Page 2750 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 16 August 2005
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successful with a matching application for staff support. So most of the funding it has received is dedicated directly to projects and there is very little for staffing to manage them. It is a question of community sector sustainability, which we come up against over and over in the ACT. The Greens suggest that the ACT government could perhaps use the commonwealth funds to support the work that Winnunga is doing. Consultation with staff there would indicate the shape of the program. It is a shame to lose these funds when I believe there is clear evidence of need.
Moving on—not that that was a digression—I would like to return to my topic. I would like to discuss how we in the Assembly can made a difference to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders suffering from drug use by considering the I want to be heard report recommendations and monitoring whether they are being implemented. The I want to be heard report was bought to my attention by a PhD student at NCEPH doing an assessment of whether the recommendations are being implemented by the ACT or Australian governments. I am quite sure that other members received similar representations because it is crucial to the study’s proponents that their report does not gather dust. Julie Tongs, the director of Winnunga Nimmityjah says, “We want the recommendations implemented. We all put a huge effort into the report and it would be a real shame not to act on it. There are some simple things that can be achieved right now, like having a safe place for people to detox.”
It is also important that we as a community look at the health of all the people in our community. This is especially the case for indigenous Australians who have generally far worse health, on a range of indicators, than non-indigenous Australians. I know we have heard these statistics time and time again, and perhaps they have a deadening quality to them now, but perhaps that is because the implications of these statistics are really frightening.
Aboriginal Australians are 19 times more likely to die from heart disease; 15 times more likely to die from diabetes; 14 times more likely to die from pneumonia and 12 times more likely to die from assaults than the non-indigenous population. The Australian newspaper of 2 April this year cites new figures released by the Australian Statistician Dennis Trewin at a conference at the University of Melbourne to the effect that indigenous people die, on average, 18 years younger than other Australians. The ACT Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Regional Health Plan 2000-2004 puts it like this:
The health status of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people throughout Australia is much lower than that of non-indigenous people. This is also the case in the ACT.
The foreword to the plan states:
This level of difference in health status and outcome is unacceptable and it is the responsibility of our governments to ensure that such inequities are addressed and rectified.
I agree with this; hence my interest in bringing this matter before the Assembly. The regional health strategy also states that one of the major gaps in health status between indigenous and non-indigenous is in the area of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs. The I want to be heard study shows that people are asking for help from us, the ones in a position to do something. There is a way forward. The report states:
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