Pollyana

Nice colour scheme....can you buy it now or do you have to bid and hope with
And after all, what did the Romans ever do for us..........

The Wiggles can never succeed, even Bill and Ben failed in their attempt at world domination so that bunch won't make it

BayWhale

No disrespect but that is crap.

Aboriginal people can expect to live up to twenty years less than non-Indigenous Australians. Indigenous life expectancy is so low because Aboriginal health standards in Australia are now so bad that 45% of Aboriginal men and 34% of women die before the age of 45. 71% die before they reach the age of 65.

iamthecreaturefromuranus

...and that would be because?

Baz

And WHY are the health standards so bad? This goes back to the booze, drugs, diet, and not giving a toss about their personal health.

As someone who deals with indigenous persons on a frequent basis, often the only time they address quite serious medical issues is when they are taken into police custody, when they highlight their problem to a watch house officer, and then they get carted off to the hospital (and in these cases its only because they would rather be in the hospital having their every need tended to by nurses than in a watch house). I could also talk about all the free flights, accommodation, and meal allowance which are provided to them courtesy of the tax payer to fly from remote communities to centers like Cairns and Townsville for hospital treatment, only never to turn up and hospital, as they went out on the piss for a fortnight with their allowances, and then missed their flight home. And guess what? The tax payer then has to pay for another flight for them to return back to their community, and they are then provided with another appointment for surgery at the hospital at a later date!

I could also talk about the millions which are sunk into communities to provide health centers and associated staff, which get vandalized, and the staff abused.

I could go on and on, so perhaps you can understand why it makes many people sick to hear people complaining that indigenous persons are not looked after, or somehow discriminated against, because I can assure you they are provided with many services which any other Australian would not receive. I have a friend who has been diagnosed with a tumor in her brain, she is not getting any accommodation or meal allowance provided for her during her time in the city when she requires treatment, and guess what, she's not indigenous.

Personally I have friends and neighbors who are all indigenous, I could not give a rats arse about ethnicity, but I do believe that everyone should be treated equally, and afforded the same opportunities and access to medical care, and from what I have seen there is a huge amount of positive discrimination towards indigenous persons, which is all funded largely by non indigenous Australians, and yet people have the audacity to call us racist.

mohogony

Why is there health so bad? its becasue of the booze, petrol sniffing, cigarettes, junk food and violence, if they gave all that up they would live alot longer. Aboriginies have the same or even better access to health care then white people , read the poster above. What health care services did they have before white settlement, break a leg you were just left to die

BayWhale

It's no use asking me the sixty-four thousand dollar question because I don't know the answer.

Maybe it's because they are a primitive race and are more susceptible to modern day illnesses than others.

Sally Redux

Or maybe it's because disadvantaged people generally have poorer health than better-off, happier members of a society.

iamthecreaturefromuranus

...or maybe its because they drink petrol?

BayWhale

Do non-indigenous people who booze, sniff petrol, smoke cigarettes, eat junk food and are violent also die young?

Aboriginals do not have the same or even better access to health care than white people. Oh yes, those who live in cities may do but those in remote areas do not.

Things may be improving slowly but I think that is because there are now many educated aboriginal people working in aboriginal health.

Sally Redux

I suppose the question of why comes into it, however I'm under no illusions about your ability to see that.

iamthecreaturefromuranus

Yep, it sure does... but you are basing your opinions from the other side of the Pacific and on what you see in the US. This really isn't the same. They are a lost people, hopelessly disfunctional, and in large parts seem to be incapable of living and surviving in the world they now find themselves in. No amount of handouts/legups schemes seems to have helped and believe me they have been trying that for decades.

stevenglish

Captain Cook's observations of the Aboriginals were numerous and detailed; "these people may truly be said to be in the pure state of nature, and may appear to some to be the most wretched upon the earth; but in reality they are far happier than ... we Europeans."

And our ancestors screwed it for em, that's progress for ya.

Baz

No one is denying that, but the insinuation on this thread is that indigenous persons are all dying young as a result of not being provided the same health care / opportunities as non indigenous persons, which is not the case. Indigenous persons have less life expectancy for exactly the same reasons as the white people you have described, namely self abuse.

Well as someone who works in remote Queensland, with indigenous persons, I would have to disagree, just look at some of the examples I have sited with persons who are flown from remote communities to cities for operations. As I mentioned my non indigenous Australian friend does not receive the same assistance from the government, purely because they are not indigenous, which strikes me as racist. The only way health care could be improved for indigenous people, is for large hospitals to be built in remote communities, which as we all know is financially totally unfeasible, and why should we do this? Do white farmers who live in remote western Queensland, in small towns, expect the government to build them hospitals and health centers? They have to go to their nearest city where there is appropriate medical care for treatment. If you choose to live in the back of beyond you cannot expect the Australian tax payer to provide you all the amenities that you would find in a city, and if you don't like this, you move to a city like everyone else has to, rather than expecting all of a cities amenities to move to you, on the basis that you are indigenous.

sonlymewalter

Aborigines have to want to assimilate.

stevenglish

That's gonna open up a big can of worms, is it the white Australians turn next, to be assimilated into the Muslim culture? How d'ya think they'll feel about that?