Healthy Country, Healthy People

May 20, 2009 9:54 PM

An opinion piece in the Age states that the Northern Territory Government "plans to, in effect, close down indigenous outstations".

Northern Territory government just announced the Working Future initiative.

But this proposal to create 20 towns across the Territory may not be the healthiest option for indigenous Australians.
The Healthy Country, Healthy People report concludes:
"Controlling for sociodemographic characteristics and health behaviours, multivariate regression revealed significant and substantial associations between caring for country and health outcomes...Conclusions: Greater Indigenous participation in caring for country activities is associated with significantly better health. Although the causal direction of these associations requires clarification, our findings suggest that investment in caring for country may be a means to foster sustainable economic development and gains for both ecological and Indigenous peoples’ health."

Last year the AMJ published research about the Utopia community in the Territory that showed lower than expected morbidity and mortality for an Australian Aboriginal population.

Jenny Macklin, Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs states that "All Australians have the right to choose to live in extremely isolated regions but this inevitably involves a trade-off in access to both market and government provided services. Choosing to live in very remote areas must not be allowed to compromise the health, wellbeing and education of children."
Some people suggest that certain aspects of government policy might be more about Uranium than the wellbeing of Indigenous Australians.

Previously on the blue

posted by ginky (12 comments total)

It's heartening to see that somebody is thinking about the children.

The same rhetoric is applied to the Basics Card, which is a kind of eftpos card through which blackfellas can access their Centrelink welfare payments, but which cannot be spent on alcohol, tobacco, gambling or pornography.
posted by UbuRoivas at 11:27 PM on May 20

Hmmm, I smell a hidden agenda here.
posted by dg at 1:42 AM on May 21

Um, not from you, UbuRoivas, from The Guvmint.
posted by dg at 1:43 AM on May 21

"Come to our government towns! Government-planned towns have a long and illustrious history in places like the Soviet Union and Cabrini Green in Chicago! Don't listen to people who say your food and cultural traditions developed over thousands of years in your environment are better! Become healthy and have real things like like normal Australians!"
posted by melissam at 3:52 AM on May 21

I feel that making things better for indigenous Australians lies up there alongside the Israel-Palestine conflict as one of the world's intractable problems.

The stated aims of the NT Government's plan are that they want to create "real" towns with services, education, businesses, employment opportunities. Which sounds nice on paper.

The cons are that, as the study mentioned above shows, Aboriginal people are healthier and happier when living traditionally on their own country. And there's no reason to believe businesses will actually come to set up in these towns.

But living traditionally on your own country cuts you out of a lot of the benefits and services the rest of the Australian population enjoy simply by virtue of being Australian.

"Caring for Country" is a noble idea that has had some great success stories - unfortunately, there's only so many people who can legitimately gain a livelihood from doing this stuff.

Don't listen to people who say your food and cultural traditions developed over thousands of years in your environment are better!

Alas, in many cases, knowledge of traditional food and culture has been greatly degraded.

The pendulum is indeed swinging back towards whitefella patriarchy, at the moment.
posted by Jimbob at 4:19 AM on May 21

jimbob - Do you have a take on this article?
posted by notreally at 4:39 AM on May 21

Although the causal direction of these associations requires clarification, our findings suggest that investment in caring for country may be a means to foster sustainable economic development and gains for both ecological and Indigenous peoples’ health.

The first part of that sentence makes the last part nothing more than a leap of faith.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 5:02 AM on May 21

It's 2009, and the egg is scrambled. It's a bit patriarchal, and romantic to say that the "kids" are better off living the traditional life- this simply isn't true, the kids will come face to face with society at some stage, and bush skills will only take you so far. The kids, like kids around the globe are far better off in school->university->job->empowerment- that's where the real health benefits lay, and that's the only way the situation will resolve positively-

But this won't happen. It's a land grab, nothing will change, the towns will be outback ghettos, with mining trucks driving through them.

I do think it's a long bow to drawing parallels with the weeping sore that is the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
posted by mattoxic at 5:08 AM on May 21

true. the israeli/palestinian conflict is a cakewalk to solve in comparison.
posted by UbuRoivas at 5:35 AM on May 21

Within a few lifetimes the traditional way of life for the past 30 thousand years will again be just about the only way of life viable in Australia. Assuming that we continue to destroy the environmental support system, through action or inaction. With the aquifer drained and the water table in the south east ruined there will be some changes needed, but the survival techniques of the native population are demonstrably more sustainable than those of the recent immigrants.

/probably
posted by asok at 2:15 AM on May 22

as long as we completely ignore the number of people that the native habitat can support.

this might have a tiny bit to do with the fact that in (at least) 40,000 years, the blackfellas didn't even get close to 20,000,000 people.
posted by UbuRoivas at 5:15 AM on May 22

Yes, of course it's all hard and there's no easy or single solution to "the situation", if I can describe the culmination of 200 years of oppressive policies as such. The way forward, it seems to me, must allow for their choice and can't be based upon rigid frameworks such as (ostensibly) forced consolidation into regimented townships.

I'm not so sure that citing minimal statistical advantages in terms of health of outstation lifestyles is the morally honest reason to support continued assistance for this way of life, even if it's the politically smart way to agitate; they should have the choice of where and how to live on basic principles, not because mathematical models can sway ministerial policies.
posted by peacay at 8:10 AM on May 22