Gary Highland calls it ‘this nation’s gravest national crisis’. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Tom Calma says ‘it is simply not credible to suggest that a country as wealthy as ours can’t fix a health crisis affecting less than three per cent of our citizens’.

Highland, National Director of Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation, goes on ‘Things have been bad for so long … we’ve come to see an Indigenous child born in 2007 living for 17 years less than a non-Indigenous child as somehow normal and inevitable … a person from Nigeria or Bangladesh can expect to live for about 10 years longer than an Indigenous Australian’.

With only a few days to go in the Australian Federal election we are still to hear from leaders of the Liberal, National and Labor parties anything at all about the country’s foremost domestic issue: the health of Indigenous Australians.

At a time when we could have expected to hear of new political initiatives for this shameful national problem, we have heard, a week before voting day … zilch. Nothing. No mention in John Howard’s main election policy speech, nor in Kevin Rudd’s reply.

This in spite of Australia’s ‘greatest economic boom of any developed country in the world’, according to The Australian. The editorial continued ‘One of the most dispiriting aspects of the election campaign has been the shameless way in which both parties have sought to buy votes in marginal electorates rather than to limit spending to redress real disadvantage - in remote Aboriginal communities, and among the mentally ill’.

The issue was raised on ABC Radio National’s Breakfast program on Friday 16 November, a week before voting day. Presenter Fran Kelly asked three highly experienced political journalists, Michelle Grattan of The Age, Ray Martin of Channel Nine and Steve Lewis of News Limited why Indigenous disadvantage and consequent health problems had not been raised during the election.

Their explanation was alarming. The consensus of opinion was that raising Indigenous issues was a no-no because it would lose votes for that political party. In other words it is assumed there is so little sympathy in the general population for Indigenous suffering any political party advocating positive action would lose votes. It should be hidden, ignored. Like ‘Don’t mention the war!’ in Fawlty Towers.

The quotes from Highland and Calma are from Success Stories in Indigenous Health published by ANTaR, a report which illustrates some remarkable initiatives taken by individuals, communities, and professional organisations to combat severe health problems in Indigenous communities. But some projects may have to be discontinued due to lack of funds. This is where government financial support should come in.

Furthermore, in health problems such as diabetes and heart disease, where diet is fundamental, in remote communities important food items like fruit and vegetables can be as much as 180 per cent more expensive than in major urban centres. This is where the free market system should be abandoned in favour of keeping people alive.

The Australian Medical Association asked for a huge increase in funds for Indigenous health before the past two federal budgets, but was ignored. The Institute of Health and Welfare reported in October that spending on public health had fallen by ten per cent. A doctor said there was a ten-year under-estimation of health resources needed in the Northern Territory.

How can we explain this extreme neglect of a section of the population in the third wealthiest nation in the world (according to United Nations Human Development Indicators)? Why is there not even discussion about the fundamental political and economic factors which have caused community, family and individual poverty, the basic cause of poor health? It is not rocket science: the cause and effect of poor health have been known around the world for centuries.

Is it racism? Would it make a difference if the victims of this system were of a different cultural heritage? Does Indigenous economic and health neglect betray traces of British colonialism?

Or is it social class snobbery? Is the problem that Indigenous folk are among the losers in the economic wars, like the poor in USA or Brazil?

Or is the Indigenous situation simply one aspect of the more general problem of public health? For years we have seen graphic examples of personal problems caused by gross under-funding of public health services throughout Australia: years-long waiting lists; hours-long waiting times in ‘emergency’ departments; women having miscarriages while they wait in hospital out-patient queues; junior staff doing the work of seniors; operations cancelled because qualified staff are not available. In great contrast with the private, usually expensive, medical services used by politicians including ministers of health.

It increasingly smacks of a deliberate policy of under-investment in public services which forces people to find the cash to go private or do without. In his film Sicko, Mike Moore graphically illustrates the problems caused in USA by such a system. It also smack of not caring.

The deliberate nature of this policy suggests Australian governments are following the economic doctrine of Milton Friedman, originator of the Chicago School of Economics and the intellectual guru of US President George W. Bush and his strongly neo-conservative cabinet. Friedman argued there should be no public services for health, education, housing, social welfare or anything else because they should be provided by private companies for profit. Friedman’s disciples have included US Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Chile’s Augusto Pinochet, and other conservative national leaders, apparently including Oz Prime Minister John Howard.

An exquisitely Friedmanesque situation has developed in Iraq. American bombs and shells manufactured by American companies and bought by the American taxpayer for the armed services flatten industrial, domestic and rural areas, with loss of many lives. Then, completing the financial circle, US companies are paid to clear up the mess and rebuild.

But it gets worse. Increasingly the actual fighting war has been taken over by the armed employees of American private ‘security’ companies like Blackwater.

Another Friedman-style project is the reconstruction of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. Former public housing areas have been replaced with up-market gated communities while former tenants languish in evacuee camps. Similarly public schools have been replaced by Charter (private) schools.

Both Iraq and New Orleans illustrate another aspect of the Friedman doctrine. If you asked people if they wanted public services to be replaced by private services those on lower incomes would say no. But when there’s a crisis - a war, a hurricane - people are so focused on basic survival they don’t consider the ramifications of radical changes taking place round them. So supporters of the Friedman theory advocate waiting for, or even causing, a crisis in order to bring about what they see as desirable change. This is why Naomi Klein calls her detailed account of the Friedman theory The Shock Doctrine.

In Australia there is no doubt that public health services, like public housing services, are being run down even though the need for them is great and the Australian economy is booming. The evidence is all too obvious. In the Friedman approach this deterioration is intentional, with private services the victors and public services the casualties. Anyone who can’t afford fees or insurance is also a casualty. In the Friedman approach that’s just tough.

How else to explain the extreme neglect of public health services in one of the wealthiest economies in the world?