Wadeye? What is or where is Wadeye?
Well, it's the Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory in the news the last days not only because of riots there but because Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough visited there and made the usual pronouncements of a politician. Then again he might really want to be try and do something.
As Crikey records:
"Wadeye, with a regional population of 4,500 and a school age population of more than 1,000 kids has no high school. It has no road access for five months of the year (it's cut off in the wet) and the average number of people sharing a single dwelling (and I use the term "dwelling" loosely) is 17. For the 2,500 people who live in the Wadeye town proper, there are 148 habitable houses."
And this:
"The average life expectancy for a male in Wadeye is about 47 years of age – in other words, a boy born and raised in Wadeye is likely to die about 18 years before he can qualify for an old-age pension and about 30 years before an average white boy born in Canberra."
Wadeye is evidently typical - of some 150 like communities - of Australia's neglect of its indigenous peoples. It's a blot on all Australia and truly shameful that despite countless millions of dollars spent on aboriginal affairs conditions such as those in Wadeye, and elsewhere, are allowed to continue to exist. For too long "out of sight, out of mind" has dominated Australia's attitude to its aboriginal peoples.
As Crikey records:
"Wadeye, with a regional population of 4,500 and a school age population of more than 1,000 kids has no high school. It has no road access for five months of the year (it's cut off in the wet) and the average number of people sharing a single dwelling (and I use the term "dwelling" loosely) is 17. For the 2,500 people who live in the Wadeye town proper, there are 148 habitable houses."
And this:
"The average life expectancy for a male in Wadeye is about 47 years of age – in other words, a boy born and raised in Wadeye is likely to die about 18 years before he can qualify for an old-age pension and about 30 years before an average white boy born in Canberra."
Wadeye is evidently typical - of some 150 like communities - of Australia's neglect of its indigenous peoples. It's a blot on all Australia and truly shameful that despite countless millions of dollars spent on aboriginal affairs conditions such as those in Wadeye, and elsewhere, are allowed to continue to exist. For too long "out of sight, out of mind" has dominated Australia's attitude to its aboriginal peoples.
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