Closing the gap is still the major priority for leaders

At its heart, the goodwill shown by many Australians towards Anthony Albanese’s plans for an Indigenous voice to parliament is rooted in the expectation that it will help to deliver better outcomes for Indigenous communities on the ground. The Prime Minister received a personal insight into the work that still needs to be done when he visited Alice Springs to help broker a response to the breakdown in law and order following the lapsing of federal controls on alcohol. While there are many successful and inspirational examples of Indigenous culture, commerce and lifestyle to celebrate, voters know that for many people the problems witnessed in Central Australia are far from unique.

The results of the Closing the Gap program, first implemented by Kevin Rudd to level up outcomes for health, education and life experience for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, tells the story. Reforms to the program that included a new level of shared responsibility between government and the Coalition of Peaks – representing more than 80 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community peak organisations – have shown promise.

But the Commonwealth Closing the Gap Annual Report 2022, released in November last year, says there has been mixed progress on targets. The areas that were improving or on track included babies born with a healthy birth weight (89.5 per cent) and children enrolled in preschool (96.7 per cent). Targets that were worsening or not on track included children being school-ready (34.3 per cent), adults in prison (2222 per 100,000), children in out-of-home care (57.6 per 100,000), and deaths by suicide (27.9 per 100,000).

Delivering better outcomes in these areas is central to community expectations, and demonstrating a genuine commitment to achieving them must be the government’s top priority in the area of Indigenous affairs. To demonstrate its good faith, the federal government has unveiled an implementation plan it says is about practical action. The plan involves $424m in additional funding and is intended to give purpose and direction to the government’s four priority reforms, which include formal partnerships between government and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and organisations on policies and programs that have a significant impact on them.

The new initiatives include $150m across four years to provide safe and reliable water for remote and regional Indigenous communities. An additional $111.7m will be spent on a new one-year partnership with the Northern Territory government to accelerate building of new remote housing, targeted at addressing the worst overcrowding. There will be an additional $11.8m across two years to help make essential food more affordable and accessible in remote communities, and continued funding of $68.6m across two years to deliver legal and non-legal support to women and children experiencing family, domestic and sexual violence. A further $21.9m will be spent across five years for family support through trauma-aware and culturally responsive healing programs aimed at early intervention and recovery, and keeping families together. There will be $38.4m across four years for on-country education for remote students, and $21.6m to support quality boarding for rural and remote students. The new spending will be in addition to the $1.2bn in practical initiatives included in the October budget.

The new programs for personal safety, food security, fresh water and education deserve urgent attention, but taxpayers are entitled to demand accountability and value for money from what is being proposed. The Coalition of Peaks says the work to implement the National Agreement on Closing the Gap will be strengthened by a more reconciled nation. It considers the voice to be part of addressing a historical wrong. It says the voice, truth-telling and treaty “will provide our nation with the complete road map to improve the life outcomes of our people”.

This view is not shared by Northern Territory Country Liberal Party senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, who has argued passionately that the voice is tokenism that will do little to provide for the urgent needs of those living on remote Aboriginal communities. Senator Price has quit the Recognise a Better Way committee she launched with Warren Mundine and Gary Johns to argue for a No vote in the voice referendum, expected to be held later this year. Instead she will lead a new grassroots campaign funded by activist group Advance. Splintering of the No campaign, a position also held by rebel former Greens senator Lidia Thorpe, threatens to make the referendum more challenging.

Mr Albanese has invested a lot of personal capital in the voice but has stepped up efforts to secure bipartisan support from the Coalition. The Prime Minister is no doubt guided by a growing reluctance by many in the business community to take a firm position on the issue. The federal government would do well to keep the focus on what practical steps it can take to close the gap as it works to ensure that voters properly understand what they are being asked to decide.