Through the Outback -

Through the Outback -
“There’s complex reasons for that,” Superintendent Moore said, referring to his town, whose population is about 40 percent Aboriginal, as “quite an eclectic blend,
because we have 22 separate language groups represented.” He said he had tried to learn some of the local tongues.
At the same time, Aboriginal Australians are a growing presence, a majority in many small towns losing white residents
to bigger cities: They are 3 percent of Australia’s people, but a quarter of those in remote areas.
“It takes them down this pathway of more misery,” she said, adding: “I hear young people, as young as 7, say, ‘I am going to kill myself.’”
Suicide was, indeed, the leading cause of death for Aboriginals
and Torres Strait Islanders ages 15 to 34 from 2011 to 2015, according to the bureau of statistics.
He worried that young people were leaving the bush for the city, saying: “If we give up our land, we give up our identity.”
It was fascinating, throughout my trip, to hear so many different people in so many
places reflect on the changes they had seen in their hometowns, their homeland.
Warn said she went shopping only once every two weeks, adding, “You have to be organized living out here.”
“I like the remoteness,” she added.
“I like people, and meeting people, and that sort of thing, but I like to be able to walk away and go back to my own area.