QLD First Nations Community ‘sick of attending funerals’ as new data puts Closing the Gap in doubt

A peak First Nations health body says the state government will not meet Closing the Gap targets in their remaining eight-year time frame.

A peak First Nations health body has hit out at the state government over its closing the gap targets. Picture: Glenn Campbell/NCA NewsWire

A peak First Nations health body claims the state government will not meet Closing the Gap targets in their remaining eight-year time frame.

Queensland Aboriginal and Islander Health Council’s Paula Arnol said First Nations communities were exhausted from attending Sorry Business “weekly”, as reflected in new data released Wednesday night.

“New Closing the Gap data reinforces what community is telling us – they’re sick of attending funerals all the time. They are tired, traumatised and distressed,” the Acting Chief Executive Officer said.

Paula Arnol. Photo: Supplied

The data showed an increase in the rate of First Nations young people in detention from 41.3 per 10.000 in 2021/22 to 46 per 10,000 in 2022/23.

Ms Arnol said the mortality rate due to suicide for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people had almost doubled nationally from 2009 to 2022 to 29.9 per 100,000.

The most recent data showed suicide was the leading cause of death for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 15 to 39 in 2022.

“What we’re experiencing today is increased deaths regularly in our communities, and within our families, the data and the evidence will continue to tell us that potentially, the gap is widening and mainstream Australia is living longer,” she said.

“We are making inroads into Closing the Gap in life expectancies and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people potentially are living longer, but when you have a cohort of an age that is potentially impacted from the increase, which is nearly doubled in suicides, there is a lot of work to do.”

The Minister for Treaty, Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships, Leeanne Enoch acknowledged more needed to be done for Queensland to deliver its commitments to the National Agreement on Closing the Gap.

“But we are encouraged by meeting two of the socio-economic targets, being on track to deliver on three others, and showing improvements in five additional categories,” she said.

“We also welcome the Productivity Commission’s acknowledgment earlier this year of our positive reforms including the Path To Treaty.”

She said the LNP had committed to scrapping the Path to Treaty if elected this year.

“That is certain to widen the gap in disadvantage for Queensland’s First Nations peoples, and seriously harm the progress that has been made.”

Ms Arnol said government progress on Closing the Gap targets has stagnated, with the Productivity Commission’s release of new data revealing only five out of 19 targets in the National Agreement on Closing the Gap were on track to be met.

“Right now our lived experiences are our attending funerals way too often, way too many in a week and that has a significant impact on families, particularly in this cost of living crisis, it has economic impacts, it has emotional and social well being impacts, we can do better,” she said.

“Despite minimal progress, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community controlled health organisation (ACCHO) sector remains under-resourced and underfunded by government. Many of our Member services have full patient waiting lists due to increasing demand for their services.”

Queensland has already met two currently on track to of the 19 socio-economic targets under the National Agreement relating to early education and interests in the sea, was on track to achieve three others and had improved against five other targets.

The Gunggandji woman, who has more than 20 years of experience in senior executive positions within urban and very remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Comprehensive Primary Health Care organisations, said both state and federal governments were not following the recommendations handed down by the Productivity Commission.

“Government must change their behaviour, some of the solutions we consistently advocate is that government needs to respond faster as in our historical landscape, when government makes decisions for Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander people generally takes a government cycle of three or four years,” she said.

“Well, we have eight years left on these Close the Gap targets and we don’t have time to wait for three or four year decisions to be made and implemented.”

Coalition of Peaks co-convener Catherine Liddle said while many Closing the Gap targets are not being met, the ones that are succeeding are those where community control is in place.

“The saying ‘nothing about us without us’ absolutely applies to getting the best results for all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, from birth right through to our Elders and how they are cared for,” she said.

“There are still far too many non-Indigenous operated service providers being funded to deliver to our people.”

The Coalition of Peaks is a representative body of over eighty Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-controlled peak organisations and certain independent statutory authorities responsible for Closing the Gap policies, programs and services.

Ms Liddle said there were numerous examples of where community control was Closing the Gap.

“There are some fantastic community-controlled childcare and kindergarten programs, for example, that are ensuring our children are growing up not just healthy and educated, but strong in culture too. We know that when Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are connected to their culture the Closing the Gap measures are better met.

“Yet at this moment in time, the biggest investments into early education and care in Australia are not in the Aboriginal community-controlled sector, they’re actually in the mainstream.

“That is a failure by governments to invest in the right set of criteria into the right type of service delivery, and to move at the speed that it needs to move at.”

Originally published as QLD First Nations Community ‘sick of attending funerals’ as new data puts Closing the Gap in doubt