THERE is no need for the federal government to commission costly annual reports to understand how the war on closing the gap between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians is progressing: a stroll through any regional Northern Territory town would produce the same distressing answer.
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What is disturbing is that the disparity is seen as a matter of black and white, not an unacceptable chasm that affects every community member, irrespective of the colour of their skin.
The literacy and numeracy rates of indigenous students is appalling, and the NT is home to the lowest proportion of Australian children achieving minimum education standards.
How can we expect these children to become confident, engaged members of the community when they struggle to read and write?
When you study the Territory’s domestic violence statistics, your initial reaction is that the reports are riddled with typographical errors.
Indigenous women make up 73 per cent of domestic violence victims in the NT, and are 22 times more likely to experience it than their non-indigenous counterparts.
It is a shameful revelation that leaves painful, indelible scars on both victims and the community as a whole.
Alcohol abuse has a tremendous impact on the health and lives of indigenous Territorians, while also creating innumerable problems for communities.
The disparity is about people, not black or white.
The sooner we acknowledge that closing the gap is more about basic equality than it is about skin colour, the sooner we can begin to formulate a strategy that will produce long-overdue results for indigenous Australians.