This article is more than 6 years old

This article is more than 6 years old

Little to no progress has been made on improving Indigenous life expectancy and there has been a decline in Indigenous employment but the child mortality rate has been lowered and literacy and numeracy skills improved, the latest Closing the Gap report reveals.



The Council of Australian Governments (Coag) reform council, which will be abolished next month as part of budget measures, has released a report into the five-year performance of Indigenous reform and closing the gap targets. It revealed there had also been improvements in the rate of Indigenous people finishing year 12 or the equivalent.

Targets may have to be reviewed for the deadlines to close the gap in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, the rate of early childhood and education and employment outcomes with little or no progress and even declines.

The Closing the Gap targets were first agreed to by states and territories in 2009 and the prime minister, Tony Abbott, has added another target of closing the gap in school attendance within five years.

The report highlighted obesity as an area of concern; more than 41% of Indigenous people are obese, compared to 27% of non-Indigenous Australians.

In 2012, 88% of Indigenous children in remote communities were enrolled in a preschool program in the year before school and 77% attended. A seven percentage point increase is needed to reach Coag’s target of 95% enrolment in remote communities by 2013, but the figures are not yet available.

In employment outcomes the report shows the gap widened significantly, increasing by 6.6 percentage points. The gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous unemployment widened by 4.1 percentage points.

Life expectancy rates have made little or no progress. Indigenous men were expected to live to 69.1 years and women to 73.7 years in 2010-12, a gap of 10.6 years and 9.5 years respectively compared to non-Indigenous people.

Over five years the gaps have narrowed by 0.8 years for men and 0.1 years for women which means the target of closing the gap by 2031 will not be made at the current rate.

The report recorded a fall of 3.6 percentage points in daily smoking rates for Indigenous people but it was still twice the smoking rate of non-Indigenous people.

The report described education as having “better news” but “not all positive”. School attendance rates for Indigenous people, which Abbott has taken a particular interest in, have fallen and were more widespread than improvements.

Numeracy and literacy results for the Indigenous population were slightly mixed but overall heralded good news. The gap narrowed between 2008 and 2013 in reading for Indigenous people in years 3, 5, 7 and 9, and in numeracy for those in years 3 and 5. The biggest gains were closing the gap by 15.6 percentage points in reading for those in year 5 and by 10.5 percentage points for those in year 3.

More Indigenous people are finishing year 12, or the equivalent, with the gap decreasing by 12.2 percentage points in the five years since 2008.

“A clear positive is that Coag is on target to halve the gap in child deaths by 2018. This is a resounding achievement,” the report said.

From 1998 to 2012, the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous child death rates (0-4 years) reduced from 139.0 to 87.6 deaths per 100 000. The Indigenous child death rate fell by an average of 6.4 deaths per 100 000 a year over this period, fast enough to reach Coag’s target by 2018.

Coag recommended that the government note as areas of concern the widening employment gap, the higher rates of obesity among Indigenous Australians and the lower and falling school attendance among Indigenous students.