Every year, the Productivity Commission reports on the progress state and federal governments are making towards closing the gap in the gross inequality between Indigenous and non-Indigenous lives.

Every year, these governments fail. For many indicators, the gap actually gets worse.

This year is no exception. The new data show just four of the 19 targets are being met or are on track to be so. Of the nine targets that aren’t on track, four are worsening, including adult imprisonment, suicide and children in out of home care.

With such a poor track record of failing to improve the lives of Indigenous people, it’s well past time for a different approach.

Indigenous people across the country face a range of social policy challenges, many of which are often politicised. In this three-part series, experts examine issues with child protection, violence and reconciliation and look at evidence-based policy approaches that would help improve the lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Attempts to close the gap started in 2008 when the Rudd government apologised for the Stolen Generations: past government policies running over a century that stole First Nations children from their families.

Kevin Rudd, and then later Julia Gillard, continued measures from the Northern Territory Emergency Response, often called the NT intervention. Starting under John Howard, this draconian regime witheld Indigenous rights, overrode self-determination, and implemented punitive and coercive policies in the name of improving education, health and development.

Ironically, Gillard called this “Stronger Futures”.

Legacies of these policies are still in force........

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