Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has cited improvements in infant mortality rates and higher levels of immunisation as signs the disadvantage gap between Indigenous people and other Australians is being closed.
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The report tracks progress on targets to reduce inequality between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians.
“It’s not just health, we look at the health determinants in regard to housing, and one of the big things of course now are drugs that are running around, ice in particular”, Mr Gray said.
“It is undeniable that progress against targets has been variable”, he wrote in the report’s introduction.
Mixed progress is being made on literacy and numeracy, where the target is to halve the gap for Indigenous children in reading, writing and numeracy by 2018.
WHY: Apparent retention rates to Year 12 for indigenous students up from 32 per cent in the late 1990s to 60 per cent in 2014.
But the 10-year gap in life expectancy remains and some measures, like employment and certain education targets, have even gone backwards.
He also announced $20 million in extra funding for the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, which collects and preserves Indigenous cultural knowledge.
“Building relationships with communities takes time, [but] it seems the government would prefer to spend $1m developing a program that doesn’t work than $1m building a relationship”, he said.
The Australian Medical Association, too, said engagement was key.
He added that wider issues, including tackling racism and recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the constitution, needed to be addressed. And so we need to listen to and draw on the wisdom, the ingenuity, the insights of indigenous people across the nation from the cities to remote communities … we have to redouble our efforts to ensure effective engagement between the government, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to build trust and develop further that respectful relationship.
“We have heard these words before”, said Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Mick Gooda, who is the “Closing the Gap” campaign co-chair.
Past year months of relentless booing of aboriginal football great and anti-racism campaigner Adam Goodes ignited an uncomfortable public debate about race and how Australia treats its indigenous citizens.
Only two areas – halving the child mortality gap by 2018, and halving the gap in Year 12 attainment by 2020 – are on track. The government says this target is on track.
For females, it was 83.1 years for non-indigenous citizens, in contrast to 73.7 for Aboriginal people.
“The evidence shows that the Closing the Gap targets are closely interrelated. It’s time to focus on what’s important and close the gap”, says Moore. They have long had significantly lower education, employment and life expectancy compared to non-indigenous communities. New data will be available in 2016.
TARGET: Close the gap in life expectancy between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians within a generation.
Those are the findings in the federal government’s eighth annual Closing the Gap report on reducing Indigenous disadvantage.
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The report found that the imprisonment rate for indigenous adults in Australia rose by a staggering 77 percent between 2000 and 2015.
