'Weak and inadequate': govts slammed over Closing the Gap failures

In a scathing assessment of progress on the 2020 National Agreement on Closing the Gap, the Productivity Commission accused governments of adopting a business-as-usual approach frequently at odds with the aims of the agreement and which actually make the situation worse.

The 2020 agreement called for governments and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to work together to overcome inequality and "achieve life outcomes equal to all Australians".

Among its priorities were shared decision-making, building the community controlled sector and transforming government organisations to work better with Indigenous people.

"Governments are not adequately delivering on [their] commitment," the commission found.

"Progress in implementing the agreement's priority reforms has, for the most part, been weak and reflects a business-as-usual approach.

"It is too easy to find examples of government decisions that contradict commitments, do not reflect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people's priorities and perspectives and that exacerbate, rather than remedy, disadvantage and discrimination."

Without stronger accountability for implementation, the commission warned, "the agreement risks becoming another broken promise to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people".

The report is likely to add fuel to the intensifying debate over the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament, which is due to be voted on at a referendum later this year.

Proponents of the Voice argue it will give First Nations people a way to advise on government policies that affect them, while opponents claim it will be ineffective, divisive or unnecessary.

Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney seized on the report findings, arguing they demonstrated why the voice was a " once in a life-time opportunity that we must take to help close the gap".

"This report shows once again that the status quo is not working. We have to do better," Ms Burney said, conceding that there was "much work to be done" to meet the priority reforms in the agreement.

The minister said the federal government was was carefully considering the report recommendations.

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The Productivity Commission found many of the 2000 initiatives detailed by governments in their implementation plans for the Closing the Gap agreement simply repeat what they have been doing for many years without genuinely consulting with Indigenous people.

"Actions often focus on the 'what' with little, if any, detail on the 'how' or the 'why'," the report found.

"There appears to be an assumption that 'governments know best'.

"Too many government agencies are implementing versions of shared decision-making that involve consulting with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people on a pre-determined solution, rather than collaborating on the problem and co-designing a solution."

This is despite government acknowledgement that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-controlled services (ACCOs) "generally achieve better results".

"Governments do not recognise that ACCOs are critical partners in delivering services tailored to the priorities of their communities," the commission found.

The Productivity Commission questioned government understanding of the commitments they had made under the agreement.

"Current implementation raises questions about whether governments have fully grasped the scale of change required to their systems, operations and ways of working to deliver the unprecedented shift they have committed to," it said.

The PC reported there was also a "stark absence" of strategies at the government or agency level to transform the way they work with Indigenous people and organisations, which was one of the agreement's key priorities.

"We are yet to identify a government organisation that has articulated a clear vision for what transformation looks like," the report said, with efforts to-date being small scale and focused on individual actions.

"Transformation can only be realised by drawing on the experiences and perspective of those who governments serve," the commission said. "Without external perspectives, government agencies will not be able to overcome any 'blind spots' relating to institutional racism, cultural safety and unconscious bias."

The agreement also called for improvements in the way governments collect and produce data to include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in decisions made about what information is gathered and how, and enabling Indigenous organisations access to use it.

The report is one of the final few to be delivered under the leadership of PC chair Michael Brennan, who will be replaced by economist and former Labor staffer Chris Barrett in September.