Missing the target: goodwill fails to overcome entrenched inequalities

But overshadowing the event was grim news from Canberra. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison had given the 12th annual Closing the Gap address, a report to parliament on how the government has fared in redressing inequality between Indigenous Australians and the broader community. The Closing the Gap targets were adopted by the Rudd government after it offered the apology and cover health education and employment.

Offering a Welcome to Country at the breakfast, chairwoman of Sydney’s Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council Yvonne Weldon noted that Aboriginal suffering could not be allowed to become a memorial in itself.. Pat Turner, the co-chair of the Joint Council on Closing the Gap - which includes representatives of state, federal and local governments as well as from the national Coalition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peak Organisations - echoed some of those sentiments. "Governments say they are listening to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people," she said.

Australian National University’s Professor Nicholas Biddle, who researches demographic and socioeconomic outcomes for Indigenous Australians, says the objective to reduce the life expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-indigenous Australians was the starting point. But some targets have been on track one year then off track the next. The 2019 report revealed the goal to narrow the difference between Indigenous and non-Indigenous child mortality, for instance, was not being met despite being on track in previous years.

However, Biddle says improvements to the way social and economic data is collected and evaluated is one lasting positive from the Closing the Gap agenda. “The focus of the discussion now seems to be more on policy failures - and sometimes policy success - rather than arguing over the data,” he says.The lack of progress over a prolonged period has raised concerns the Closing the Gap measures may have helped entrench a “deficits view” of Australia’s Indigenous population.

One reason for the lack of progress is that many Indigenous people live in remote areas where jobs are scarce. They face the tough choice between their “mob or a job” because the only option for employment is to move a long distance from home. Leigh, who is a former economics professor, estimates almost a quarter of Indigenous men born in the 1970s have spent time in jail. His analysis shows Indigenous Australians are more likely to be in jail than African-Americans in the United States, a community in the Western world known for the staggering inequality faced in the justice system.

Is it time? Time for a bit less talk.

Is it possible some of the targets were too optimistic?

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