Research Fellow, Indigenous Affairs Research Program
Sara’s research on issues affecting Indigenous Australians, includes an examination of the Community Development Employment Program, 99-year leases and Indigenous homeownership, and the lack of accountability in Indigenous health.
Since joining the CIS in 2008, Sara has had numerous articles published in newspapers around the country. These have mainly focused on Indigenous employment, welfare, housing and health but Sara has also written on the permit system in the Northern Territory, men’s violence and crime. Before joining the CIS Sara worked as a policy advisor for the New Zealand Department of Labour, and in the Evaluation Unit of the New Zealand Police. She has a Bachelor of Arts with first-class honours in criminology and anthropology from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.
Posted: 8:00 am on 17th May 2012
In a media release on the Indigenous Affairs part of the 2012 Budget, the federal government insists it ‘will continue to prioritise access to the new program for people seeking to move into home ownership on Indigenous land’ – but this is a furphy. The government is well aware that people living on Indigenous land will not be able to access money from the new Indigenous homeownership program as long…
Posted: 8:00 am on 15th May 2012
The Sydney Morning Herald is running a poll asking if Australians are Racist. So far 74% of respondents say yes and 26% say no. Some of the commentators include Larissa Berendt who argues that Australia is a racist country because Aboriginal people have a shorter life expectancy. However, there are many reasons why their life expectancy is shorter than the average Australian. Berendt also claims that institutional racism is rampant…
Posted: 8:50 am on 8th May 2012
As a child of divorced parents, I found myself relating to a recent article by Bettina Arndt in The Australian (‘Divorced parents decry own selfishness’). Arndt mentions how a debate has begun in Britain on whether parents who divorce are selfish – after social commentator Tim Lott admitted that although he had convinced himself that his children wouldn’t want to grow up exposed to an unhappy marriage, he no longer…
Posted: 1:25 pm on 4th May 2012
An article by Ben Jellis in the Sydney Morning Herald today about England going a little too safety mad reminded me of a conversation I’d had with my sister on a recent visit to the UK. Jellis recounts how he counted not one but eight security cameras on a bus while he was living there. Further proof that England is becoming more and more risk averse is the announcement this…
Posted: 5:34 pm on 13th April 2012
In the wake of the release of my report Charlatan Training: How Aboriginal Health Workers are Being Short-changed, I have been accused of calling Aboriginal Health Workers (AHWs) charlatans. This statement grossly misinterprets what I said. I did not blame Aboriginal health workers; rather, I blamed the system and the Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) for failing AHWs with substandard training. The fact that some AHWs - with Certificate IV in Aboriginal…
