Impact of Colonialism on Indigenous Community Health in Australia

This essay discusses the impact of colonialism on the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia. It covers topics such as racism, physical inactivity, life expectancy, poor nutrition, unemployment, and more. The essay also explores different policies and legislation implemented by the governing authority to address these issues.

BHCS202 Indigenous
Community Health

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Colonialism has high impact on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people which
created high impact on their lifestyle that created changes in their life. There is high impact of
colonialism which leads to create high impact on individual and people of Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander face different issues like racism, physical inactivity, life expectancy,
unemployment, poor nutrient and many more. In this, essay, there is discussion about different
impact of colonialism that have impacted the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people life. In
this, there is need to ensure about difference legislation which have high impact on the
Indigenous Australian which may include the Aboriginal protection Act, suspension of racial
discrimination act in northern territory and income management. There is also discussion about
the non-Indigenous perspective and non-indigenous perspective (Skelly et. al., (2018)). There is
also discussion about the Australia’s treatment of Indigenous people and Native American
people.
MAIN BODY
Colonialism refers the rebel process in which dependent area or people are controlled by
other power. This is the one in which one power or people uses their potential to rule over the
dependent area of people. This includes the policy of control where one uses their power over
another through establishing colonies along with aiming of dominance economy (Drake, (2018)).
Within Australia, British settlement occurs and begins as the penal colony which was governed
through the captain of royal Navy. Until 1850s, British regular troops garrisoned small colonises
through getting assistance of little local. This leads to create the consequences of colonisation
which created a wave of epidemic disease that include the measles, smallpox and influenza. This
leads to create high negative health impact on the First Nations communities. Here, it leads to
create some consequences which also includes forcing their own language, cultural values and
others.
Here, it leads to the consequences which are associate with European settlement which have
devastating impact on the Indigenous people. This leads to create the situation of diseases,
dispossession of land, exposure of new diseases which are highly affective to their health and
leads to create the situation of death to large number of population. This also lead to creaste the
situation of inequality, disruption, physical inactivity, life expectancy, poor nutrition,

unemployment and racism which includes the culture of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
cultures (Hartwig et. al., (2022)). Due to colonisation, it leads to create high impact on creating
the impact which are associated with creating high level of equality that have impacted
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. There is also health inequality which has been
faced by large number of population that leads to create high impact on health and wellbeing.
Due to creating inequality, it leads to create high negative impact on the delivery of better care
and treatment that are associated with ensuring to focus on their health and wellbeing.
These are some of the impact which has been created due to impact of white people’s
settling of Australia on the Indigenous population.
There is high impact of the colonialism on the Indigenous people which leads to create the
negative situation in the country which includes the racism, inequality, physical inactivity, life
expectancy, poor nutrition, unemployment, displacement and others (van der Walle, (2018)).
Colonialism includes the inequality in the society along with access to healthcare. This
created the situation where higher power forces the lower power and get opportunity to better
access to health and social care. Due to not able to get proper access to healthcare, education and
others, it leads to create high impact on their lifestyle and create the situation of inequality in the
society where rich were able to get access to different service rather than poor people.
It can also be observed that colonialism also create the situation of racism where individual
get the issues of racism on the basis of colour, culture, religion and many more. This have high
impact on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander which created high negative impact. It also leads
to create the situation of poor nutrition that have high negative impact on the Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander people that leads to create different health related disease. Colonialism also
leads to create the situation of not getting better access to health and social care for the
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander that created the health consequences that leads to
unemployment that can lead to create negative impact on delivery of better and effective
response on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. This poor nutrition, unemployment and
physical inactivity impact direct or indirect individual health. Here it is essential to improve the
health and social care that includes effective response towards the situation of Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander people and their livelihood (Fredericks et. al., (2021)).
Colonialism created various consequences which needed to take in consideration and
provide better management to the country and the community. In this, it was necessary to fight

against the consequences which are highly affecting the situation of Australia. To better fight
with the situation of creating racism, inequality, physical inactivity, life expectancy, poor
nutrition, unemployment and others higher ruling authority which are also known as governing
authority has created different policy and legislation. There are some of the area for which
governing authority decided to make some legislation and policy which includes The Aboriginal
protection Act, suspension of Racial Discrimination Act 1975 in Northern Territory, Income
management and many more (Kohnert, 2021)).
The Aboriginal Protection Act includes help to provide better protection to Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander people where it includes the local communities and local guardian to get
appointed for performing the function of this act. This influence to prescribe the place which is
effective and allow to get better care about the effective response towards living or reside,
employment and care, education and custody of Aboriginal children. This act also includes the
compulsory schooling along with residence of children.
There is also high impact of using the policy of income management which is highly
effective and leads to create high impact on the situation of creating budge and their welfare
payment which should be spend on the essentials of life which may include the housing, foods,
education and electricity. This leads to create some foundation in spending of budget which are
provided for the welfare. This can also help to restrict people to reduce and minimise the misuse
of the welfare payment rather than getting essential things like food, medicine, housing, clothing,
healthcare, education (McHugh et. al., (2020)).
There are other many legislation and policy which should be taken in consideration that can
lead to create high impact on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Through
implementing effective policy and legislation allow to get better and effective care which
influence to delivery better response in the community and allow to improve the lifestyle and
quality of living. These policies are also effective and help to recover the impact which has been
create due to the process of colonialism like racism, education, unemployment and many more.
These legislation and policy allows to get better care and impact on creating high impact that are
associated with taking care of response which are associated with reducing the impact of
colonialism that has create high negative impact on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
people (Phillips et. al., (2018)).

