A few steps forward, big ones back

Indigenous adults and children, who are still the nation’s most disadvantaged citizens, are making encouraging progress on several Closing the Gap benchmarks, according to the Productivity Commission’s latest dashboard. Key health indicators are improving in several states, and almost 90 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 15 and older are using the internet. Recognition of Indigenous rights and interests over land and sea continues to grow.

But the report has a bleak undertone, revealing alarming negative trends. Rates of incarceration, especially in the Northern Territory, Queensland and Western Australia, where most remote Aborigines live, have climbed by 30 per cent since 2019. The proportion of Indigenous children removed from their families to out-of-home care rose from 47.3 per 1000 in 2019 to 50.3 per 1000 last year. And the suicide rate among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, tragically, reached 30.8 per 100,000 in 2023, the highest recorded since 2018.

Nor have the birth weights of Indigenous babies improved as much and as quickly as community leaders and governments had hoped. Overall, at the halfway point, the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, between Scott Morrison and the states and territories in 2020 is in trouble, falling short of its ambitious targets, Indigenous affairs correspondent Paige Taylor reports. Solutions to the problems are time-consuming and complex, and involve far more than extra funding. Nor can corners be cut to improve outcomes on paper but not in practice for those on the ground. Cases reported in The Australian for years show that some children have been moved into out-of-home care for their own protection, for example. Difficult social problems are usually interconnected, and circuit-breakers, led by Indigenous communities themselves rather than imposed by government authorities, are needed.

As Pat Turner, lead convener of the Coalition of Peaks, a representative body of more than 80 Indigenous community organisations, said: “There is real progress in some areas, and we know that when governments genuinely partner with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, we see positive outcomes. The growing recognition of our land and sea rights, and increased digital access, show what is possible when the right policies and investments are made.” The newly established Mabo Centre, we reported recently, has the potential to unlock billions of dollars in accumulated resource royalties. Done well, the process should open up job and economic opportunities for remote residents, creating wealth from their land and sea rights.