$130bn to close shamefully little of the gap

The cost of programs that helped meet the government’s Closing the Gap targets exceeded $130.2 billion.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull at the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting at Parliament House in Canberra last Friday.

The cost of programs that helped meet the government’s Closing the Gap targets to improve indigenous Australians’ lives over the eight years to 2016 exceeded $130.2 billion, according to analysis of government spending data by The Australian.

That included $24.8bn on programs exclusively available to ­indigenous Australians.

Attempting to halve the gap in workforce participation between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians — one of the 2008 targets set by the Rudd government, which is unlikely to be met — has cost $45bn over the eight years from 2009. That is how much the state, territory and federal governments have spent, via both mainstream and specific programs, to improve indigenous workforce participation.

However, with Malcolm Turnbull due to deliver the 10th annual Closing the Gap report in parliament today, pressure is ramping up for greater accountability from governments for how the money is spent, and how much of it reaches indigenous hands.

“We want to see premiers, chief ministers, health and ­indigenous affairs ministers in every jurisdiction providing regular, public accountability on their efforts to address the ­inequality gaps in their state or territory — no more finger-­pointing between governments,” Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ­Social Justice Commissioner June Oscar told the Prime Minister last week, while deliv­ering a report that was sharply critical of the strategy’s failures. The Indigenous Affairs Minister, Nigel Scullion, said yesterday today’s report would deliver the most positive result since 2011, with two extra targets of the seven on track to be met, up from just one last year.

“Even where we may not be on track, we have achieved solid progress in other target areas compared with a decade ago,” he said. Year 12 or equivalent completion rates — the only target on track in last year’s report — continues to be met.

Senator Scullion said the target for early childhood education was now on track, as was the target to halve child mortality.

However, the figure used to demonstrate the latter — a 33 per cent “significant decline” in child mortality since 1998 — is the same one used in the past two years’ reports, yet last year’s report found the target was not on track. Its 1998 data baseline also predates by a decade the implementation of the strategy, distorting the outcome.

School attendance, literacy and numeracy, employment and life expectancy targets remain off-track in the latest report. Four of the targets are due to expire this year and the government is ­consulting on a “refresh” of the scheme, which was launched at the time of Kevin Rudd’s 2008 apology to the Stolen Generations.

taus p2 graphic closing gap

In his response to the Prime Minister’s report today, Bill Shorten will announce a Stolen Generations compensation scheme, available to survivors in commonwealth jurisdictions — the Northern Territory, ACT and Jervis Bay in NSW.

Labor estimates there could be about 150 people to whom this applies, with each entitled to ex-gratia payments of $75,000 as well as a one-off payment of $7000 to assist with funeral expenses.

The Opposition Leader will also announce a $10 million fund to assist with the needs of Stolen Generations members and their descendants. Should Labor win government, it will also convene a national summit on First Nations children within its first 100 days.

The cost of meeting each of the seven Closing the Gap targets is not directly publicised, but the Productivity Commission’s periodic Indigenous Expenditure Report catalogues total, inflation-adjusted spending by purpose. Such purposes include early child development, education and training; health; and economic participation.

In the 2016 financial year, the most recent year of data, government spending to improve education outcomes totalled $5.7bn. To improve indigenous health, governments spent $6.3bn, including $1.4bn on programs exclusively available to indigenous Australians.

Four of the Closing the Gap targets aim to improve education outcomes, while two — halving mortality rates for indigenous children under five, and closing the life expectancy gap within a generation — focus on health.

Combined, the cost of trying to meet the seven targets was $18.1bn in 2016, up from $14bn in 2009. The total cost has increased at an average annual rate of 3.7 per cent since then.

According to the Productivity Commission, total spending on Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders in 2016 was $33.4bn, including $6bn on programs exclusively available to indigenous Australians.

The commission has produced four indigenous expenditure reports covering the 2016, 2013, 2011 and 2009 financial years.

To fill in the gaps, The Australian took the average of the two adjacent years.