Key Points
- Only five of Closing the Gap’s 19 targets are on course to be met by 2031, according to new data from the Productivity Commission.
- Rates of suicide and incarceration among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have increased.
- Malarndirri McCarthy, the new minister for Aboriginal Australia, said the results were disturbing.
The Closing the Gap project was supposed to improve outcomes for Indigenous Australians, but progress is backtracking on several issues, new data shows.
Incarceration rate, and suicide are increasing instead of decreasing, according to the Productivity Commission’s annual data compilation report.
Similarly, the proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children assessed as being developmentally healthy has declined.
Only five of Closing the Gap’s 19 goals are on track to be achieved by 2031, according to the report, based on data first released in February.
Babies born at healthy birth weights, employment targets and preschool enrollment are all on track, as is progress on land and maritime rights.
The life expectancy gap between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and the general population is narrowing, but the target of completely closing the gap by 2031 is not on track to be achieved.
Minister for Indigenous Australians Malarndirri McCarthy described the findings as “deeply disturbing”.
The newly sworn-in minister said a bipartisan approach was needed for meaningful reform for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
“We need to work together as Parliament, just as we try to do with the premiers responsible for indigenous affairs in every state and territory,” she said in Darwin.
Coalition senator calls for ‘generational’ paradigm shift
Northern Territory Coalition senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price said the report “is yet another indicator of the need for generational change in how we try to close the gap”.
“The data for the Northern Territory is particularly concerning because we know that the Territory is home to many of the most marginalized Indigenous Australians,” she said.
“Just this week I attended the funeral of a much-loved young Aboriginal person from the Territory who took his own life – we can’t just see [those] in the report as statistics – these are precious lives that we must do more to protect. »
Suicide was the leading cause of death among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 15 to 39, according to 2022 data.
“We know that having ready access to culturally safe and appropriate services and systems can make a world of difference to the socio-economic outcomes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people,” Commissioner Selwyn Button said.
Closing the Gap is a national strategy that aims to reduce disadvantage among Indigenous people. It was launched in 2008 and revised in 2020.
“We cannot resolve intergenerational inequalities overnight”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the government was still committed to “Closing the Gap” targets, but change would not be immediate.
“The challenges are there, you can’t solve intergenerational inequalities overnight, but what you can do is commit to making a difference,” he told reporters in Sydney on Thursday.
“Governments of all stripes, at all levels, have not done enough in the past, but we are committed to working with these communities.”
But Catherine Liddle, chief executive of the body for Aboriginal children and families, said the federal government needed to do better because “yelling from the rooftops for hours” wasn’t working.
“[I’m] somewhere between disappointed and frustrated and I always find it very uncomfortable, because I’m a person who likes to see the light,” Liddle told ABC TV.
“You see these data sets that once again reinforce what we’ve been hearing from the start of the year, which is that governments aren’t moving fast enough on this, it’s frustrating.”
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With additional reporting from the Australian Associated Press
