$130bn to close shamefully little of the gap - The Australian - February 12, 2018

·         ADAM CREIGHTON   Economics Correspondent Sydney @Adam_Creighton   STEPHEN FITZPATRICK   Indigenous Affairs Editor Sydney @svfitzpatrick

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull at the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting at Parliament House in Canberra last Friday.

The cost of programs that helped meet the government’s Closing the Gap targets to improve indigenous Australians’ lives over the eight years to 2016 exceeded $130.2 billion, according to analysis of government spending data by The Australian.

That included $24.8bn on programs exclusively available to indigenous Australians.

Attempting to halve the gap in workforce participation between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians — one of the 2008 targets set by the Rudd government, which is unlikely to be met — has cost $45bn over the eight years from 2009. That is how much the state, territory and federal governments have spent, via both mainstream and specific programs, to improve indigenous workforce participation.

However, with Malcolm Turnbull due to deliver the 10th annual Closing the Gap report in parliament today, pressure is ramping up for greater accountability from governments for how the money is spent, and how much of it reaches indigenous hands.

“We want to see premiers, chief ministers, health and ­indigenous affairs ministers in every jurisdiction providing regular, public accountability on their efforts to address the ­inequality gaps in their state or territory — no more finger-­pointing between governments,” Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ­Social Justice Commissioner June Oscar told the Prime Minister last week, while deliv­ering a report that was sharply critical of the strategy’s failures. The Indigenous Affairs Minister, Nigel Scullion, said yesterday today’s report would deliver the most positive result since 2011, with two extra targets of the seven on track to be met, up from just one last year.

·          Gap still a sorry disgrace STEPHEN FITZPATRICK

·         One home for four generations CHARLIE PEEL

“Even where we may not be on track, we have achieved solid progress in other target areas compared with a decade ago,” he said. Year 12 or equivalent completion rates — the only target on track in last year’s report — continues to be met.

Senator Scullion said the target for early childhood education was now on track, as was the target to halve child mortality.

However, the figure used to demonstrate the latter — a 33 per cent “significant decline” in child mortality since 1998 — is the same one used in the past two years’ reports, yet last year’s report found the target was not on track. Its 1998 data baseline also predates by a decade the implementation of the strategy, distorting the outcome.

School attendance, literacy and numeracy, employment and life expectancy targets remain off-track in the latest report. Four of the targets are due to expire this year and the government is ­consulting on a “refresh” of the scheme, which was launched at the time of Kevin Rudd’s 2008 apology to the Stolen Generations.

In his response to the Prime Minister’s report today, Bill Shorten will announce a Stolen Generations compensation scheme, available to survivors in commonwealth jurisdictions — the Northern Territory, ACT and Jervis Bay in NSW.

Labor estimates there could be about 150 people to whom this applies, with each entitled to ex-gratia payments of $75,000 as well as a one-off payment of $7000 to assist with funeral expenses.

The Opposition Leader will also announce a $10 million fund to assist with the needs of Stolen Generations members and their descendants. Should Labor win government, it will also convene a national summit on First Nations children within its first 100 days.

The cost of meeting each of the seven Closing the Gap targets is not directly publicised, but the Productivity Commission’s periodic Indigenous Expenditure Report catalogues total, inflation-adjusted spending by purpose. Such purposes include early child development, education and training; health; and economic participation.

In the 2016 financial year, the most recent year of data, government spending to improve education outcomes totalled $5.7bn. To improve indigenous health, governments spent $6.3bn, including $1.4bn on programs exclusively available to indigenous Australians.

Four of the Closing the Gap targets aim to improve education outcomes, while two — halving mortality rates for indigenous children under five, and closing the life expectancy gap within a generation — focus on health.

Combined, the cost of trying to meet the seven targets was $18.1bn in 2016, up from $14bn in 2009. The total cost has increased at an average annual rate of 3.7 per cent since then.

According to the Productivity Commission, total spending on Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders in 2016 was $33.4bn, including $6bn on programs exclusively available to indigenous Australians.

The commission has produced four indigenous expenditure reports covering the 2016, 2013, 2011 and 2009 financial years.

To fill in the gaps, The Australian took the average of the two adjacent years.

Post comment as...

