Facts about Indigenous people

Facts about Indigenous people.
•	Indigenous people get the same unemployment benefits as other Australians.
•	Indigenous people need their own medical services.
•	Indigenous education programs address disadvantage.
•	Our backyards are safe from Indigenous land claims.
•	The ‘stolen generations’ affect every Indigenous family.	•	Indigenous people get the same unemployment benefits as other Australians 

Unemployed Indigenous Australians are entitled to Newstart allowances at exactly the same rate as other unemployed Australians.
In over 250 communities more than 30,000 Indigenous people prefer to work for their benefit on Community Development Employment Projects. If they do not turn up for work they do not receive their wages (or benefit) and they are ineligible for other benefits such as rent assistance and health concessions.
Many industries, cattle, fishing and pearling, in remote Australia were almost totally reliant on Indigenous workers in their formative years.
Location has an important impact on the overall rate of unemployment of Indigenous people as well as limited educational opportunities, an increasing working-age population, a decline in rural industries and lingering prejudice among non-Indigenous employers.	
•	Indigenous people need their own medical services.

For every dollar spent on non-Indigenous Australians only  $1.08 is spent on Indigenous Australians yet they are three times as sick.
Indigenous babies are 2-4 times more likely to die at birth than other Australians.
Hospital admissions for Indigenous men are 71% higher and for Indigenous women 57% higher than other Australians. Infectious diseases are 12 times higher than the Australian average.
Indigenous death rates from diabetes are 12 times higher for men and nearly 17 times higher for women. 
For Indigenous people aged 25-44 the risk of death is five times greater. 
Life expectancy for all Indigenous people is 15-20 years below other Australians. 	•	 Indigenous education programs address disadvantage

From 1 January 2000 ABSTUDY, the main Indigenous assistance scheme has offered the same benefits with the same conditions as the equivalent schemes for non-Indigenous students. In addition the Commonwealth Government has a number of programs for all disadvantaged groups including isolated students, students with disabilities and those from non-English speaking backgrounds. 
In 1997 the year 12 retention rate was 31% for Indigenous students and 72% for other Australians.
Contributing to the educational disadvantage of Indigenous students are poor health, poverty, location and cultural factors. Many remote communities have no access to secondary education and English may be a second or even third language	
•	Our backyards are safe from Indigenous land claims.

The Mabo judgement extended the same common law rights to Indigenous people that have been available to other Australians for over 200 years.
Native title is no threat to private property. It cannot displace private property including farms and other commercial and residential property.
Native title exists only where 
it has not been previously extinguished by government action and 
Indigenous people have maintained a connection with the land according to their traditional laws and customs.

	•	The ‘stolen generations’ affect every Indigenous family.

From the earliest days of British occupation, governments had allowed the removal of Indigenous children from their families. The stolen children were raised in institutions or fostered out to white families ‘for their own good’.
The Bringing Them Home report concluded that, in the period from 1910-1970 between 10 and 30 per cent of Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families and communities.
Indigenous children removed from their families were almost always taught to reject their identity, culture, language, links to the land and the spiritual life of their former communities.
No Indigenous family was unaffected.