The "Closing The Gap" Report On Indigenous Australia Has Been Released And It's Not Looking Great
Indigenous health, education and employment still grim.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has delivered the annual Closing the Gap speech in parliament, reporting on the progress targets set by the Council of Australian Governments in 2008.
The targets were put in place by federal and state governments to improve the massive disparity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians in health, education and employment.
"Now while we should celebrate the successes, we cannot sugar-coat the enormity of the job that remains," Turnbull told Parliament. "We do face very real and difficult challenges, particularly in isolated communities".
"We must be honest about the catastrophe and violence created by drug and alcohol misuse and confront, and respond, to the cries of help, particularly from women and children".
Lukas Coch / AAP
The report shows that Indigenous child mortality rates are down by 33% between 1998 and 2014 and immunisation rates of a child by the age of five in the Indigenous community are much higher than the rest of the population.
The mortality rate of Indigenous people as whole still remains high and falls short of targets set to reduce deaths, in particular from circulatory diseases like heart attack and stroke, in 2006.
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Indigenous Australians can expect to die around 10 years younger than the rest of the population and targets to close the life expectancy gap by 2031 are completely off- track.
"The health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is slowly improving but the current rate of progress will have to gather pace if the life expectancy target is to be met by 2031," Turnbull says in the report.
"Meeting this target remains challenging because, among other things, non-Indigenous life expectancy is expected to rise over the coming years".
Dan Peled / AAP
A commitment to address the high levels of unemployment amongst Indigenous Australians by federal and state governments has completely failed.
The target to halve the gap in employment by 2018 has completely stagnated with the Prime Minister writing that "no progress" has been made since 2008.
Indigenous employment rates fell from almost 54% to around 47% between 2012 - 2013.
Dan Peled / AAP