First data drop of 2024 shows five of 19 targets on track

New 'closing the gap' data has re-iterated that the national agreement is not on track.

Transcript

00:00 From the eight of the 19 targets and the update that has been put out by the Productivity

00:08 Commission overnight, there has been improvements to two of these targets. One is the birth

00:14 weight of Indigenous babies and advocates and First Nations mothers are welcoming this.

00:20 They attribute this to the mass work that's being done by community controlled organisations

00:27 to have birthing on country programs around the country. There was also an increase in

00:33 the land and sea area rights for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. But there

00:40 was also a couple of targets that are worsening. We've seen suicide rates are worsening, adult

00:45 incarceration is worsening, and so is the number of First Nations children in out of

00:50 home care. We know this report at its heart is about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander

00:54 people and bridging that disparity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. We still

00:59 have an eight year gap in life expectancy between Indigenous people and non-Indigenous

01:04 people. Suicide is the leading cause of death for First Nations people aged 15 to 44. First

01:10 Nations kids are 10.5 times more likely to be in out of home care than non-Indigenous

01:14 kids. And three in five young people in detention in the June quarter of last year were First

01:19 Nations. So there is a lot of gap still there and a lot of work to be done. The Coalition

01:24 of Peaks Acting Convener, Catherine Little, has said this report doesn't come as a surprise.

01:30 For anyone who works in this space, I think we look at these data sets as the stark reality.

01:38 In February, the Productivity Commission released that report that said all these governments

01:43 signed up to work differently. All these governments signed up recognising that there was something

01:48 fundamentally wrong with the way policies and programs and services were being delivered

01:53 on the ground and we needed a better way of working. When this particular report comes

01:58 out, what it gives you is the stark reality of those failures. And high on those failures

02:03 is the failure to look after our children. So why are so many targets failing, Kirsty?

02:08 Well, as Catherine Little mentioned in that grab just then, she was referring to the Productivity

02:12 Commission report that was released last month, which produced a scathing review of the government's

02:18 inability to commit and to come through with its promises to close the gap. It said it

02:24 was failing to grasp the nature and scale of the change required, and that's all governments,

02:28 not just the federal government. It said that it needs to be fundamental change and it recommended

02:33 improved power sharing, data sovereignty and accountability. Data, I think, is one of these

02:38 issues as well. There's limitations on data within this report and domestic violence target

02:44 is still relying on data from 2019. But the current government, Minister Burney for Indigenous

02:50 Affairs has said that they have put $15 million over five years in to collect more data specifically

02:56 for the domestic violence target, but there is still a lot more to be done.

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