No one should take much comfort from “slightly positive” changes in Indigenous disadvantage indicators, as gaps in other key areas have stagnated or widened, the minister for Indigenous affairs has said.
Nigel Scullion said he took only some hope from the Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage report, released on Wednesday, in that it showed the government’s policies were focused on the right areas.
But Indigenous justice and health workers said the “top-down” approach must go, in favour of working with communities.
The report showed significant improvements in child and infant mortality, and a narrowing of the gap in life expectancy, but numerous areas of disadvantage have taken alarming turns for the worse in recent years.
“All the indicators are unsurprisingly around poverty, but principally around disconnection, and the consequences of being disconnected for a long time … from employment, education and all the indicators around poverty that flow from that,” Scullion said on Wednesday.
The report led him to think the government’s parameters and direction were right, but he said “nobody should take any comfort at all from the very slight rises and slight changes that have been slightly positive, because we should really remember that the disadvantage of first Australians, and the gap between the opportunities we have and they have in many areas is remaining the same.”
Outcomes for incarceration and juvenile detention, suicide and self-harm, mental health and access to basic services such as clean water, functioning sewerage and electricity, have gone backwards, the report said.
Between 2000 and 2013 the adult Indigenous imprisonment rate increased 57%, widening the gap as the non-Indigenous rate did not show significant change, and the rate of juvenile detention remained about 24 times that of non-Indigenous youth.
“It’s extremely disappointing that the incarceration rate continues to go through the roof because the states and the territories aren’t focusing on reducing it,” Priscilla Collins, the chief executive of the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency (Naaja), told Guardian Australia.
The underlying causes of crime needed to be addressed by federal, state and territory governments, Collins said, including a number of poverty indicators identified in the report such as employment, housing and education.
“Everything leads to something, there’s always that roll-on effect,” Collins said.
“Rather than the government focusing on providing essential services to Aboriginal people, they’re providing more money to jails, more money to policing and always being ‘tough on crime’ so [there are] more restrictive approaches to bail, mandatory sentencing, a lack of non-custodial sentencing options.”
The Abbott government has been strongly criticised for its sweeping cuts to legal aid and other justice services. Despite promises that no frontline services would be affected, several organisations have cut staff or closed their doors, including Naaja’s Nhulunbuy office.
The opposition spokesman for Indigenous affairs, Shayne Neumann, accused the government of abandoning pre-election commitments to new closing the gap targets in justice and disability.
“The Abbott government has gutted services to combat recidivism such as Prisoner Through Care, along with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services and Family Violence Protection Legal Services,” said Neumann.
“As a result of budget cuts and inaction in closing the gap, we can expect to see a decline in juvenile justice outcomes, a worsening in adult imprisonment and continued high rates of juvenile detention and family and community violence.
Labor senator Nova Peris said she was extremely concerned that Indigenous incarceration and suicide would increase and that the Northern Territory’s child protection system was in crisis.
“The number of Aboriginal children being taken from their families has increased by 26% in the last year and the funding to support them has been cut,” said Peris.
She also criticised cuts to legal services and mandatory alcohol laws in the Northern Territory.
“Last month an Aboriginal woman died in Alice Springs; locked up against her will without any charge or conviction,” she said.
“She was imprisoned against her will for alcoholism. She died. It is disgraceful. It is unacceptable. It must be stopped.”
The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social justice commissioner, Mick Gooda, said Australia was in danger of losing entire generations to the prison system.
“I said recently we’re better at keeping kids in prison than we are in school. That’s an alarming statistic,” he told ABC 24.
“Too many times we’re just seeing top-down policies imposed on communities,” he said.
“We have a lot of research showing people working on country, caring for country, has a great impact on their mental health status.”
Rates of self-harm and mental illness also drastically increased among Indigenous people.
The incoming chairman of the national Aboriginal community controlled health organisation (NACCHO), Matthew Cooke, said he feared proposed policies such as the GP co-payment, closure of communities and disbanding of the council of Australian governments (Coag) reform council would make them even worse.
“The solution to these issues lies in building strong and resilient communities by reinforcing localised decision-making, encouraging cultural identity and fostering connection to country.
“Shutting down remote communities and forcing Aboriginal people to move to other communities, such as is being proposed in Western Australia, will only make matters worse.”
