Australia is going backwards on key closing the gap targets, with rates of Indigenous suicide, adult incarceration and children in out-of-home care getting worse.
Sobering new data on eight of the targets released by the Productivity Commission on Thursday revealed that while there had been modest improvements in the life expectancy of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, it’s not been enough to put the goal of ending the gap by 2031 on track.
Of the 19 targets, five were on track – up from four – but three were trending backwards, and one had no improvement.
Indigenous Australians Minster Linda Burney welcomed the revelation that the target of 91 per cent of Indigenous babies being born with healthy birth weight was now on track, having reached 89.6 per cent in 2021.
But five months on from the failed Voice to parliament referendum, the data painted a bleak overall picture of the stat...
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