A scathing report from the Productivity Commission has accused governments of failing to take First Nations’ rights seriously.
The final report of the commission’s first three-yearly review of government action on the National Agreement on Closing the Gap finds governments may have failed to engage seriously with the structural issues that lead to gaps in life expectancy, education and socio-economic status.
To the extent governments have acted since the national agreement in 2020, the commission found they had largely focused on small-scale initiatives, often acting against their stated Closing the Gap targets.
Commissioner Natalie Siegel-Brown said this showed a real disregard for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians.
“To date, most government actions and plans to implement the agreement relabel business-as-usual, or simply tweak existing ways of working,” she said.
“The agreement can and should be a blueprint for real reform, but governments will need to move beyond business as usual and address the entrenched attitudes, assumptions and ways of working that are preventing progress.
“Breaking down these entrenched attitudes and ways of working will require a focused and deliberate effort from every department and organisation.”
The report makes four recommendations to government: share power; recognise and support Indigenous Data Sovereignty; fundamentally rethink mainstream government systems and culture; and implement stronger accountability.
This echoes the findings of their draft review, released in July last year, which said government agencies were not listening to the advice of the Aboriginal community.
As areas like health and social work move towards lived experience practitioners as part of best practice, it remains unclear why governments have failed to listen to First Nations Australians about their own struggles.
The report says governments have stated a willingness to work arm in arm with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups on policy, but rarely did so in practice.
The commissioners wrote a “government knows best” attitude led to governments only consulting with community when they had already reached conclusions about the policy solutions they wanted to implement.
In this way, they said policy decisions were being made to generate the appearance of action while maintaining the status quo.
Commissioner Romlie Mokak said efforts to improve outcomes were more likely to success when Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people lead their design and implementation.
“Nothing will change until this model of partnership, based on genuine power sharing, becomes the rule and not the exception,” he said.
“Without further delay, each jurisdiction should establish a strong legislated independent oversight mechanism. Obligations under the agreement should also be embedded in all other significant intergovernmental agreements and reported on in each organisation’s annual report.
“If governments do not make change on the scale that’s required, the agreement will fail and the gap will remain. For governments to help close the gap between improvements in the life outcomes of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, they will first need to close the gap between words and action.”
The commission’s recommendations rest on the idea of co-design, and greater sovereignty for Indigenous people to close the gap.
Their first recommendation calls for greater recognition of Aboriginal community organisations, including developing relationship-building capacities in state and federal public services.
It recalls Australia’s commitment to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which explicitly calls for self-determination within the existing state.
To do this, it notes Australia would need to better fund both the implementation of the plan and the work of Aboriginal community organisations that should be feeding into the policy and implementation agenda.
“To date, the resources that governments have committed to the implementation of the agreement have fallen far short of the ambition,” the commissioners said.
“State and territory governments should ensure that the resources they devote to the implementation of the Agreement are commensurate with the ambition of the Agreement.
“Many of the commitments in the Agreement cannot be achieved unless there is additional investment.
The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) set the first six Closing the Gap targets in the lead-up to Kevin Rudd’s apology to Indigenous Australians, covering life expectancy, infant mortality, education and employment.
Through yearly reviews, these have been slowly modified and expanded to cover 17 socioeconomic targets. Only four of these are currently considered on track or improving. The same number have worsened since the first reporting period.
The 2018 review of the original Closing the Gap targets found only four of 19 targets were on track. This resulted in the National Agreement on Closing the Gap in 2020; an attempt to get the plan back on track.
The commission investigated three of these targets in the latest report, finding them representative of the broader problems they found.
While governments have committed to work with community and improve their use of data on youth justice, child protection and family safety, they were limiting the level of input from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and were operating many of these initiatives outside of “mainstream” government institutions.
Coalition of Peaks’ acting lead convenor Catherine Liddle said governments need to start delivering the commitments they’ve already made to close the gap.
“We are calling for a dedicated closing the gap fund, enshrined in legislation, and directed to Aboriginal community-controlled organisations and our organisations to support our self-determination,” Liddle said.
“Next week the Prime Minister will address Parliament on the anniversary of the Apology to the Stolen Generations, and we hope his words will be matched with action. It will also be the first time the Prime Minister has addressed the nation in a significant way following the Referendum.”
“We are calling for tangible commitments to fully fund the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, to make a meaningful difference to the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.”
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