Amnesty International Australia

Sarah Marland discovers the benefits for Aboriginal Australians of living on their homelands... while both the federal and Northern Territory governments returns to failed policies of the past.

An Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory (NT) is showing the government how to close the health gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

A study by the Medical Journal of Australia published in 2008 found that despite the steady rise of obesity and diabetes nationally, the people living in Utopia were significantly healthier than other Aboriginal Australians.

About 1,400 people live in the Utopia homeland communities, which are in the Central Desert, 230 kms northeast of Alice Springs and cover an area of more than 34,000 sq/km. These communities have addressed the problems of obesity, diabetes

and smoking so successfully that adult mortality rates from all causes have consistently been 40 per cent lower in Utopia than among Aboriginal people in the NT generally. Deaths from cardiovascular disease are an impressive 50 per cent lower.

Today, there are more than 600 Indigenous communities located in remote regions in the NT, most on Aboriginal owned land covering more than 500,000 sq/km. This represents 50 per cent of the NT (including 85 per cent of the coastline) and nearly 10 per cent of mainland Australia. Of these communities, 560 have populations of less than 100, with only 50 larger than 200.

It is 20 of these larger communities that have been designated to become Territory Growth Towns or hubs.

There has been no transparency about the basis for this selection and no information about what will happen to the other 30 Aboriginal townships with populations of more than 200 people.

Three reasons are cited for this. The first is community control. The study’s report says "mastery and control over life circumstances is a fundamental determinant of good health".

Alyawarr and Anmatyerr are still widely spoken as first languages in the Utopia homelands and traditions, including traditional forms of governance, remain strong.

Second, the region’s health service is community-controlled. The Urapuntja health service provides regular healthcare to all Utopia communities, some of which are 100 km apart.

Third, living on homelands means people can pursue cultural and economic activities at the heart of Alyawarr and Anmatyerr life. People in Utopia live more traditionally - they can access their lands and can hunt for kerr (meat) and merne (vegetables).

Healthy traditions

The conclusion seems clear: people are healthier when control of the community rests with the community and they have access to traditional lands and traditional ways of life.

Rosalie Kunoth Monks is an Alyawarr Anmatyerr elder who lives in Utopia. "All the components of our identity hang on the land,’’ she says. "It incorporates family lineage, family groups, family lands, our law - both ‘law’ and ‘lore’. Break any one of those arms, and sever it from the land, you are committing the death of a race of people."

Dr Kamananda Saraswati from the Urapuntja health service, says the government should take a good look at the report’s findings.

"It demonstrates that if people are given a chance to be in charge in their own context, there is the capacity within that culture to make life-affirming decisions, healthy decisions about the way that they do things," he says.

"This is a living example that it can. It doesn’t mean there are not a lot of problems; there’s still a huge [life expectancy] gap. But we’ve shown that our gap is 30 to 40 per cent less than the gap anywhere else."

Professor Jon Altman, Director of the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research at the Australian National University, also endorses the findings of the report. "In 1979 and 1980 I lived at an outstation [homeland] in western Arnhem Land. I found that livelihood options and wellbeing at outstations were higher than in larger townships," he says.

"Fast forward to 2010, and there is growing evidence from health, social science and environmental experts that there is less overcrowding, better health, livelihood, social and possibly education attendance outcomes from people living on outstations."

The lesson for governments would seem to be that when Aboriginal people’s rights are protected, where they enjoy rights to their land and their culture is strong, their health is better.

Turning back the clock

But governments are not learning this lesson. Instead, they are turning back the clock to reintroduce failed policy from the last century intended to centralise and assimilate Aboriginal people.

As part of National Partnership Agreements between federal, state and territory governments, a policy of centralising services is gradually being implemented. Under these agreements, 20 Indigenous communities in the NT have been choschosen to become Territory Growth Towns or hubs.

Government services, including health and education, will be concentrated in these hubs, which will mean people living in the homelands will have to travel vast distances to access these services.

Professor Altman says the NT Government claims that while it values the contribution of homelands to the economic, social and cultural life of the NT, the bottom line is that it cannot afford to support them properly.

"But some proposals, like transporting kids to hub town schools, are disconnected from both homelands and economic reality," he says. "Many communities are more than 100 km from hubs, connected by seasonally-accessible corrugated roads... Wouldn’t it be more effective to transport teachers to existing schools in homelands than to transport homelands kids to over-crowded and ineffective hub schools?"

Dr Saraswati agrees there are cost benefits for the government in supporting homelands. "From a pure pragmatic point of view, 30 to 40 per cent less chronic disease, that’s 30 to 40 per cent less hospital time, less money spent," he says.

"With this new policy, most of the funding is going into building these towns and supporting people moving into towns and basically living in a modern way.

"The government shouldn’t say ‘They’ve [Utopia communities] proved that they can live in the bush; we’ll let them go and we’ll proceed with our plan in all these other places’. They actually need support. They need housing, sewerage, water... all the basic facilities, but they need them on their homelands so this model will keep working. You can’t just pull the plug on them."

Support culture

For Rosalie Kunoth Monks, it’s about preserving the strength of Aboriginal culture. "We have a different world view, a different value system, that is still alive against the odds in Australia," she says.

"For us to live a meaningful life, we have to be Aboriginal people, with our own languages, with our own world view, with our own value system. For goodness sakes, the era of ‘assimilationist’ attitudes is over. We cannot afford to lose our identity.

"Instead of being mean-spirited, and holding us to ransom we’d rather do without the goodies than lose our identity. What we need, and demand, is our dignity and rightful situation in Australia. We are Australians. We are not reluctant to take up the challenge and own a journey which might take us closer to closing the gap, which Prime Minister Rudd talks about. But he does not have to destroy the spirit or the ethos of who we are."

Sarah Marland is Amnesty International Australia's Demand Dignity campaign coordinator.

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