A government's duty of care

Economic survival was also undermined by not paying Indigenous workers their wages, instead transferring the cash to private pockets or state government coffers - the Stolen Wages atrocity. Even now, when the facts are no longer in dispute, adequate compensation is resisted.

In Social Determinants of Indigenous Health (2007), some 20 Australian professional authorities in the health and social sciences repeatedly emphasise the fundamental part played by both poverty and inequality in the origins of sickness. In her introduction, Lowitja O’Donoghue states:

I have come to realise health is not dependent on the physical well-being of individuals. It is also dependent on key indicators such as education, financial status, adequate housing, sanitation, diet, and access to a range of goods and services. When considering health, you need a model that has a focus on structural inequities, not just on personal stories of misfortune. Also you need a model that acknowledges a history of oppression and dispossession, and a history of systematic racism.

Mudrooroo, in Us Mob (1995), quotes Charles Perkins, Director of the Aboriginal Development Commission in the 1980s: “A sound economic base will help us to cut the welfare umbilical cord that binds us ... We must develop sound economic and social infrastructures … in order to take control of our own destiny.”

It is difficult for a community with meagre resources to take control of its own destiny without genuine support from governments which hold the economic trump cards. Australian governments over the years have shown little interest in the infrastructure needs of Indigenous communities. Even now, they seem to suggest conditions might be improved if community members behave themselves.

What could be done?

Government could invest in training Indigenous workers in the construction trades, with two significant benefits. One, providing workers with skills, therefore income, for a lifetime. Second, using these skills to build and maintain the homes, schools, workplaces, child care centres, health clinics, shops, commercial centres, sports facilities and roads communities need.

Such a building trades project would be expensive, but Australia is a very wealthy country and should invest in skills which could prevent local problems escalating as far as military intervention.

In England I lived in a New Town, built from scratch in open country, complete with everything a small town needs. It can be done.

There are also potentially great employment possibilities for Indigenous Australians in the tourism industry because of their often profound knowledge of the natural world visitors come to see. The Gold Coast with its many tourists has a rich pre-European local history written up by local Aboriginal Rory O’Connor: The Kombumerri: Aboriginal people of the Gold Coast (ngulli yahubai gulli bahn bugal bugalehn- we are still here).

Then there’s education. Many children in the bush won’t attend school but Lawry Mahon of Victoria University has shown for a decade they will do so if school is relevant to their local interests.

And medicine. The Australian Medical Association and other health bodies have been crying out for years for much increased investment in preventive and treatment programs but the past two Federal Budgets have totally ignored them. Some patients have to travel great distances for necessary treatment. It is well known in the medical fraternity that even when there is a permanent doctor in a small community, even when not so isolated, working alone can quickly become exhausting.