David 3 DAYS AGO

In WA alone there are 115 very remote "communities" with 5 or less people

How on earth is it reasonable for us the taxpayer to service this with schools and health and welfare?

It is a lifestyle choice (just as we don't service retirees who camp out bush as a choice)

Shoveling money into First Nations is sickening, and they are ungrateful. There are many white poor people who are hurting and sick of victim politics, waste and National compensation schemes.

What a farce an incredible amount of money to make no difference. 

It is not hard to work out who got rich on this lot - consultants, lawyers and bureaucrat, how much got to intended recipients, i would suggest close to zero. This is just part of the whole industry that feeds off indigenous misery.

Where can I get an audit, and breakdown, of where, and on what, this $130 billion was spent, please.

@Tony

Google the Productivity Commission to see what each State spends on Us and Them and on what

And what per person

More detail than you can cope with

Douglas4 DAYS AGO

@Tony You might like to try your dreams as a good starting place.

Norm4 DAYS AGO

This has to rationalised. One would expect there to be something to see when $130 BILLION is spent over an eight year period. Can anyone please convince me, or themselves, that this money was all spent on the people who need it most, the Aboriginees?

David4 DAYS AGO

@Norm

To get some idea of the scale, remember that $65 bil was spent in addition on Community Safety for Aboriginals

Police, Courts, Jails, Juvenile Detention : it is a bigger amount per year than everything else

Housing is $25 bil, Medical is $35 bil, Welfare similar, Schools $36 bil etc

But the biggest amount is on keeping Aboriginal Australians SAFE

Mike4 DAYS AGO

What proof is required to be designated a member of "stolen generations"? Because until now, people making this claim have been very reluctant to have their claim tested against evidence.

David4 DAYS AGO

@Mike

I think the majority would have the view that despite the hardship they ended up happier and better off than staying with the tribe that rejected them (and abused them)

William4 DAYS AGO

And the new subs are only going to cost $50bn? Let’s get more of them.

GreenConservative4 DAYS AGO

$6bn on programmes only available to indigenous people. Isn’t that racism?

David3 DAYS AGO

@GreenConservative

Well, YES, by the current popular definition

As is the question "Are you Aboriginal or TSI" as the doorway to more riches

GreenConservative4 DAYS AGO

This needs to be a top election issue in 2019. But both major parties have little stomach for the debate. They are happy to blow billions and apologise once a year. Speak to your local member.

James4 DAYS AGO

When are Australians going to understand that you cannot force others to make changes... you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.  Why do we have an apartheid approach, when we are supposed to be one nation.  Stop wasting 16 billion a year.  If people don't what to change, just leave them alone.

B4 DAYS AGO

@James  BZ

 I think you will find the figure is $31 Billion yearly.

Paul4 DAYS AGO

@B @James Its $33 billion B!

David3 DAYS AGO

@Paul @B @James

That was a while ago : probably $35 bil in 2018

Allan2 DAYS AGO

@Paul  Spot on. 

Lloyd4 DAYS AGO

What a joke Bill Shorten. Many of the "Stolen Generation" are the lucky ones. They often got a chance to get an education, to be fed and bathed, to have a decent roof over their heads, to be skilled for work. They fared far better than most of the current neglected generation in the remote (and sometimes, not so remote) communities. 

Throwing more money at the "Aboriginal Industry" will not solve the mountain of problems. Wiping out the victimhood mentality and the associated leeches (bureaucrats) who live off the industry perpetuated by the victim mentality might be the best place to start. 

There is plenty of assistance and opportunity for any Aboriginal person who chooses to make a future for themselves. I know plenty of people who have done just that.

Catherine4 DAYS AGO

All this money.  Nothing to show for it.  Labor response?  Throw more money!  My goodness.  Doesn't anyone care any more???

Lloyd4 DAYS AGO

@Catherine Exactly, Shorten promises, "If Labor win the election....." to throw another bucket load of tax payer dollars at a problem that defies resolution under the current monstrosity of a system. What we need is accountability. Where exactly is this money going?!

Neville B. D.4 DAYS AGO

Just keep throwing buckets of money Canberra.  Is there any failure here? and how many bureaucrats have lost their   jobs because they did not reach a target?  Where did all that money go?  Who got their hands on it?  Just a little yellow box with some figures in it.  Back to sleep you taxpayers until next year.

