Sorry, but not sorry enough

By Adam Creighton
Posted Friday, 7 March 2008

Australia entered 2008 one of the richest nations, both on paper and on the ground. Far from fearing recession like Europe and America, Australia bursts into its 17th year of uninterrupted economic growth with its currency surging to 23-year highs, its unemployment rate approaching 4 per cent, and its weekly wages more than 20 per cent higher than in the United States and Britain (not to mention the cheaper cost of living). Swimming pools and rumpus rooms adorn working class homes, and for almost everyone a sandy beach is but a two-hour drive away.

Yet for the descendents of Australia’s original inhabitants, its half-million Aborigines, this success has proved as remote as the Great Sandy Desert. Male Aboriginal life expectancy, at less than 61 years, is less than Cambodia’s, while Australia’s as a whole is higher than Switzerland’s.