Page 2751 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 16 August 2005
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The evidence supports the need for new and expanded services, and for the improvement of existing services, so as to better address the physical, emotional and social problems of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander illegal drug users in our community.
I want to look at a few of the report’s recommendations in detail. The report says that there should be collaboration between government organisations and Aboriginal organisations on how best to establish an Aboriginal-run residential treatment centre. This service would include a focus on learning about culture and Aboriginal identity, close contacts with family members and life skills learning programs. Aboriginal facilitators will be employed alongside professionally trained treatment personnel. This is a recommendation on which the ACT government could start work now. As urgent as the need is, there must be good discussion and it may take some time to assemble or train the work force required. It was disappointing not to see additional measures in the budget for indigenous health.
Under the heading Funding of Aboriginal Alcohol and Other Drug Services, the report says that there needs to be an increased level of funding support from the ACT, New South Wales and Australian governments. We must remember that our indigenous population in the ACT is highly mobile throughout our region. This increase of funding would assist the services to fully implement the findings of the report. It will be interesting to hear from the ACT government how it is going in negotiations with those other governments to increase this funding; hence the poignancy of my earlier point about the ACT government’s inability, so far, to get together a program to spend commonwealth funding.
It is also interesting to note that the Australian Medical Association in January 2005 called on the federal government to increase its funding for indigenous health by $400 million a year. The executive summary of the AMA budget submission to the federal government states:
Now is the time for our Governments and all Australians to extend this goodwill to the first Australians—the Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders of this great country of ours. The health and living conditions of many indigenous Australians is at Third World level. For some, it is below Third World level. This is unacceptable in 21st Century Australia.
The I want to be heard report also says that policies and programs developed to deal with the issue of the use of illicit drugs should be subject to systematic evaluation and modified as required. As a general comment, I note that there will need to be a properly trained workforce, especially including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people, if we are to properly deliver on the recommendations of the I want to be heard report.
We already have some initiatives in place in the ACT. The 2004-2005 budget provided $140,000 for the first year for two outreach workers at Gugan Gulwan Youth Aboriginal Corporation and Winnunga Nimmityjah Aboriginal Health Service, and I might leave the government to tell us what it is doing. Health was one of the areas that received priority funding in the ACT budget, so again it was a surprise not to see additional and extra resources to indigenous health generally, but also any initiatives specifically to address
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