Governing body of Australia is trying their best to get recover from the past but it is not
possible to get over through it because it has created high impact on the Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander population. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have the perspective
about the history that it should not have happened which had the high negative impact on their
community of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander. Instead of this, there are non-Indigenous
Australians who thinks that there is need to get over through it. This refers to the positive
perspective that what has happened in past cannot be change but they should focus on their
present and improve their life more effectively which are associated with improving lifestyle and
achieve better quality of life. This is the positive view which can help Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander people to focus on their growth and development rather than getting any type of
impact which are associated with improvement instead of stocking due to past. There is no doubt
that what has happened in the history cannot be forget but living with those is only going to help
and getting developed. So, non-Islander Aboriginal Australian through about continuing the life
process with better effect can help them to grow and create better lifestyle or quality of life
(Kerins et. al., (2018)).
There is some of the differences in treatment of Australia’s Indigenous people and with
other country like America. In Australia Indigenous people gloss over the brutal colonisation
where they get treated brutally which includes that complete communities where get wiped out
by gunfire, burned alive, herded off cliffs, poisonings through using strychnine. They get to
slavery by forcing and culture get wiped out. This includes the neck chain to get connected
through each other when they get carried to the prisons. Here, neck chain was used during the
marched from the homelands to concentration camps, prisons and were forced into slavery.
Women were also get forced into slavery as domestic servants (Lees et. al., (2021)).
Whereas, native American people get treatment which includes the education, here, children
get separate for destroying their tribe and their identity. School children were also get haircut
according to the European style and given some English name. when they found using their own
language this make be punished for using those. They were also forced to go to the Christian
Church services. There was aim to destroy the traditional way of life. There was also impact on
the tradition which leads to create high impact where people were not allowed to were their
traditional cloths. This leads to create high impact on their life (Zeweri, (2020))).

These are some of the example which can help to understand that there is highly impact of
the colonialism which can lead to create high impact on the delivery of getting created through
which leads to create high impact on life of Australian people of Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Aboriginal and Native American people. Both country had faced different issue which was
created high difficulty to deal and provide high negative impact on sharing of effective which
lead to show the negative impact that has been faced by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
that leads to create the situation of faced different issues regarding their culture (Lumbus et. al.,
(2021)).
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, it can be observed that there is large impact of colonialism which leads to
create high negative impact that are associated with taking care of effective learning that can lead
to create high impact on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. These impact may include
racism, unemployment, education, physical inactivity, life expectancy, poor nutrition and many
more. To deal with it, governing authorities has implemented some policy and legislation which
includes the Aboriginal Protection Act, income management policy and many more.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Drake, C. (2018). Cultural Burning and the ongoing impact of colonialism in Australia’. The
Politics of Tradition; International Association for the Study of Traditional
Environments.
Fredericks, B., & Bradfield, A. (2021). Co-Designing Change: Discussing an Indigenous Voice
to Parliament and Constitutional Reform in Australia. M/C Journal, 24(4).
Hartwig, L. D., Jackson, S., Markham, F., & Osborne, N. (2022). Water colonialism and
Indigenous water justice in south-eastern Australia. International Journal of Water
Resources Development, 38(1), 30-63.
Kerins, S., & Jordan, K. (2018). Mining giants, indigenous peoples and art: Challenging settler
colonialism in Northern Australia through story painting. In Environmental Impacts of
Transnational Corporations in the Global South. Emerald Publishing Limited.
Kohnert, D. (2021). The socio-economic impact of Brexit on CANZUK and the Anglosphere in
times of Corona: The case of Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Australia and New
Zealand (May 26, 2021).
Lees, A., Vélez, V., & Laman, T. T. (2021). Recognition and resistance of settler colonialism in
early childhood education: Perspectives and implications for Black, Indigenous, and
Teachers of Color. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 1-18.
Lumbus, A., Fleay, C., Hartley, L. K., Gower, S., Creado, A., & Dantas, J. A. (2021). “I want to
become part of the Australian community”: Challenging the marginalisation of women
resettled as refugees in Australia–Findings from a photovoice project. Australian Journal
of Social Issues.
McHugh, S., McLean, I., & Neale, M. (2020). Notes from a cross-cultural frontier: Investigating
Australian Aboriginal art through podcasts. Notes, 16(4).
Phillips, M. G., & Osmond, G. (2018). Australian indigenous sport historiography: A
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Skelly, E., Kapellas, K., Cooper, A., & Weyrich, L. S. (2018). Consequences of colonialism: a
microbial perspective to contemporary Indigenous health. American Journal of Physical
Anthropology, 167(2), 423-437.
van der Walle, J. (2018). The Settler and the Land: Using Patrick Wolfe’s logic of elimination to
understand frontier violence in Australia’s colonial era. NEW: Emerging Scholars in
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Zeweri, H. (2020). Beyond Response and Representation: Muslim Australian Women
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