Closing the Gap

Closing the Gap is a national strategy to address inequality between Indigenous Australians and non-Indigenous Australians in specific categories: life expectancy, mortality rates for young children, early childhood education in remote areas, employment, and education. Closing the Gap was created in 2008 by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG). It is in part a response to a public awareness campaign called Close the Gap, which focused on the health gap but addresses additional inequalities.

Indigenous Australians include Indigenous people and Torres Strait Islander people. Indigenous people have lived on the South Pacific continent for between fifty thousand and one hundred and twenty thousand years. The Torres Strait waterway between Queensland, Australia, and Papua New Guinea includes more than one hundred islands. Their ancestors are believed to have arrived from Indonesia seventy thousand years ago. The impact of colonization continues to affect Indigenous Australians.

Background

Indigenous people lived a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Family groups were semi-nomadic within their territories but gathered with other groups periodically for ceremonies, trade, or social events. People had spiritual connections to land but rather than owning land, they belonged to land.

The people of the Torres Strait Islands survived through similar practices, relying on native plants and animals and fishing. On islands with rich soil, people grew food. The first explorer known to have encountered the islands was a Spaniard who sailed the strait in 1606. The pearl trade drew Europeans and Asians to the islands in the nineteenth century. Queensland annexed the islands in 1879.

When the British arrived in 1788, Australia was home to between 300,000 and 950,000 people. The British believed that they were superior to the Indigenous people and colonized the continent because they prioritized their own interests. Some colonizers believed they had purchased land, not understanding that land ownership was a concept foreign to Indigenous people.

Over the first century of colonization, untold numbers of Indigenous people died in conflicts, in massacres, and of introduced diseases such as influenza, measles, and smallpox. Starting in the late nineteenth century, Indigenous peoples were moved to reserves or missions and numerous new laws were passed to control and segregate them. Early twentieth-century laws were passed to allow the Aborigines Protection Board, which was established in 1883, to remove children from their families and send them to institutions where they were trained to farm or work as domestic servants. As was the case in North America where Indigenous children were removed from their parents’ care, family relationships were damaged, and communities were devastated. Children were forced to give up traditional practices and their native languages. The Board closed many reserves, moving people to other reserves or pressuring them to move to urban areas, and in many cases the lands were leased to white farmers. Australian society and government adopted segregation, sending Indigenous children to their own schools, and mandating that Indigenous peoples lived in separate areas, usually on reserves or in remote or less desirable areas.

Indigenous peoples formed their own associations to fight for their interests in the twentieth century. For example, they fought for full equality, national citizenship, and representation in the Commonwealth Parliament. Activist groups protested, went on strike, and took other actions. Finally in 1967 Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander people were granted the right of citizenship.

Overview

Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander social justice Commissioner Tom Calma released the Social Justice Report 2005, which highlighted the health and life expectancy gap from 1996 to 2001 and called for the governments of Australia to commit to closing the gap within twenty-five years. Among the findings was that the life expectancy gap was about seventeen years and life expectancy at birth for Indigenous Australians was 59.4 years for males and 64.8 years for females, compared with 76.6 years for all males and 82 years for all females (1998 to 2000). Other statistics found that Indigenous peoples fared worse in infant mortality, chronic and communicable diseases, oral health, mental health, and disability.

Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous health organizations, human rights organizations, and nongovernmental organizations formed the National Indigenous Health Equality Campaign in March 2006, and the following year launched its Close the Gap awareness campaign. COAG committed to closing some of these gaps. Six targets were specified in the National Indigenous Reform Agreement in November 2008:

• to close the life expectancy gap within a generation
• to halve the gap in mortality rates for Indigenous children younger than five within a decade
• to ensure access to early childhood education for all Indigenous four-year-olds in remote communities within five years
• to halve the gap in reading, writing, and mathematical achievements for children within a decade
• to halve the gap for Indigenous students in year twelve attainment rates by 2020
• to halve the gap in employment outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians within a decade.

A school attendance gap target was added in 2014.

The National Agreement on Closing the Gap, signed in 2020, changed the approach taken to the strategy. Going forward, Indigenous people decided what was important to them.

According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 34 percent of the health gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians can be attributed to social factors including employment, household income, housing adequacy, and level of schooling completed. Health risk factors such as high blood pressure, alcohol consumption, obesity, inactivity, and smoking result in 19 percent of the gap. Most of the health gap, about 47 percent, includes differences in access to health care and cultural and historical factors that have affected health. These areas are interrelated, for example from 2018 to 2019, Indigenous Australian adults who were employed were less likely to smoke, at rates of 48 percent compared to 66 percent. Similar results were seen among those who completed their twelfth year of education versus those with ten or fewer years, with 49 percent of the former reported smokers compared to 71 percent of the latter group.

The prime minister has released annual reports on the progress of Closing the Gap; the Close the Gap Campaign likewise has issued reports on progress and where the initiative and society fall short. In 2022 Australia was failing to meet almost half its targets. The 2023 Close the Gap report made a variety of recommendations. These include including the Indigenous voice in the constitution and government, adopting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, raising the age of criminal responsibility from ten to fourteen, ensuring the rights of Indigenous women and girls, and responding to the climate emergency.

Bibliography

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“Australia History.” Working with Indigenous Australians, June 2020, www.workingwithindigenousaustralians.info/content/History‗1‗AUSTRALIA.html. Accessed 25 Apr. 2023.

“Close the Gap: Indigenous Health Campaign.” Australia Human Rights Commission, 17 Mar. 2022, humanrights.gov.au/our-work/Indigenous-and-torres-strait-islander-social-justice/projects/close-gap-indigenous-health. Accessed 25 Apr. 2023.

“Closing the Gap Targets.” Australian Indigenous Health InfoNet, healthinfonet.ecu.edu.au/learn/health-system/closing-the-gap/closing-the-gap-targets/. Accessed 25 Apr. 2023.

“Determinants of Health for Indigenous Australians.” Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 7 July 2022, www.aihw.gov.au/reports/australias-health/social-determinants-and-indigenous-health. Accessed 25 Apr. 2023.

Gardiner-Gargen, John. “Closing the Gap.” Parliament of Australia, www.aph.gov.au/About‗Parliament/Parliamentary‗Departments/Parliamentary‗Library/pubs/BriefingBook44p/ClosingGap. Accessed 25 Apr. 2023.

Jackson, Lewis. “Australia Struggles to ‘Close the Gap’ in Indigenous Living Standards.” Reuters, 29 Nov. 2022, www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/australia-struggles-close-gap-indigenous-living-standards-2022-11-29/. Accessed 25 Apr. 2023.

Jenkins, Keira. “Close the Gap Report Calls for Government to Listen to Indigenous-Led Solutions.” SBS, 20 Mar. 2020, www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/close-the-gap-report-calls-for-government-to-listen-to-indigenous-led-solutions/42h1ycnya. Accessed 25 Apr. 2023.

Lowitja Institute. “Transforming Power: Voices for Generational Change: Close the Gap Campaign Report 2022.” Australian Human Rights Commission, Mar. 2022, humanrights.gov.au/our-work/Indigenous-and-torres-strait-islander-social-justice/publications/close-gap-2022. Accessed 25 Apr. 2023.