INDIGENOUS ISSUES IN AUSTRALIAN SPORT

Abstract

Australia's Aborigines, once thought to be a doomed Stone Age race, today command attention for their artistic work, music and dance, their writing and above all, perhaps, their sporting achievements. While indicators like infant mortality, life expectation, poor nutrition, poverty, high unemployment, high rates of imprisonment and substance abuse affect their daily lives, sport has been an avenue to recognition and even adulation, especially in the stadium sports of  Australian football, rugby league, rugby union, filed hockey and boxing. Aborigines in rural and remote areas have little access to sport facilities, despite evidence that sport not only enhances lives and sustains health but deflects the very high rates of youth suicide.
Keywords: Sport. Indigenous. Australia.