Editorial: Less talk, more action needed to Close the Gap

By editor PETER ROWE

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told Parliament on Monday that Closing the Gap targets were on track in only five areas.

There are 19 areas the Federal and State Governments and Territories have committed to.

And to read only five key areas have been met is little short of a disgrace – a disgrace to both sides of politics. Labor and Liberal.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton said the current approach was not working, but his former government is as much to blame as Labor – all complicit is so much talk, but little action.

Education programs, meaningful health initiatives and youth programs to reduce the unacceptable incarceration rates.

The Federal government last week announced an $842.6 million investment in the Northern Territory over the next six years – but may have since pointed out that much of this investment has been in place for a while.

Playing with numbers? It’s a political pastime. Tell a lie along enough and it becomes fact.

Minister for Indigenous Australians Malarndirri McCarthy met with State and Territory governments in November and put them “on notice” about the high rates of Indigenous people in jail.

The numbers keep rising.

Senator McCarthy has the well-being of First Nations people first and foremost in her thinking, and we don’t doubt that, but do other politicians?

The 10 commitments made by the Federal government, which include price capping on essential groceries and laundry facilities are just low hanging fruit so they can be seen to be doing ‘something’.

It’s time some real action was taken – some real investment in youth programs, in tackling domestic violence issues, in education programs that mean something to Indigenous kids – and not just a western view of life through the eyes of William Shakespeare or Winston Churchill.

Time to find real alternatives to prison and time to give Indigenous communities real hope for the future.

Is that, in 2025, too hard? Really?