Lost and Found

There has been a lot of information published in recent years about the alarming differences in unemployment rates amongst Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. The table below contains data from the 2001 Census and highlights just how bad the problem is. Some of the communities in which we have stores, unemployment can be as high at 95%. 

There are a number of reasons for this including access to education, socio-economic status, social problems and health problems. Of course there are a small minority that simply choose not to work, but this is the exception rather than the rule. There are a lot of Indigenous Australians who want to work but simply can’t get a job.

One area that is making a positive difference for such people is Indigenous Tourism. Until recently this was mainly taken up by International tourists but as this article shows, more and more Australian residents are taking part. This is great news for all involved. It provides employment opportunities for Indigenous Australians, it helps educate non-Indigenous people about Australia’s 60,000 year history, and it helps to highlight some of the issues Indigenous people face.

I spent a weekend in Kakadu back in October last year and took part in a couple of Indigenous run tours, including a trip into Arnhem Land. It was a truly unique experience and I learnt a lot of things that we were never taught in school. If you are ever in a region of Australia that has such programs, be it Far North Queensland, Central Australia or even Tasmania, I cannot recommend them highly enough.

Today is National ‘Sorry Day’, a day to reflect on Indigenous children who were forcible removed from their families.

Back in 1992 the then Prime Minister Paul Keating was the first Australian politician to publicly acknowledge that “we took the children from their mothers” at a speech in the infamous area of Redfern known as The Block.

These admissions lead to the undertaking of an inquiry into the extent of the forcible removal of half-caste children, later to become known as the Stolen Generations. The resulting paper from the inquiry, released on May 26^th 1997, is known as the Bringing Them Home report. For the past 12 years Australians have observed this day as the first step in a long journey to gaining acknowledgment and justice for those affected during the almost 100 years (1869 to 1967) the Aboriginal Protection policies were in force.

The report is a tribute to the struggles and determination of all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who were impacted. The full affect will never really be known as there are countless children who will never come home.

Over the weekend I managed to watch the entire series of SBS’s acclaimed documentary ‘First Australians’. There are seven one-hour episodes which chronologically catalogue significant events between Europeans and our Indigenous population between 1788 (First Fleet) and 1992 (Mabo).

It is no wonder that a lot of Indigenous people refer to 26^th January as invasion day. In just one example from the series, in Tasmania, a bounty was placed on the heads of all Indigenous people. £5 for an adult and £2 for a child. In this progressive and somewhat more forward thinking age it is just impossible to imagine that the Government would pay people to kill adults, or even worse, children. The result was that the Tasmanian Indigenous population at one point got down to less than 100 individuals.

I know I have said this before but I am astounded that we were never taught a lot of this side of Australia’s history at school. I guess it really shouldn’t surprise me given how poorly it was handled. The policies that were in place were blatant racism and certainly against civil rights.

The really big shock to me after watching the series is how recent some of this occurred. Indigenous Australians were only granted status as Citizens in 1967 in a public referendum. Before that they had to seek permission to do just about anything, and had to carry an identification card at all times, not dissimilar to Apartheid in South Africa.

I don’t think I previously understood the meaning of the day Kevin Rudd said sorry. Now I do.