Bush Talks.

Overview & Synopsis

Bush Talks is an initiative of the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission that aims to identify the major human rights issues confronting rural and remote residents, to inform rural Australians about human rights, and to develop projects to advance human rights in rural Australia. This paper summarizes major issues raised by rural residents via 26 community hearings, 94 telephone comments, and 53 written submissions during 1998. These issues are: providing basic health services, ensuring fair access to education, meeting other essential needs, valuing children and young people, and building communities. Recurring themes are: consolidating services into larger regional centers has resulted in shortages of services and facilities that deprive rural residents of their rights; government funding of services on a per capita basis results in inadequate rural programs; and discrimination and insensitivity to Indigenous people, youth, aged people, immigrants, and those with disabilities leads to unequal treatment of these groups. Rural Australians do not have equal access to education. Distance education, although adequate for primary education, is a poor substitute for secondary education, and the telecommunications infrastructure is inadequate in much of rural Australia. Low expectations and culturally insensitive practices discourage Indigenous people from completing school, and students with disabilities or special needs are not well served. Tertiary education is available only in capital cities. Each section describes an issue, drawing on rural residents' comments, and presents proposals for addressing it, examples of successful initiatives, and forthcoming Commission projects addressing the issue. (TD)