Great news out this week that the national Department of Health has embarked on a 10-year program to increase the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health workers until their numbers equal that of the broader community.
Announced with the Minister for Indigenous Australians, the project is expected to achieve its goal by 2013.
“The plan aims to lift the rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people working in the sector from the current 1.8 per cent to 3.43 per cent by 2031,” the Minister was reported as saying.
A fine strategy and one to be supported, but we seem to have our nomenclature misguided.
According to Mr Oxford, the meaning of ‘indigenous’ is: “Born or produced naturally in a land or region”, a definition that would seem to include everyone born in Australia, not just those who were here first.
At the risk of being less indigenous and more accurate in referring to our first nations, PS-sssst! would argue that the title ‘Aboriginal’ is much more accurate.
Not only does it avoid including the broader community, “Aboriginal” as a word comes equipped with the more appropriate word ‘original’ already inside it.
Weighting well!
To the wonderful world of overweightness now where World Obesity Day was in the spotlight earlier this month, creatively observed by the Western Australian Department of Health.
Sadly reporting that two in three Western Australian adults and one in four of their children tipped the scales above a healthy weight, the Department unveiled a creative new initiative aimed at overcoming oversize, overweight and obesity.
It launched a ‘Collaboration’ under the title Weight Education and Lifestyle Leadership in the hope the community will pick it up and consider, talk about and manage their weights to improve their healths.
And the reason PS-sssst! has pointed its paunch at WA’s Collaboration?
Because the Weight Education and Lifestyle Leadership comes with a nifty little acronym that weighs in as WELL, the purpose of losing weight in the first place!
PS creativity at its best!
Careering for free
Competition time now with the winners of Rama Gaind’s weekly giveaway, this week the lucky readers will receive the workplace bible Managing Your Career from the Harvard Business Review.
To join Rama’s army of winners, all we needed do was tell her what the ‘working parent career management’ was all about.
The answer was that ‘working parent career management wasn’t an either/or, it’s about bringing new elements into the mix’, an answer that Katherine N from the national Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment, Scott M from the Commonwealth Department of Health, and Gwen T from the Queensland Department of Resources all managed to identify as well as be the first correct entries to scramble out of the PS News Barrel of Booty.
Congratulations to all the winners and thanks to everyone who took part. The prize books will be on the way to their new owners shortly.
For another chance to join Rama’s world of winners visit her latest review of the Book A Fraction Stronger at this PS News link and to double your luck, try her second free offer at the Book Daughter of the River Country at this link.
Good luck to everyone who does.
Words at work
And finally another of the ever clever Philomena S’s reflection of the English language and how it has so much fun stumbling on itself.
This week she’s exposes transport.
“When you transport something by car it’s called a shipment” Philomena points out movingly.
“But when you transport something by a ship it’s called a cargo!”
Till next week…..
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