If Black lives matter Australia needs to be prepared to examine and address racial violence within the Australian health system.

The statistical story of Indigenous health and death, despite how stark, fails to do justice to the violence of racialised health inequities that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples continue to experience. This story has been reported on unremarkably in federal parliament for over a decade, as an annual account‐keeping exercise of policy failure and statistical targets not met.

This story of failure and failing health has been told countless times in health and medical journal publications, and despite growing more frequent in number, these contributions to new knowledge never seem to translate to improved health outcomes. Tragically, despite the parlous state of Indigenous health, it hasn't been met here with the kind of urgency that the global Black Lives Matter movement has spurred elsewhere.

When the threat of COVID‐19 loomed, action was swift and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leadership within and outside of the health system was even swifter in establishing taskforces, lobbying for additional resources for the community controlled sector, instituting special border control measures for remote Indigenous communities, and the development of emergency response plans to protect their communities. The effective response to the COVID‐19 pandemic sits in sharp contrast to the ongoing pandemic of racism that Indigenous peoples have been fighting since 1788 and which has taken far more Black lives in Australia.

Read the full article at the Medical Journal of Australia.