black-australia:

clocks-divorcing-ticks:

I haven’t seen enough people talking about this, so I want to reiterate: the budget is cutting 534 million dollars from Indigenous support programs. Being slashed is:

• 150 Indigenous programs will be reduced to 5
• Approximately $160 million from Indigenous Health Services
• Funding for Indigenous languages is being cut by 10 million
• Funding for The National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples (the national representative body for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders run BY Indigenous persons) is being cut

This from a people already plagued by systemic racism and poverty. A people living with diseases caused by poor living conditions, diseases that every other developed country and many others poorer than ours have long since eradicated. A people for whom the Stolen Generation isn’t only a thing of the past, but a continuing horror. A people whose life expectancy, median age, literacy and employability are significant lower than white Australians. A people who are 14 times more likely to be imprisoned. A people whose land and culture and language is still being taken from them.

This on top of everything else the rest of us have to deal with. Many Indigenous people already struggling with health issues the rest of us don’t have to will be crippled by the cost to visit a GP and obtain prescription medication. And with Indigenous life expectancy being 69 for men and 74 for women [and as low as 37 in the poorest communities], many won’t even reach the new pension age requirement of 70. 

The self-proclaimed Minister of Indigenous Affairs Tony Abbott has thrown the First Australians under the figurative bus more so than any other demographic. 

But don’t worry. The Abbott government is investing something into the Indigenous community: 54 million dollars on more police and police stations in Indigenous communities. 

I’m so angry I can’t breathe. 

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again. The 2014 Federal Budget is a direct attack upon Indigenous Australians peoples. This cannot be allowed to go ahead.