Philip Kimmet
RE: Submission_ Funding for the Eradication of Trachoma
Dear Board,
Australian Aborigines are the only community living in the developed world that still suffers from significant levels of trachoma, a debilitating disease causing blindness. It is eminently treatable. For $20 million Australia could wipe it out, as has every other country in the developed world, not to mention developing nations such as India, Vietnam and Morocco, to name a few. Instead, rates of this disease amongst Australian Indigenous people are amongst the highest in the world.1
The emergency response does not provide any extra funds for housing, health, education or infrastructure. On the contrary, Manderson has demonstrated that in some ways funding to Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory has been diminished as a result of the NTER legislation.2
I humbly submit that the failure to allocate sufficient funding to eradicate trachoma in Northern Territory Indigenous communities makes a mockery of the fundamental premise of the NTER – to significantly improve health and living conditions for Indigenous people. For a modest sum, very significant gains can be made in the battle against trachoma. I strongly urge the NTER Review Board to recommend the allocation of sufficient and specific funding to this most worthy of causes.
Yours sincerely,
Philip Kimmet