Closing the gap

There’s been much reporting in the news today about the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting in Darwin and in particular its focus on closing the gap in relation to the disadvantage experienced by indigenous Australians compared to the community in general.  The Productivity Commission produces a biannual report on various indicators intended to measure indigenous disadvantage and whether the gap is closing, widening or not changing at all.  The latest report has been issued, and has attracted considerable media attention and comment, as well as attention and comment from politicians of all parties.

Among the key issues noted in the report:

• the gap in life expectancy between indigenous and non-indigenous people is 12 years for men and 10 years for women. Two years ago those numbers were 18 and 17 years respectively
• substantiated child abuse cases in the indigenous community more than doubled from 16 per 1000 children in 19990-2000 to 35 per 1000 children in 2007-08. Indigenous children are six times more likely to be abused or neglected than non-indigenous children
• no significant improvement over the past two years in reading, writing and numeracy standards among indigenous children, who remain well behind non-indigenous children in all year levels.
• Half as many indigenous students finish Year 12 as non-indigenous students
• while 48 per cent in indigenous people were employed in 2006, this was 24 percentage points behind the rate for non-indigenous people.
• Indigenous people are 13 times more likely to be in jail than non-indigenous people
• Indigenous people earn less, are sicker and are born lighter than non-indigenous people.
• immunisation rates were also lower and suicide and obesity rates higher.
• In 2006, 29 per cent of indigenous people owned or were buying their own homes _ up three percentage points over five years but far lower that the rate of non-indigenous people,  72 per cent.

This is extremely tragic and a sad comment on the treatment of indigenous people in this country over a long period.

However, I thought some of the reporting of these statistics was very misleading.  For example “Billions ‘wasted on close the gap projects” which is suggesting that billions of dollars spent on the indigenous intervention by the Australian government has been wasted and most indicators show the gap is not changing and even widening.  This is an interesting leap of logic, especially considering that the intervention didn’t commence until mid 2007, and most of the data in the current report is for the period up to 2007.  Somehow, data from before the intervention even started is meant to support a claim that money is being wasted on it.  Interesting?

But Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (sensibly) says the gains made from the hundreds of millions of dollars poured into initiatives like the Northern Territory intervention may not be clear for some time.  Maybe lets wait till we have, say, 2009 data before jumping to conclusions.   In a step forward, COAG has agreed to reporting even more regularly on the success of programs nationally and in the states and provided greater accountability. Some shortfalls in the data collected by the Productivity Commission have been noted, with over $40 million being allocated to improve the process.

Despite the ongoing poor data, Mr Rudd is confident programs like the intervention and the $642 million housing program for Indigenous communities will eventually see statistical improvements.

"We’re committed to this because everything we’ve tried in the past hasn’t worked,"

That is a very pertinent comment.  Everyone knows shitloads of money have been thrown at indigenous problems, generally with little success.  I doubt its a question of not enough money, but more likely poorly targeted, and poorly managed, so its been squandered on useless crap.  Hopefully if the current policy is producing no discernible results in a year or two, governments will be willing to accept failure and try other approaches.

Opposition spokesman Tony Abbott is also pretty much on the money with his comments today.  He says ultimately today’s results are a blight on all governments from all sides of politics in their efforts to quickly redress Indigenous disadvantage.

"This is a very disappointing report and it does reflect ill on all governments of both political persuasion. But the essential problem here is the doctrine of exceptionalism, which has been far too prevalent for far too long,"

Mr Abbott says governments have had many reports detailing the extent of the problems over the years and more action on the ground is needed.

"Rather than having more partnerships and endless consultations, I think what we really need to do is to try and ensure that the same reasonable expectations are adhered to in respect of Aboriginal communities as applied to the general Australian population, and we could start by trying to ensure that 100 per cent of Aboriginal kids are enrolled at school."

While undoubtedly some of Abbott’s remarks are deflections intended to share the blame for indigenous policy failures of the previous government he was part of for over a decade, there is much truth in them.