From The National Council of Churches in Australia 

“It is time for an urgent re-commitment to address the pressing problems faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples”, said Rev. John Henderson, General Secretary of the National Council of Churches in Australia (NCCA), launching the NCCA’s 2006 statement to mark Social Justice Sunday on September 24th.

“The 2006 Social Justice Statement reflects the deep concerns that the member Churches of the NCCA have regarding the continued disadvantage suffered by Indigenous Australians,” Rev. Henderson said.

“While communities and governments have rightly responded to the international ‘Make Poverty History’ campaign based on the Millennium Development Goals, Australians need a similar commitment to Make Indigenous Poverty History.

“To Make Indigenous Poverty History, we believe that what is needed is a fuller and far more effective program of spiritual and material regeneration than currently exists. Indigenous Australia deserves the equivalent of the Millennium Development Goals to provide a real framework of change. At the bedrock must be genuine self-determination and funding commensurate with the size of the problem.

“The media and public attention given to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander issues frequently expresses itself in terms of a shocked moral distance, baffled incomprehension, or fresh forms of stereotyping. Instead, we believe that all Australians need to remember, to recognize, and to rectify the troubled history of Indigenous Australia. In particular we call on all Australians to:

Remember–so that no one can any longer act with surprise at revelations of Indigenous Poverty, or pretend that we do not know why, or how, such injustice persists.
Recognise, and implement the truth of the proposals for change made by representative Indigenous leaders and by national investigations such as the Royal Commissions into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and the ‘Stolen Generations’ report.
Rectify the poverty and neglect which stand as a constant rebuke to our much vaunted values of fairness.

“The member Churches of the NCCA continue to remember and to confess our past and present failures to listen to and love Indigenous Australians properly. We make this pledge to our Indigenous Christian networks through the country: we commit ourselves to rectify the hurts of the past and present, and call on others to join us in this task,” Rev Henderson concluded.

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The NCCA Social Justice Statement 2006 will be launched at Parliament House, Canberra on 13th September 2006 at 11.00 in 1S3. The NCCA Social Justice Statement is available at www.ncca.org.au

To arrange comment contact: Graeme Mundine 0419 238 788.