It has become undeniable that the over-imprisonment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men, women and children is a national tragedy. Too many people are damaged by criminal justice systems that do not make our communities any safer.

Over the past 25 years, there has been an ongoing failure of successive governments at the federal, state and territory to take action on this issue. Despite the comprehensive report of the royal commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody more than 25 years ago, the vast majority of these recommendations have not been implemented. Despite report after report, the one consistency has been government inaction.

In that time, prison numbers around the country have continued to increase at exponential rates. This is a national crisis that demands national leadership and action.

Last month, a large coalition of Indigenous leaders, academics and community groups like the Aboriginal Legal Services wrote to the federal government calling for urgent action on alarming levels of Indigenous incarceration. The response thus far from the federal government to the open letter has, again, been deeply disappointing.

Indigenous leaders have issued a powerful call to shift government expenditure away from building more and more failing prisons and, instead, to invest in justice reinvestment policies and programs.

Yet the response from the Indigenous affairs minister, Nigel Scullion, was that these matters are “primarily a matter for the states that own, operate and control the justice system”. This view is clearly at odds with the report of the Australian Law Reform Commission, Pathways to Justice, established by the Coalition government itself, which calls specifically for the establishment of a national justice reinvestment body and supporting justice reinvestment trials around the country. These actions lie clearly within the federal government’s responsibility.

It is a sad fact that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men are now 14.7 times more likely to be imprisoned than non-Indigenous men. It is even more disturbing fact that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women are 21.2 times more likely to be imprisoned than non-Indigenous women.

Our vastly disproportionate rates of Indigenous imprisonment continue to shock the international community and leave an indelible stain on Australia’s heart and our human rights record. This stain is not a state and territory issue. It is an issue for all of us. It is a national issue which needs national leadership and a co-ordinated national response led by the prime minister through the Coag processes.

Our vastly disproportionate rates of Indigenous imprisonment continue to shock the international community and leave an indelible stain on Australia’s human rights record.

The current Closing the Gap “refresh” process is the ideal opportunity for the federal government to demonstrate this national leadership. A national Closing the Gap target to reduce imprisonment rates would provide a shared national political commitment at all levels of government to work together and enable and empower Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to live healthy and prosperous lives with safety, security and prosperity, and a fair go for all.

Justice reinvestment initiatives, such as the project currently delivering positive outcomes in Bourke, reallocate public expenditure away from prisons and instead invests resources back in communities where it can make a real difference in reducing offending and help break the cycle of offending while making communities safer. In other words, prevention and not detention. It is about investing locally where crime is occurring to address the particular problems facing individuals and communities. It is about expenditure to address what the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody identified as the “underlying issues” giving rise to the disproportionate rate of Indigenous incarceration.

The royal commission and numerous public inquiries over the past two decades have confirmed that Indigenous people, including juveniles, who come into contact with the criminal justice system are statistically, overwhelmingly likely to experience multiple and severe social and economic disadvantage including poor health, education and employment outcomes, substance abuse issues, family violence, affordable and adequate housing, intergenerational trauma and abject poverty.

The great bulk of Aboriginal offenders are thus statistically doomed to a life of ongoing contact with the criminal justice system and the prison system because of the root causes of offending.

The current approach to our criminal justice system is a costly failure. While Aboriginal legal services must be adequately funded, Aboriginal organisations must also be the cornerstone for programs that focus on prevention and rehabilitation, in order to reduce the alarming levels of Indigenous people in the justice system. The massive public expenditure on ever increasing reliance on incarceration has been estimated by the Productivity Commission at $3.4bn per annum in 2013-14, when the prison population was less than 33,000 and it is now almost 38,000 according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics so the costs will have significantly increased. The juvenile detention costs are astronomical and make hardened state treasury officials weep. The Productivity Commission has reported that in 2016-17 the national average cost per day of keeping just one child or young person in detention was $1,482, or $541,300 for a year. Aboriginal kids make up the majority of children detained. Recently, in the Northern Territory, 100% of the children in detention were Aboriginal.

That’s why we need our politicians to come together on these crucial issues and find a way to build common ground, shape public policy based on evidence and to take the public with them. These issues should be able to bring left and right together as it increasingly is doing in the United States and other comparable jurisdictions. The recent successes of both Republicans and Democrats coming together in places like Texas and Louisiana on this issue are showing what can be done by parties working “across the aisle”. Both are realising that massive public expenditure in building new prisons is failing to deliver effective outcomes.

There is a growing realisation by people of goodwill, both within Australia and internationally, that prison and criminal justice reform is a cause whose time has also come. It is a cause that warrants national leadership and deserves the focused attention of both the prime minister, Scott Morrison, the opposition leader, Bill Shorten, and parliamentarians around the country. It is most definitely a cause conservative political leaders should engage with and support.

Now is the time for the prime minister and the opposition leader to come together to lead the necessary reforms so long recommended by successive royal commissions, Law Reform Commission reports and perhaps, more importantly, by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people of this county.

• Robert Tickner was Australia’s longest serving minister for Aboriginal Affairs and a champion of Just Reinvest NSW