Deconstructing the Question: Why are not Aborigines Interested in Being Successful?

Running head: NURSING ASSIGNMENT
Nursing assignment
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1NURSING ASSIGNMENT
The main purpose of the essay is to deconstruct the question-‘Why are not Aborigines
interested in being successful?’ and bring forward new questions and argument to find out ‘why
certain group in Australia has raised such question against the Aboriginals? The essay critically
analyzes such racist discriminatory question against the Aboriginals by exploration of the past
history and current privileges or disadvantages prevalent in the group.
Before starting with the deconstruction, a short overview of the Aboriginal is necessary to
understand their status in Australia. There is a need to think why they are regarded as the most
disadvantaged group in Australia? Exploration into the past history gives a brief insight into the
reason for such comment for the group. The argument is that they are regarded as the stolen
generation because of forceful removal of indigenous children from their parents during 1910-
1970. This removal occurred under the policy of assimilation which left behind an era of trauma
and loss for indigenous communities and families (Australian Together 2017). The Assimilation
policy had an impact on all the social determinants of health in indigenous people such as the
education, income, employment, housing and social relationship. Hence, one can defend for
Aboriginal by the question that whether Assimilation policy was a barrier in being successful in
life? It might be a factor because migration and settlement in new land was a reason for huge
indigenous disadvantage and unemployment issues in Aboriginals (Mitrou et al. 2014). However,
conclusion cannot be made unless the aboriginal’s life experience is analyzed in-depth. This to
see whether they are not interested in being successful or certain experiences in their life
prevents them from being successful.
The first question that arises while deconstructing the question is that -‘Why are not
aborigines interested in being successful? What event or statistics made Australians to think that
they are not successful in life? The indigenous statistics gives idea about the slow progress of

2NURSING ASSIGNMENT
aboriginals in their life includes data related to unemployment and low life expectancy. For
instance, the life expectancy data of indigenous Australians has revealed great gap in life
expectancy between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. In the past 125 years, the life
expectancy at birth for Australian population has increased by 30 years, however one-third to
one-half gap in life expectancy has been found in aboriginals (2017 HPF Report - 1.19 Life
expectancy at birth, 2017). . For the year 2012, the life expectancy for male was lower by 10.6
years compared to other group and in case of female, it was lower by 9.5 years (Australian
Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) 2017). With such statistics, the question related to
-‘Why are not aborigines interested in being successful?’ can be justified. However, this also
gives rise to another question. Are the low life expectancy statistics not related to socioeconomic
issues in their life? The argument related to the question can be given by the evidence by the
evidence that socioeconomic issues in indigenous Australians such as racism, poverty, life
stressors and employment status was found to play a role in engaging in risk behavior and poor
health outcome in the group (Kelaher, Ferdinand & Paradies 2014).
Although the Australian government and their policy direction is blamed for poor
progress of indigenous people in health outcome and employment, however some section also
believes that aboriginals have little motivation or interest to improve their life (Dillon 2017).
This argument gives rise to a question-‘Are Aboriginal really not interested in being successful
in their lives?’. The argument against the question can be presented by looking at impact of
racial discrimination on employment opportunities for Aboriginals. In terms of social
determinant of health, economy and employment status of aboriginals is considered to be one
factor that increases the health and quality of life related disparities between indigenous and non-
indigenous Australians. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics data, only 46 % of