Regardless of how much time or money you have to share with ANTaR, there will be ways that you can help us continue the fight for justice for Indigenous Australians.

Before you do anything else, subscribe to our email bulletin (see the khaki box on the right) so you can get updates on ways you can help and the effect you're having.

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How your actions are having an impact

Indigenous health equality - fulfilling the Government's funding commitments

At the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting on 29 November, Australia’s state and federal heads announced they will invest significant new funds into Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health.

The federal government will contribute $806 million and the states will collectively contribute $772 million over the next four years. This is the biggest single injection of Indigenous health spending in decades.

COAG has made a real commitment towards Closing The Gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians by committing funding to back up the promises they made earlier in the year.

Congratulations to everybody who has participated in the Close The Gap campaign – and its forerunner, ANTaR's Healing Hands campaign. Collectively we have achieved this outstanding result.

The Secret 7 are off the hook (for now), but a comprehensive plan to tackle disadvantage is still needed.

Help ANTaR continue its campaigning efforts by donating today.

Seven steps campaign

Prior to the federal election last November, ANTaR promised that we would seek meetings with both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, to urge them to adopt a cross-party approach to the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians.

Thank you for helping us to do this by making a donation and signing the Seven Steps for Justice pledge.

So ... how is the government going?

Close The Gap campaign

Since the Close the Gap campaign was launched in April 2007, over 100,000 people have signed the pledge calling for government action to close the 17-year life expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians within a generation.

A month after the historic parliamentary apology to the Stolen Generations, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and then-Opposition Leader Dr Brendan Nelson signed a statement of intent with Indigenous health leaders committing both sides of politics to the major long-term task of closing the gap.

Now, these good intentions need to be followed by action.

The Close The Gap steering committee, lead by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Tom Calma, and including ANTaR, have presented the government with a detailed plan of the targets needed to close the gap.

At the National Indigenous Health Summit that ANTaR helped organise in late March, the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader signed an historic Statement of Intent with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health leaders signaling a new partnership to closing the 17 year life expectancy gap.

However, funding in the recent budget fell short of what is required to achieve this. For that reason, ANTaR recently ran a campaign calling on the Government to allocate a significant portion of its new $10 billion Nation Building Health Fund to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health (the Secret 7 campaign).

COAG announced in late November additional funding for Indigenous health. ANTaR is very pleased with the result, and released a public statement congratulating supporters and COAG alike.

COAG has announced it will hold a special Close The Gap meeting sometime in 2009. ANTaR will be lobbying the five federal ministers responsible for the key social determinates of health in the lead-up to the meeting. We will also be contacting each Premier and their Ministers in relation to their approach in implementing the funding and expanding their commitments to the Close the Gap targets.

Stay tuned for more actions in the lead-up to the COAG meeting!