Australia cuts funding for quit-smoking initiatives among its indigenous people

Cuts to Australia’s Tackling Indigenous Smoking program in this year’s budget will contribute to the early deaths of Aboriginal smokers, according to a story by Sarah Dingle for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation quoting warnings by a former race discrimination commissioner.

The program’s budget is $65 million a year, but Tom Calma said a decision had been made to cut funding by $130 million over five years—effectively more than a third of the program’s annual funding.

In the 1940s more than 70 percent of non-Indigenous Australian men were smokers, a figure that has been cut to 20 percent.

But Calma said indigenous Australia had been left behind. “In the indigenous population, it’s around about 42 percent of our people smoke, so it’s over double the smoking incidence of the general population,” he said.

“But in some of our remoter communities, we know that it’s as high as 70 percent.”

Such high smoking rates are said to have significant implications for the life expectancy of indigenous Australians.

A spokesperson for Assistant Health Minister Fiona Nash said the government was committed to addressing tobacco-related illness in indigenous people.

The spokesperson said a review of the current program would ensure that funding was directed toward services that delivered results.