B4 DAYS AGO

@Neville B. D.  BZ

 I, as a white person worked in "The Aboriginal Industry" and here are a few examples of wasted $$'s in the industry.  Duplicating TAFE's curriculum for Aboriginal only similar to duplication of Universities.  Primary and secondary schools Aboriginal areas only.  These examples do not assist in any way they just make it a them and us.  Naidoc week, sorry day and Reconcilliation, these are all funded and do zero to assist Aboriginal youth and women is dire straits.

 Whilst working in the industry within my small area I personally knew husband and wife duos that earnt $350,000 plus between them and were allowed to access all the Aboriginal benefits that were available - no "Means Testing here".

 Just add all of these issues up (and I am sure there are many many more) you will have an idea as to where the waste is occurring.  Get rid of some of these wasteful things and move the monies into areas that will really have benefits to the needy Aboriginals.

David4 DAYS AGO

I recall another empty promise by a Labor leader, “no child will be in poverty by 1990” how’d that go?

Peter4 DAYS AGO

Ummm.... I think those figures in the yellow box are written thousands of billions. That’s trillions. Could your reporter please refer to his or her primary school arithmetic and reduce each of those sums by a factor of a thousand? The total is fine, though (by a fluke).

Duncan4 DAYS AGO

If you are adults you can take personal responsibility for the drinking, smoking, violence and neglect in your communities. If you are children, then you have no right to be consulted and others will decide what is good for you. Choose.

William4 DAYS AGO

@Duncan Jon wouldn’t let them have alcohol because he said they couldn’t handle it. He was howled down. Time has proved him correct.

David4 DAYS AGO

Gillard funded them and gave them resources and 3 years to come up wth something that the Australian people could agree with in a referendum

 And all the Uluru 250 came up with is vague words about "voices" and "truth telling" that was unbankable and not even understood by the Leaders presenting it

 So there is ZERO chance of that same elected body (or similar) coming up with a clear report on what the Aboriginal "really want" as an alternative for spending $130 bil 

David4 DAYS AGO

Maybe offer the remote communities school halls and pink batts? 

That was the solution last time!

David4 DAYS AGO

Shouldn't we treat Aboriginals like we do pensioners? 

Pensioners could use a lot more than $22,000 per person for better things 

Or even for stuff they enjoyed when they were working 

Tell each of the remote communities that there is $22,000 per person available each year, and agree each year how that will be spent 

Water? Electricity? Housing? Food? Grog? Police?

 And just spend that

David4 DAYS AGO

Maybe we need a similar number of "Gap" items that the Aboriginal Community can pledge to close in the next 10 years

 Items that just need effort not more money 

A mutuality about the Gap

Chris4 DAYS AGO

I recently just got back from Kalgoorlie. The Indigenous problem in and around the city is much worse than it was ten years ago...The last time I was up there. I was actually shocked and felt terribly sorry for the police. 

Rudd "Closing the Gap"?. Like EVERYTHING else this fool touched it was disasterous

John4 DAYS AGO

@Chris I heard Rudd on ABC this morning - all the usual pompous waffle.

Sure he made the gesture of "the apology" but nothing will close any gap until the communities themselves take responsibility and engage with those trying to help them.

Shortly after "the apology", working in a white fella  hospital in remote Australia, I saw a 10 year old indigenous girl ravaged with multiple STDs, contracted in her home community, and speculated that in a generation's time we may have to make another "apology" to the "neglected generation" whom we left to the ravages of their own communities, instead of being "rescued".

David4 DAYS AGO

Simple remedy : and totally fair approach 

* only have special programmes for remote communities 

* there are 1200 remote communities : allow each to opt out, and move to traditional self sufficiency : no money or services 

* limit the spend per person to $22,000 per year (same as pensioners etc) and ask each of the remote communities how they would like to spend that (self empowerment) but spend no more : budget accordingly 

* cut out the racist "Are you Aboriginal or TSI" question on all forms : treat us all the same

Andrew4 DAYS AGO

Hardly equality for each and every Australian in terms of services and money spent per person. The problem is that it has become an industry with a Public Service Bureaucracy of it 's owns and Private Enterprise preys off the system too at the expense of the indigenous people. Given the scope of the "Industry" it will be something very hard to change or dismember. - it will be just more of the same.

