Targets unveiled to close the gap

PEOPLE on the ground in Indigenous communities will take the lead under a detailed plan to improve education, health and employment outcomes – hoping to succeed where all others have failed.

The 16 new Closing the Gap targets unveiled by the Morrison government yesterday seek to reduce incarceration rates of young and adult Indigenous people by at least 15 per cent, get 96 per cent of children finishing Year 12 and have 91 per cent of babies born at a healthy birthweight by 2031.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the “granular” detail in each target made it clear which state, territory, commonwealth or communitybased organisation would be held accountable to ensure the plan remained on track.

“I find it a very practical document,” he said. “It’s realistic, it’s shared, it’s evidencebased and led, it’s transparent, it’s practical, it’s ambitious.”

Mr Morrison said it was “wrongheaded” of previous governments to tell Indigenous Australians what gaps they would fix, insisting it was not about “buckets of money” but actions on the ground delivered by those impacted.

“We told Indigenous Australians what the gap was that we were going to close, and somehow thought they should be thankful for that,” he said.

“That wasn’t the way to do it.”

Mr Morrison conceded some of the issues such as incarceration were “intergenerational” and would not be instantly fixed.

Indigenous Australians Minister Ken Wyatt said targets to reduce domestic violence were still being negotiated, but a “zero tolerance” approach would be maintained regardless.

“When the working group was going through this, the focus on just physical violence against women was seen as not sufficient,” he said.

“That hasn’t lowered our bar for absolute extinction of domestic violence against any women … but our senior women have asked that we do more work on that and I respect the request that they have made, and we will come back with further work.”

Indigenous leader Pat Turner said she firmly believed improving how people lived and the opportunities available to them was the solution.

“We want our people off welfare dependency,” she said.