ACCORDING to the law of averages, Kenny Moylan should have died a year ago.
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But there is nothing average about the jolly 60-year-old boom gate operator, former singing bus driver and one-time employee of the month at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.
He worked from age 14, played rugby league until 45 and cricket until 52, and hasn't had a beer in 27 years.
"That's the key to my longevity, if you can call it that. For 14 years, I drank anything … I had a big problem with it.
"At 33 I stopped drinking and all my faculties grew back. I learned about self-worth, pride and most importantly who I was and where I came from."
Lately the Gumbanyngirr man, born in Kempsey and raised on the Bellwood mission near Nambucca Heads, has been crunching some other numbers.
"It's the Government's statistics that say we die 17 years younger, so why have we got to wait until 65 to access the pension? I see that as an open and shut case of discrimination.
"I could count on one hand the people I grew up with who are still alive and three or four of them are on dialysis."
Nic Patrick, pro bono director at DLA Phillips Fox, has prepared a complaint on his behalf to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
It argues that eligibility requirements for the age pension discriminate against indigenous people because of their lower life expectancy.
Mr Patrick said Australia might be in breach of its international obligations to eliminate racial discrimination and to ensure the equal enjoyment of human rights across racial groups, including the right to social security.
The UN has previously asked states to take affirmative action to ensure indigenous people are not excluded from social security systems "through direct or indirect discrimination, particularly through the imposition of unreasonable eligibility conditions".
Some of the numbers are on Mr Moylan's side. Indigenous men live until 59, on average; women until 65. Both figures are 17 years below the national expectancy.
Another set of numbers - the cost to government - might work against him.
But Millie Ingram, chief executive of Redfern's Wyanga Elders Corporation, said the cost would be negligible. "There are so few of us. This Government can afford to look after us from 55 onwards," she said.
The Indigenous Affairs Minister, Jenny Macklin, said the Government's priority was to close the life-expectancy gap within a generation.
For Mr Moylan, that will not be enough: he says Australia also has to address the legal inequalities. "I'm trying to make some noise and waves for my people and my brothers, so the next generation can retire at 60."