The results are in, and they are not great. The Productivity Commission recently reported that some life outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are the same as before, some have marginally improved and a number are worse, like children being removed from the care of their family, adults incarcerated and people dying by suicide. Only four of the 19 targets in the National Agreement on Closing the Gap are on track to be met.
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"How are we still not closing the gap? When is that going to happen?" readers will ask as they turn the page on news headlines about the Commission's review into government progress.
But dig beneath the headlines and you will find it's not from a lack of the right words, written and spoken, or the right people in any number of forums. In fact, arguably, the commitment and the intention is higher than it has ever been across the country.
Governments, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and the wider public hold high and pressing expectations that life outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people improve.
Governments acknowledged this a while back. They recognised that we could keep lurching along, seeing some things get worse, some things stay the same, and some get marginally better. But in 2020, they rejected the status quo and jointly signed a new national Agreement on Closing the Gap with the Coalition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peak organisations. In it, they committed to transform their agencies and partner and share decision-making with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in intentional and lasting ways. They said they would find and eliminate racism from all government decisions, policies and practices. And they would be publicly accountable for their performance.
Governments across Australia committed to over 2000 actions to make this happen. So why little change, despite the hive of activity?
Worryingly, it's often about a persistent deafness to the best ways of overcoming problems, and scepticism of the solutions identified by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities. A default "no" response to the ideas, innovation and solutions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is frequently invoked - solutions that are underpinned by sound local knowledge and deep expertise. The defence is often that certain rules, policies, procedures are fixed and not able to be adapted.
But governments must shift their thinking, their doing and their being. To change their mindset from default "no" to embrace and deliver what's possible. To do more than business as usual, to make the necessary changes to redesign machinery within government. To be proper partners - transferring power, sharing information, seeking out opportunity, relishing success and building trust jointly with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Over the past year that we have reviewed what is happening on the ground, we saw and heard governments and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leadership trying to breathe life into these commitments. But at the operational level, we still see obstructions to power-sharing at decision-making tables with governments.
This matters because if you truly commit to things like reducing the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children taken away from their families and culture by the child protection system, or reducing young people incarcerated in youth detention systems, then you need to give those same people leadership in designing the solutions that will break these cycles forever.
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Bureaucrats and policy-makers must ask themselves whether underlying their decisions, there is a belief that they know what's best for communities, and whether they are truly open to putting their operations under the microscope of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander eyes, to hear where racism may infiltrate decision-making.
The Commission has heard strong support for the Agreement - both within government departments and among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. But real change doesn't mean multiplying or renaming business-as-usual actions.
It means looking deeply - unpacking the DNA of the way systems, departments and public servants' work - and transforming. This is yet to happen. But if not now, then when?
- Natalie Siegel-Brown and Romlie Mokak are commissioners from the Productivity Commission.
