Cheryl Axleby: Budget ignores solutions and damages our communities
Author: Cheryl Axleby
‘Cheryl Axleby is a proud Narungga woman with family ties across South Australia.
Cheryl is the co-chair of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services (NATSILS).’
‘Yet again, our people have been let down with this year’s Federal Budget.
‘The investment in our communities is more eroded,
our quality of life more diminished,
our voices and needs more blatantly ignored.
‘While the Budget seeks to commemorate colonisation,
it fails to address its ongoing consequences and the oppression
that our people continue to experience.
‘The most alarming aspects of the Budget further stack the system
against our people and punish people living in poverty.
‘As a co-chair of NATSILS, I have been actively involved in trying to engage with governments
to provide insight and solutions into justice and social issues we face,
and the need for greater investment. It is disheartening that they are not listening,
and actively doing damage to our communities. …
Time for change
‘We remain unheard.
Our national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander representative bodies
are not invited to sit at the table with government.
Our communities are not meaningfully involved in the reform process.
And now the poorest amongst us will be punished for the ongoing effects of colonisation.
‘There are solutions.
Many of these were set out by our organisations in the 2016 Redfern Statement.
Now we continue to wait for the Government to act on their commitment to
“do things with us, not to us”.’
Read more of Cheryl Axleby‘s significant, comprehensive & thought-provoking article
under the following themes: Housing; Welfare & CDP; Closing the Gap; Justice:
indigenousx.com.au/cheryl-axleby-budget-ignores-solutions/
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