Another shameful Closing the Gap report is destined to gather dust on the shelf

Reading any Closing the Gap report is a sombre affair, and the most recent data was no different.

The latest report released by the Productivity Commission makes for a sobering but unsurprising read — only four of the 19 targets are on track to be met.

Indigenous incarceration rates have climbed, suicide rates and out-of-home care rates are getting worse, while the aspiration for healthy baby birth weights has also slipped off track.

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Defined by political passivity 

Those in the Indigenous community have become used to hearing these dire statistics, all for them to be ignored or not acted upon, time and time again.

What adds an extra downcast feeling to this update is the general mood around Indigenous issues, which suggests the much needed political and public will for change is not there.

The rejection of the Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum in 2023; the winding back of truth-telling commission and treaty in Queensland; tough law and order mandates in places like the Northern Territory where Aboriginal imprisonment rates are rising; politicians, including the federal opposition leader Peter Dutton, vowing not to stand in front of the Aboriginal flag if elected into office; and the Albanese government’s changing language on its commitment to the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

Despite all this, most state and federal leaders agree that the focus of Indigenous policy in Australia should be on closing the gaps in health, education, employment and social outcomes.

Yet, the Closing the Gap framework has become defined by political passivity, leaders expressing their regret and dismay at the stalling progress, while offering vague hope that things turn around.

Spoiler alert: each year it doesn’t.

With each update the changes are minimal, some good news among much bad news.

Again and again, Indigenous leaders remind us, this is not just depressing data, but real people, real lives, real families who are being let down in a wealthy, first world country.

Calls for rethink just years after major policy redesign

The issues the framework is trying to tackle are deeply complex, requiring investment, innovation and real community engagement and empowerment.

Productivity Commissioner Selwyn Button told the ABC that to stop the stalling progress, accountability mechanisms needed to be put in place for all responsible parties.

The Gungarri man pointed out that suicide, incarceration and child removals rates are all getting worse, despite a major policy rethink just several years ago.

The Closing the Gap scheme underwent a major remodel, that sought to improve Indigenous engagement, state buy-in and broaden the targets in 2021.

The policy was first created with just seven targets after the Apology to Stolen Generations in 2008, but after more than a decade of failed progress a major redesign was announced.

The new framework was created after months of consultation, and attempted to centre the perspectives of Indigenous organisations, known as the Coalition of Peaks, which were already working in their communities to close these gaps.

It also brought in the Productivity Commission to improve the accuracy of the data keeping, which had been criticised in the past.

Another key part of the redesign was to better include the states and territories, which are largely responsible for health, education and justice.

Each government created its own implementation plan for the new national agreement.

In August 2021, the new co-designed policy was released, with a few more adjustments made in the subsequent years.

The co-convenor of the Coalition of Peaks, Pat Turner, has said that “it will take time,” but the national agreement was showing results.

Some of the on-track targets in the Closing the Gap scheme include land and sea rights, which doesn’t always involve government intervention, but rather hard-won land rights and native title battles fought in court by traditional owners.

This latest data update from the Productivity Commission suggests that things are overall sliding backwards, even since last year, when five of the 19 primary targets were on track.

Once again, we are being told not enough is being done.

Just years after the major restructure of the program, Arrernte woman and Shadow Minister for Child Protection and the Prevention of Family Violence, Kerryn Liddle, is calling for a rethink of policy design and funding.

“I continue to ask for an audit of those frontline services to make sure that the resourcing and the work is being done to its highest possible potential, so that the most vulnerable people are actually getting what they need and stop falling through the cracks,” she told the ABC’s Radio National Breakfast.

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States shamed in latest Closing the Gap data

This latest report doesn’t just lay bare the country’s stalling progress but shames each state for its shortfalls.

In Queensland, the Indigenous incarceration rate is increasing and is not on track to meet the target to reduce the number of First Nations adults and children in detention by 15 per cent by 2031.

In Victoria, there have been improvements in many areas but the rates of Aboriginal children in out-of-home care continues to climb.

In the Northern Territory, about half of the targets are not on track to be met, including female life expectancy, healthy baby birth weights, child development and incarceration rates.

Despite these states creating implementation plans for the new Closing the Gap framework just years ago, the political will to tackle these entrenched issues appears to have evaporated.

During the debate around the Indigenous Voice to Parliament in 2023, prominent “no” campaigners like Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, argued that governments should be focusing on addressing Indigenous social problems rather than constitutional reforms.

They argued tackling issues like crime and violence was the solution to the lack of equity and agency experienced by Indigenous Australians.

Now more than a year on from the rejection of the Indigenous Voice to Parliament, there’s been no groundswell of action to fix social inequity in communities.

The debate painted issues around self-governance and political representation as binary, unworthy and unrelated to tackling social disadvantage.

At the time a number of remote community leaders said they felt greater agency was a key to transforming their communities.

The solution to our Closing the Gap failure might not come from our halls of power, but from the hearts and minds of the people who live this every day.

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