Constitutional Change Will Usher in Better Health Outcomes for Aboriginals: Minister

Children play football on the street on Tiwi Island on the December 23, 2007. Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

Australia’s federal health minister has continued the government’s campaign for changing the Constitution saying it will result in better outcomes for Indigenous communities.

“Year after year, we hear the same reports of the yawning gap in health outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians,” said federal Labor Health Minister Mark Butler, in an opinion piece.

“There is an eight-year life expectancy gap between Indigenous Australians and non-Indigenous Australians.”

Mr. Butler said Indigenous Australians faced problems like fatal rheumatic heart disease and trachoma, noting that 90 percent of vision loss by the community was preventable.

Australian Minister for Health and Aged Care Mark Butler speaks at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, on July 28, 2022 . Martin Ollman/Getty Images

“In Australia, trachoma is found primarily in regional and remote First Nations populations. Australia has the dubious honour of being the only high-income country where trachoma is endemic,” the minister said.

“With one in 30 Indigenous children aged five to nine contracting trachoma, Australia is not on track to eliminate the condition as a public health issue in First Nations communities.”

Trachoma is a preventable eye infection caused by the bacteria chlamydia trachomatis.

If the condition is not treated, it can cause your eyelids to turn inwards, creating a condition called trichiasis, where your eyelashes rub on your eyeball, causing pain and damaging the surface of your eye. Repeated infections of trachoma can lead to blindness.

The minister said an Indigenous Voice to Parliament would facilitate more input from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders to take part in the decision-making process of politics.

In a few weeks, Australians will go to the polls to vote on a national referendum to decide whether to alter the preamble of the Constitution (to include recognition of Indigenous people) and to create a near-permanent advisory body to the Parliament and executive.

The body would have the power to “make representations” on all matters deemed relevant to Indigenous people.

Campaign for The Voice Losing Support

Yet as the campaign continues, public support has dwindled, with voters in Queensland, New South Wales, Western Australia, and South Australia now looking unfavourably towards the proposal.

Meanwhile, the lead advocate against The Voice, Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, is pushing for a parliamentary inquiry into the billions of taxpayer funds already funnelled into Indigenous groups.

Senator and shadow minister for Indigenous Australia Jacinta Price speaks at CPAC Australia in Sydney, Australia, on Aug. 19, 2023. Wade Zhong/The Epoch Times

“At the moment, my colleagues and I are working to get an inquiry into the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land councils and governing bodies,” Ms. Price told the Conservative Political Action Conference—Australia in Sydney.

“I want to find out how the billions and billions of taxpayer dollars going into these organisations are actually been spent year in, year out. I want to know what’s working and what isn’t so that we can actually properly aim our resources to help those who are most in need,” she said.

The senator said questions had already been put to different Indigenous bodies to ascertain how funds were being spent, but no response has been received.

“After questions that my Coalition colleagues and I put to [the government] on behalf of you and all Australians … they’re only too happy to ignore us and ignore you, as well as our most marginalised,” she said.

The date of the The Voice referendum is set to be announced in the coming weeks.