SAMPLE NEWSLETTER EDITORIAL
Pentecost Sunday
Australia is in the midst of a long period of economic prosperity.
Sustained by a resources boom, our unemployment rate is the lowest it has
been in decades. We are highly
educated, healthy and living longer. Despite
some problems such as the current pressure on our water supplies, we have every
right to claim the status of “the Lucky Country.”
Yet, in the midst of our national good fortune, one group of people, the
first Australians, is missing out! Whatever
indicator of living standards you look at, Indigenous Australians fare poorly;
and the standard of Indigenous health in this country demonstrates this point
all too well!
It is astounding that, for Indigenous people, rates of diabetes,
cardiovascular, respiratory and renal disease are many times higher than for the
general population. Infant
mortality for Indigenous Australians is three times the rate for the rest of our
community. Most appalling of all is
the fact that, in the21st Century, Indigenous people live 17 years less than
other Australians. In many
respects, the health standards of Indigenous Australians are as poor as that of
people in some of the poorest countries in the world such as Bangladesh and
Mozambique.
Why is it that other countries such as the USA, New Zealand and Canada
have achieved rapid reductions in the life expectancy gap between their
Indigenous and non-Indigenous citizens, while Australia’s progress has been
incredibly slow?
The Australian Medical Association tells us that Australia has failed to
achieve satisfactory progress because of a lack of political will.
The body which represents many of Australia’s doctors tells us that
health services for Indigenous Australians are under-funded by $450 million per
year. They say that the rate of
increase in Indigenous health funding has not been enough to achieve the
improvements seen in other Western nations where the life expectancy gap between
Indigenous and non-Indigenous people is 7 years.
Today is the beginning of National Reconciliation Week, a time when we
reflect on what has been achieved in healing the divisions between Indigenous
and non-Indigenous Australians and when we look forward to what more we can do
to promote reconciliation. It also
happens to be the 40th anniversary of the famous referendum which
finally ensured that Indigenous people were counted as Australian citizens and
when the Federal Government was given the power to pass laws on their behalf.
How far can we honestly say that we have come in the last forty years if
Indigenous people have been so clearly deprived of their right as citizens to
the provision of decent health services?
Today, we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit and the beginning of
the Church’s mission to proclaim Jesus’ good news for the poor, the
oppressed and the downtrodden.
Just as Jesus stood with all those who suffered exclusion and
oppression, we, as his faithful witnesses, are charged with the responsibility
of standing with those who suffer in our own time and place.
On this Pentecost Sunday, let us remember that we, too, have been anointed by the Spirit of the Lord to bring good news to the poor. May the Holy Spirit Who gave the Apostles the courage to proclaim Jesus’ message two thousand years ago also give us the courage to be witnesses of Jesus’ Good News in our land today. Let us not be satisfied until our leaders on all sides of politics have listened to the pain of our Indigenous sisters and brothers and implemented measures to improve their health and living standards so that they can, at last, take their rightful place as equals alongside their fellow citizens in this “Lucky Country”.