Joel4 DAYS AGO

The level of spending quoted in this article over the last 8 years equates to over $24,000 per person for every person in Australia who self identifies as indigenous (apparently around 670,000 people).

However, in terms of Aboriginals living in remote or very remote areas - of which there are apparently around 143,000 - this would represent almost $114,000 per person.

It is clearly the later that we should be helping, not the former. And add to that all the bureaucratic wastage that must be an enormous percentage of the funding (over 50% wouldn't surprise me). 

Marianne4 DAYS AGO

Are you talking per year here Joel, or overall?

barry4 DAYS AGO

I heard a politician talking outside parliament house this morning and as usual when a politician speaks I try to tune out but my ears picked up when they started talking about the large number of Aboriginal children in care.  Oh no I thought, not another lost generation!!

Part of another speech was about how the life expectancy of Aboriginals was so much less then the rest of the population and how this needs to be addressed (more funding no doubt).  They did mention that this included the death toll from many causes, including suicide, but did not specifically mention petrol sniffing or alcohol and other drug abuse, all of which seems to be our fault.  Of course those living in remote communities on mostly traditional diets, even without alcohol or drug abuse, are going to have a shorter life span.  Get bitten by a venomous snake in the outback where there is no hospital and you are likely to die.  Can not swim and get caught in a wet season flood you will probably drown.

David4 DAYS AGO

@barry

The Aboriginal kids are "in care" because there are insufficient foster parents within the Aboriginal "community"

Maybe they could fix that

Christopher4 DAYS AGO

Did you include the $50,000 given to a convicted meth addict with a spitting problem who put a copper and member of the public in hospital? 

One the bright side, at least he left the Centre and headed to WA (via QLD) in his newly bought car (now covered in signatures) because 'Black Lives Matter'.

Ask the coppers in Norseman what he got up to when he first arrived.

Noel4 DAYS AGO

when do we stop paying for the Stolen Generation?  It seems as if the endless coffers of the Australian government is a well known and endless cheque book for those who wish to received "sit down money." The waste is in the bureaucracy that has grown up around the Aboriginal Industry thus perpetuating itself until the end of time. 

David4 DAYS AGO

Maybe we should move to a self-serve system, like petrol stations

We supply the goods and services, but they come and get it

Could save heaps  

John MC4 DAYS AGO

Remote communities that exist on welfare are not viable. There are no jobs there! Only an idiot keeps doing the same thing and expects a different result. If you want to maintain your traditional lifestyle and culture and live in the stone age - fine - but no welfare. You can't have it both ways. Assuming that most aboriginals do not want to live in the stone age again, time for them to join the modern world and move to areas where there is education, health facilities and jobs. That is the only way to fix the problem.

David4 DAYS AGO

The $130 bil is ONLY for the "GAP" items

There are major areas of additional spend that basically double that spend

The biggest (according to reliable Govt reports) is the cost of Aboriginal "Community Safety"

Which is the polite phrase for police, jails, courts, juvenile detention etc

In the eight years where we spent $130 bil on not closing the Gap, we spent an additional $64 bil on cops and courts

David4 DAYS AGO

As there are half a million "aboriginal identifying" (many being a lot more Scottish than Aboriginal) that works out as $128,000 per aboriginal person for Cops and Courts

John4 DAYS AGO

MT must be given the boot and the LNP do the TRUMP, other wise we will have BS handed out more borrowed money on myths 

Kim4 DAYS AGO

Aboriginal lives are about freedom, wonder and enchantment with the land. Their culture is not about work, and long life which is a white man philosophy. Closing the Gap to what? So aboriginal people be like every white fellow?

David4 DAYS AGO

@Kim

So we should close the purse?

And leave them wondering (and wandering)

Peter the Deplorable4 DAYS AGO

What fairy garden do you come from? Traditional aboriginal life was primative, short and violent. Finding food was often a struggle, depending upon the seasons. Most tribes were constantly at war with neighbouring tribes and life expectancy was a fraction if what it is today. All this purported zen-type existance is just a PC pile of rubbish.

David4 DAYS AGO

@Peter the Deplorable

If the fairy garden is true, presumably the many funded Aboriginal academics have documented it based on all the verbal evidence

Marianne4 DAYS AGO

Yes, we all know how reliable verbal history is