The Australian Bite
Wheelchair tennis, indigenous employment & a brave young man from PNG
10 February 2011
Listen and download: MP3
This week on the Australian Bite, closing the gap in indigenous employment – we hear from CEO of the Aboriginal Employment Strategy, Danny Lester. We catch up with a couple of young Aussie tennis champions – who play the sport in wheelchairs, and we meet seven year old Gregory Jack from Papua New Guinea, who until some life-changing surgery at the Royal Children’s Hospital was unable to close his eyes.
Closing the gap in indigenous employment
It’s almost three years since Australia’s then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivered his historic apology to indigenous Australians and pledged to close the gap on indigenous disadvantage. Six target areas were named, the first being the aim of closing the gap in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians within a generation. Last Wednesday, the Prime Minister Julia Gillard delivered the latest progress report to Parliament, and admitted that that goal would be extremely difficult to achieve. However, there was some good news: Ms Gillard said two of the six targets are within reach.
They are, importantly, halving the rate of infant mortality for indigenous children under the age of five by 2018, and also providing access to early childhood education for all indigenous four-year olds in remote communities by 2013.
There was also some good news on the jobs front, with 16,000 Indigenous Australians starting employment in 2010. Danny Lester is the CEO of the Aboriginal Employment strategy, which is a national, not-for-profit recruitment company for indigenous Australians, and he spoke to Fran Kelly.
Wheelchair Tennis
When the top international tennis stars left Rod Laver Arena and the courts at Melbourne Park a few weeks ago, Australia’s best-ranked Wheelchair Tennis players were still battling it out at the Australian Wheelchair Tennis Open. But very few people knew it. While the sport may have a low profile, Australia’s Top Wheelchair Tennis juniors are just as committed as the able-bodied players. And as Triple J Hack reporter Alex Mann found out, getting publicity is only part of the challenge facing the sport’s players.
Life-changing surgery helps PNG youngster
It’s a long way from a remote tropical island in Papua New Guinea’s Milne Bay Province, to the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne. But that’s where seven year old Gregory Jack has come from. He’s been in Melbourne since December to receive life-changing surgery for a genetic disorder called Crouzon’s Syndrome, which affects the skull and facial bones of infants and children. Gregory has come to Australia in the care of his uncle, Paison Vilen, and they joined Heather Jarvis in the studio along with David Barnes from Rotary, the organisation that has sponsored Gregory’s treatment and looked after him in Melbourne.
Music: (not in podcast)
Melbourne folk-pop outfit The Little Stevies, with Feel It, from their forthcoming album Attention Shoppers, due for release in early March
Artist: The Little Stevies
Track: Feel It
Album: Attention Shoppers (March 2011)
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