Failure to address disadvantage and discrimination faced by Indigenous Australians has triggered a stark admission and call to action by senior ministers.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
A scathing Productivity Commission review has found the federal government has taken a "business as usual" approach to Indigenous policy and risked making disadvantage and discrimination worse.
The commission said the implementation of reforms as a bid to close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians was weak, with just four of 17 targets on track and four going backwards.
"Overall progress against the priority reforms has been slow, unco-ordinated and piecemeal," the commission reported.
The review found it "too easy" to locate examples of government decisions that contradicted commitments and exacerbated rather than reduced disadvantage and discrimination.
The National Agreement on Closing the Gap was committed to by all governments and the Coalition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peak Organisations in 2020 in a bid to dismantle entrenched inequality faced by Indigenous Australians.
The commission warned without stronger accountability across government organisations, the agreement risked becoming another broken promise to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Dr Chalmers said the government was carefully considering recommendations from the draft review.
"There's a lot of work to be done to meet all four priority reforms of the national agreement," he told reporters in Brisbane.
"This report shows once again that the status quo is not working as we need it to."
Romlie Mokak, a Djugun man and commissioner, said the review was yet to identify a government organisation with a clear vision for what transformation looks like and a strategy to achieve it.
The four pillars of the national agreement are formal partnerships and shared decision-making; building the community-controlled sector; transforming government organisations; and sharing access to data and information at a regional level.
The commission found governments were failing to share power with Indigenous people, with agencies consulting communities on pre-determined solutions, rather than working together to co-design fixes.
Its members were told Indigenous communities felt consultation could be "tokenistic", as if a box was ticked.
Sluggish reform of government was hampering progress towards the other goals.
Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney said the findings from the review reinforced the need for an Indigenous voice to parliament and executive government.
"If there was ever an argument for the need for a voice, it is this draft report," she said.
"It is difficult reading.
"The important thing is to understand that what it is talking about are real people, real families and real communities, it is not academic."
Australians will go to the polls later this year at a referendum, to determine whether to enshrine the proposal in the constitution.
Ms Burney said initiatives that were working came from Indigenous communities being listened to, with local-based solutions.
"The reason we want the voice in the constitution is so it's protected by the constitution and cannot be written off by the stroke of a pen, like we've seen other Aboriginal advisory bodies come and go," she said.
The commission will meet Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and governments before handing down its final report by the end of this year.
13YARN 13 92 76
Aboriginal Counselling Services 0410 539 905
Australian Associated Press
