Edmund Rice Justice Bulletin

An average person in the developing countries of Nigeria and Bangladesh can expect to live ten years longer than an Indigenous person in the ‘developed world’ country of Australia. This disturbing statistic taken from the ANTaR website is a reminder of how far Australia still has to travel in order to achieve true justice and reconciliation with its Indigenous people.

In a year when little progress seems to have been made, there were small signs of hope. For example the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee tabled a report in the Federal Parliament which recognized that the practice known as stolen wages, "seriously discriminated” against Indigenous people “across generations” and that “there was compelling evidence that Governments around Australia systematically withheld and mismanaged Indigenous wages and entitlements over decades."

The picture below includes some members of the Seeds of Change group who participated in the recent Long Walk in Melbourne to raise funds for the Sir Douglas Nicholls Fellowship for Indigenous Leadership program and to again attempt to highlight the need for effective action to achieve justice for indigenous Australians.