Closing the gap on Indigenous disadvantage

Progress towards this important goal

• Sarah Wenham, Lesley Russell
• Menzies Centre for Health Policy

Read the full text

09 August 2010In the early days of his Prime Ministership, Kevin Rudd committed to ‘closing the gap’ on Indigenous disadvantage, committing to six ambitious targets:

• Closing the life expectancy gap within a generation;
• Halving the gap in mortality rates for Indigenous children under five within a decade;
• Ensuring all Indigenous four year olds in remote communities have access to early childhood education within five years (by 2013);
• Halving the gap for Indigenous students in reading, writing and numeracy within a decade (by 2018);
• At least halving the gap in Indigenous Year 12 attainment or equivalent attainment rates by 2020; and
• Halving the gap in employment outcomes by 2018.

Time is ticking in terms of the self imposed timeframe on several of these targets. It’s not clear how much progress has been made.