Aboriginal Works and Artful Dodgers

Whilst researching for my essay I happened to come across this article;

'Aboriginal Works and Artful Dodgers'
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/09/19/1063625217241.html

The article explains how the exploitation of Indigenous artists in Australia has headlined world news. Art dealers preying on Indigenous people who sometimes only have their artwork to rely on for income beside government payments; purchasing artworks for less than one-tenth of their actual market value... the list goes on.

I found this article to be incredibly shocking! I always knew that there was an issue of exploitation within the Indigenous art industry, however, I didn't realise that it was quite as extreme as this. It saddens me that art dealers are strategically preying on these artists because they know that they need money to live and are quite happy to part with their masterpieces for a small fee if it means that they can provide food and health services for their families. When you look at the profit these pieces make on the international market, it would still remain quite feasible to even pay the artist half of the earnings. And in a market that is continually on the rise, there is safety in knowing that a profit will be generated on every piece of artwork that is auctioned off. What makes me really disappointed is knowing that if these works had been done by a non-Indigenous artist in Australia, they would receive more than adequate payment for their work, as well as benefit from extensive marketing which would land them with more work. Unfortunately, the artists who do produce these works aren't publicised very highly at all, more often than not, their name is simply written in small script next to the description and that is about it.
In my opinion, the laws need to be re-written so that this type of thing stops happening. We hear so much about cross-cultural equality in Australia and how we should make a ban on racism and treat all Australian citizens fairly, however, if acts like this continue to happen, we are really no closer to reaching this equality than we were 50 years ago. Whilst there are artists out there such as Richard Bell and Ryan Presley who are trying to get this message across through their artwork, it isn't enough to get people's attention, and quite frankly, for most non-Indigenous Australians, because they don't know about these happenings, they don't seem to care about it. There needs to be a national campaign enforced to make people care about this issue, then we can have hope that a solution will be found.