Big boost to Gap funds
Indigenous Closing the Gap measures are set to receive a $1 billion boost.
The Federal Government has outlined a new $1 billion “implementation plan” to close the gaps in health, education, justice, and employment by 2031.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison says he wants every Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander boy or girl to have the same opportunities as “any other Australian child”.
After the failure of the previous Closing the Gap scheme, all Australian governments last year committed to 17 new targets to improve the lives of Indigenous people.
Results on the new targets' progress have been released, showing only three are on track: improving birth weight, early education attendance, and reducing the numbers of Indigenous teenagers in youth justice.
Aboriginal organisations say Indigenous children “can't wait” for the nation to move.
The national voice for Aboriginal children, SNAICC, says a decade of limited progress showed there was something “fundamentally wrong” with the previous Gap plan.
“Our kids can't wait,” says SNAICC chief executive Catherine Liddle, an Arrernte and Luritja woman.
“What we were looking for really needed to happen 10 years ago.
“The last decade was really disappointing because Aboriginal voices were saying there's something wrong with the targets.”
The new Closing the Gap implementation plan includes $378 million for a redress scheme for Stolen Generations survivors from the Northern Territory, the ACT and Jervis Bay Territory.
It also commits hundreds of millions to new remote boarding schools, renovating and building new health clinics and boosting alcohol and drug rehabilitation programs.
The strategy has bipartisan support.