In less than 60 years the people of my tribe have gone from being an independent nation, to cultural prisoners, to welfare recipients   . Is it any wonder that there are so many problems facing indigenous   Australians today? When I was growing up in Kowanyama there were 15 people in my class, I am the only one who has gone to university. I'm also the only girl in my class who did not have a child at 15. Of the boys in my class, seven have been incarcerated, two for murder, five for robbery and rape. Only three of us are not alcoholics. Four of my classmates have committed suicide. Life as a young aborigine is not easy, in any setting. The story of my fellow students is a lesson in the magnitude of the problems that young indigenous people in Cape York face. The two issues that are central to changing this story are education and health. There is a huge gap between what we get in communities and what other kids get in cities. One of the problems facing education in remote indigenous schools is that teachers tend to be just out of training and stay for only a year or two. Not one teacher stayed for the whole of my nine years at school--not even the principals. This seeming lack of commitment makes you feel they don't care. We need to review the curriculum in these communities because it is pitched at a very low level. I have had to draw the conclusion that governments and educationalists see us as less than white people. Education should be uplifting, not serve to reinforce lack of self-esteem and the heart-wrenching low expectations that our race suffer from. We need a massive reassessment of,education policies and an equally massive investment in education. We have spent so long listening to some white fellows telling us we are stupid, lazy no-hopers that the majority of my people actually believe it. The relationship between poor education and poor health is clear. People whose self-esteem and pride have been destroyed by a substandard education system and a social system that creates an addiction to passive welfare have little reason to live healthy lives. Our health is getting worse. The policies that determine the delivery of health services are deeply flawed by a bureaucracy   that does not want to hear our voices. Health services are often confined to the clinic. It is problems and challenges such as these that led me to stand in last October's ATSIC election. ATSITC is more than the board of commissioners and the Canberra bureaucracy. ATSIC is also people who are from community and work hard for community. We recognize that governments cannot solve our problems for us. As young people we are trying to take responsibility for our future. I ask the Prime Minister, not that he fixes these problems for us but that he and his Government see us as equal partners in the huge task of rebuilding our families, communities and Cape York Peninsula. He demonstrated his commitment by engaging his Government at the family and domestic violence summit. My view is that the level of domestic violence and child abuse sums up all that has been wrong with Aboriginal policy. .We need a new relationship to address this frightening reality in our lives. Aboriginal people are reluctant to admit that young girls and women are being raped by their own people because of the blanket of shame.              * I am asking you to help lift that blanket. I stand here as a proud Aboriginal woman, a Kokoberra woman as well as a criminologist, and I thank you for your time and attention. Tania Major, 22, is an ATSIC regional councilor and a trainee manager at her home community of Kowanyama on Cape York. This is an edited version of an address she is scheduled to give at a meeting between the Prime Minister and Cape York leaders (full text at smh. com. an). What is the main idea of the passage?
ATSIC doesn't serve the people because of its incompetence and bureaucracy. The aboriginal people can learn to be responsible for their future if treated equally. The government has adopted fresh policies related to the delivery of health services. The biggest problems facing the aboriginal people are domestic violence and child abuse.