Closing the Gap metrics need to be expanded, says Kerrynne Liddle
Coalition demands school attendance and substance abuse data be added to Closing the Gap metrics as Indigenous outcomes worsen under Labor.
The opposition wants data on school attendance, alcohol use and substance misuse to be included in the Closing the Gap national agreement on Indigenous disadvantage.
After a revolt by state and NT attorneys-general over Closing the Gap strategies last week, Coalition Indigenous affairs spokeswoman Kerrynne Liddle told The Australian the agreement was missing key metrics that could help give a fuller picture of the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Senator Liddle said the Albanese government must explain why so many Closing the Gap targets were going backwards under its watch – just four of 19 targets were on track in July, compared to five out of 19 a year earlier.
However, she did not call for the national agreement to be reviewed or abandoned.
“Discussions of reviews into and removal of the Closing the Gap framework distract at this time from the fact that since Labor were elected in 2022, youth detention is up 11 per cent, suicide is up 9.4 per cent, adult incarceration is up 3.5 per cent, preschool attendance is down 2.6 per cent and 1.2 per cent fewer children are commencing school developmentally on track,” Senator Liddle said.
“Recently, we have seen the government talk up its economic development agenda but it appears to be consulting mostly with those in the not-for-profit sector rather than for- profit business. It distracts
from its failures in compliance with the Indigenous procurement policy.”
Senator Liddle called for more data to illustrate Closing the Gap – an agreement in its second incarnation since 2020, when Scott Morrison relaunched it – after states and the NT last Friday asserted their right to pursue law and order agendas that could send more Indigenous Australians to jail.
The revolt was led by Queensland at a meeting of the Standing Council of Attorneys-General in Sydney.
Queensland Attorney-General Deb Frecklington pushed back against recommendations to reform bail laws.
The recommendations – prepared over the past year at the request of the attorneys-general in June 2024 – aim to keep more people out of jail if they have not been found guilty and are awaiting trial, or if they are awaiting sentencing that may not include a term of imprisonment. Nationwide, Indigenous adults and children are heavily over-represented among unsentenced prisoners on remand. The recommendations do not align with crackdowns on crime under way in the NT and Queensland. They are also likely to clash with reforms in Victoria that make it more difficult for children to get bail.
The attorneys-general asserted their right to make legislation as they saw fit after law professor Eddie Cubillo, one of Closing the Gap’s most experienced advisers on justice issues, resigned from his role as an independent member of the Justice Policy Partnership.
Dr Cubillo told colleagues in a letter that Indigenous people were exhausted by a process in which governments around Australia signed up to the Closing the Gap agreement but showed little genuine intention to fulfil their commitments.
“We cannot keep pretending this is working,” he wrote.
On Monday, Senator Liddle said the federal government “must also ensure data is available on all of its Closing the Gap targets, not be missing in four areas, including family violence”.
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