Closing the Gap

Uh, as for, um, Indigenous spending in Aus- in Australia, um, let's take an evidence-based view of the world.

Um, are we meeting our, our, you know, uh, Bridge the Gap? Um, are we making any progress on it? And I would say that the progress that we're making on Indigenous Australia has gotta be viewed as completely unsatisfactory.

Uh, with the resources that we are applying to it.

Now, what the answer to that question is, I can't tell you.

Closing the Gap.

How are we going with that? That's what we're looking at this time on the podcast.

[upbeat music] Hello, I'm Richard Aedy.

Thanks for joining me.

Closing the Gap is our national strategy to reduce disparities between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and non-Indigenous Australians.

The framework for doing this is the National Agreement, which was signed in July of 2020.

The Productivity Commission's just started its second review of this agreement, essentially looking at how it's going and how it could be better.

If it's coming from the top, it's then driving change to, to force things to happen in jurisdictions, but also then conversations with community about how to improve things.

And, you know, I think all Australians would happily agree with that.

There's no question that our track record with Indigenous welfare, you've only got to look at the annual Closing the Gap report in terms of just human outcomes.

You know, life expectancy, infant mortality and the like.

We're not we're not we haven't made nearly as much progress.

Yeah, and those minimum standards were also a recommendation of the former Children's Commissioner as well in the Helpway earlier report.

Another element that's been discussed is tying federal funding to achieving closing the gap outcomes.

Can you talk about Natsil's position on that and I guess the jurisdictions where that might be most relevant? So I know, for example, something like 80% of the NT government's money comes from the federal government.

Do you think there's a role for the federal government to step in and try and shape policies at the state and territory level in that way?

That could look like setting minimum standards around things like youth diversion, arrests and detention being a last resort, a minimum age of criminal responsibility being raised to at least 14.

Those are just some examples where the Commonwealth can step in.

But as I said, the commonwealth also needs to um hold states and territories accountable for their failure to meet their end of the bargain when it comes to the closing the gap partnership agreement those are agreements that states and territories have committed to but many of them are not addressing those targets not meeting their end of the partnership and simply ignoring those issues and we're seeing targets 10 and 11 which is the incarceration of children and adults we're seeing those numbers going up instead of down.

And yes, you mentioned the Children's Commissioner or the former Children's Commissioner in Northern Territory.

So we can expand our ACCHOs to provide culturally safe and appropriate health care for all First Nations peoples.

The Closing the Gap initiative needs to work alongside the Coalition of Peaks to increase cultural awareness and sensitivity, particularly in training programs for government employees to therefore reduce systemic racism.

And we could address the socioeconomic determinants, for example, providing community-led infrastructure, housing and education programs, all led by First Nations peoples, for First Nations peoples.

And that was your too long didn't study version of health inequities experienced by First Nations peoples.

Can you tell us what is the Northern Territory Justice Policy Partnership?

So Northern Territory Justice Policy Partnership is set up basically under the Closing the Gap Agreement.

All state and territory governments signed up to the Closing the Gap Agreement.

And part of that agreement, you've got Priority Reform 1, which is shared decision making and policy.

and genuine partnerships.

And what we have is we've got justice experts, people who have worked in the Northern Territory justice field for quite some time, over 20 years, legal practitioners, community members, People who work at NARJA, for instance, and particularly some members from the health sector, which definitely there's a crossover.

And yeah, they come together with part of the Northern Territory Justice Policy Partnership, which also makes up of government members as well.

And the aim of the partnership is to have shared decision-making and a genuine partnership so we can come together to ensure that we're progressing, closing the gap targets, outcomes 10 and 11 in particular, which is to reduce the incarceration rate of adult prisoners by 2030 and young people by 2030 as well.