occurred to a cadet journo just out of school, starting out in a minor regional newspaper.
marks @ 17 – retirements and super payouts should hardly be a surprise to a government. Its not that they don’t have to be paid, its that the NT government would have known well in advance that they have to paid and should already have been taken into account in their budgets before the federal government money was supplied. Similarly for debt payments. Or was the intent always to fund the shortfall with federal government money marked for other purposes?
And as has been described its not a new phenomenon – its an ongoing problem of funds being diverted. The federal government probably needs to apply income management to the state governments
Hi Chris, the Feds already apply income management to the States and Territories via vertical fiscal imbalance. That is a financial and political fact of life in Aust.
It also means that (quite forgetting this issue) often there are fed funds decreed by Canbrah which cannot be spent for some reason or other. (eg, the State or Territory just does not have the skills any more – a very real problem for small jurisdictions). I cna think of several large projects at the moment where there is a bucket of $$$ and no person available to actually manage that $$. Literally no-one able even with the skills to write up a brief to engage someone from the private sector, or to understand what those private sector people are doing. This is part of the problem with the indigenous housing initiiative I suspect. Nothing to do with racism, and everything to do with public sector cuts so deep that the lights are off and no-one is at home. That might have been a better Oz piece, rather than trying to accuse people of racism where it ain’t the real issue at all.
Indigenous people have only a fifth as many people with university qualifications ? Really ? At the last Census, there were around 230,000 Indigenous adults in Australia: 25,000 have university quaifications – that one in nine adults. Is the general Australian rate better than one in two ?
Even so, by 2020, there could easily be 50,000 Indigenous people with university qualifications. For the gap to remain, almost every Australian adult would have to be a university graduate.
Check out: http://www.deewr.gov.au/HigherEducation/Publications/HEStatistics/Publications/Pages/Home.aspx for details, if you are serious.