Life of Aborigines Second Worst in World

I saw this article and realised my passion is still with these people. They are my brothers. They are my sisters. They are family and we need to break the division down, of racism, differences and past and allow a new generation to come up. These people should not be forgotten!!! Who are we to leave out brothers behind for the advancement of our self gain of civilisation?

(http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/04/27/1082831568285.html)

By Andra Jackson
April 28, 2004

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A Canadian study on education, life expectancy and wealth shows a marked difference between Aboriginal and non-indigenous Australians - and the rest of the world.
Picture:Terry Trewin

The quality of life of Australia's Aborigines is the second worst on the planet, according to a Canadian study of 100 countries.

Only China performed worse, according to a United Nations index that measures human development.

Australia, however, ranked fourth after Norway, Iceland and Sweden on the level of human development accorded its general population.

The human development measure was compiled from three other measurements - educational attainment, life expectancy at birth and median income levels, researcher Martin Cook said.

The findings were presented to the 18th World Conference on Health Promotion and Health Education in Melbourne yesterday.

Mr Cook, who is a PhD student in sociology at the Western Ontario University, said the index "is a simple blunt measurement that hides a lot of complexities".

The study also compared the development of Canada's Inuit, New Zealand Maori, America's Indians and Australia's Aborigines over the past decade.

"Australia didn't fare best in any of the individual measurements on levels on education attainment, life expectancy and the income gap between indigenous and non-indigenous populations, and it was clearly the worst on overall human development," Mr Cook said yesterday.

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It tracked indigenes' progress from the 1990s to 2001 using census data and life-expectancy estimates. It found Australia had the highest gap in educational attainment between its indigenous and non-indigenous population. It also showed that during that decade the educational gap between the two groups in Australia widened even further.

The gap in life expectancy between the indigenous and non-indigenous in Australia was the widest of the four countries examined.

Mr Cook said the message from the study was that "we should not be complacent, the gaps can increase between indigenous and non-indigenous people even when the overall development levels of a country are increasing".