Discrimination as a cause of poverty in Aboriginal communities: Measuring implementation of the right to non-discriminatory and equitable access to health care services of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples

The question of whether the communal and inalienable nature of statutory land rights and native title land are perpetuating poverty within Indigenous communities has been central to the debate on changes to Aboriginal communal landownership in Australia (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner 2005: 8). As justification for changing property law in this area, the Howard Government asserted that communal title is a key factor in causing and maintaining Aboriginal poverty (Reeves 1998). This analysis of the causes of Aboriginal poverty has been criticized by most leading Aboriginal representatives as simplistic (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner 2005: 8), because it ignored the devastating impact of colonization on Aboriginal peoples, as well as ongoing systemic discrimination and inequities affecting, inter alia, access to basic services including health care services (Jones 2005; Pearson 2005; Wilson and Hodge 2005).