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Poverty still the indigenous normDespite gains, Aboriginal Australians lag behind other groupsBy Geoff Hiscock  Aborigines march to the New South Wales Parliament in 2004. YOUR E-MAIL ALERTSSYDNEY, Australia (CNN) -- Australia's indigenous population has witnessed significant changes in their status and well being under John Howard's stewardship as prime minister, but remain poorer than other Australians. While most of the changes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders have been designed to give them a better chance in life, government reports show that on every measure they are overwhelmingly less well-off than their fellow citizens. According to the 2005 Social Justice Report by Commissioner Tom Calma, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders have a lower life expectancy (by 17 years) and their infant mortality rate is three times that of the non-indigenous rate. They are more likely to have chronic and communicable diseases, poorer mental health and more disabilities. Their average income is only 62 percent of the non-indigenous rate, their educational standards are lower, they are more likely to be unemployed, they have higher stress rates, poorer access to primary health care and inadequate diets. Individual Aboriginal Australians have found success -- most prominently in sports, where athlete Cathy Freeman, boxer Anthony Mundine and Rugby player Wendell Sailor are some of the best known. On the political front, Aboriginal Australians have made some gains among the community, with "native title" land rights a more widely accepted concept. But their appeal for a national apology over the "stolen generations" -- Aboriginal children removed from their parents and placed in foster care, and a "sorry day" to mark the European takeover of Australian in 1788, have met with little sympathy from Howard's conservative coalition government. Opposition to 'black armband' viewHoward is a vigorous opponent of what is known as the "black armband" view of Australia's past, which he says reflects a belief that most Australian history since 1788 has been "little more than a disgraceful story of imperialism, exploitation, racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination." Howard, who calls the history debate a battle between optimists and apologists, set out his view most forthrightly on November 18, 1996. It was then -- eight months after he came to power -- that he delivered a lecture honoring Sir Robert Menzies, Australia's longest-serving leader (1939-41 and 1949-1966) and the politician most admired by Howard. "I take a very different view (to the black armband one). I believe that the balance sheet of our history is one of heroic achievement and that we have achieved much more as a nation of which we can be proud than of which we should be ashamed," he said. Howard acknowledged in 1996 that Aborigines had been treated very badly in the past. "But to tell children who themselves have been no part of it, that we're all a part of a racist bigoted history is something that Australians reject." Eight years later, some of the frustration felt by indigenous people welled up in a February 2004 riot in the inner Sydney suburb of Redfern, an area that is a focal point for urban Aborigines. How the police handled the riot prompted more attention on building better relations with Aboriginal community leaders. Last year, the Howard government abolished the peak indigenous body, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), which for the previous 15 years had largely controlled the flow of money to various Aboriginal groups. The government called the change momentous and said "vested interests" would no longer stand in the way of better treatment for indigenous people. How successful the process becomes remains to be seen. When Europeans first began to settle Australia in the late 18th century, they encountered groups of indigenous peoples who spoke hundreds of different languages and had distinct traditions and cultures across different regions. While the size of that indigenous population cannot be known for certain, a figure of around 750,000 people is generally accepted. Today, about 470,000 of Australia's 20 million people identify themselves as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander -- people descended from the country's original inhabitants. 
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