Senator Lidia Thorpe has said that the Closing the Gap partnership is collapsing, arguing that governments signed up to the agreement have demonstrated they have no interest in engaging in good faith to achieve targets. 

Quotes attributable to Senator Lidia Thorpe

“This time last year, the Productivity Commission delivered a damning assessment of Closing the Gap, and called for an overhaul of how First Nations policy is developed and implemented.

"A year later, things have gotten worse. It has been a year of betrayal, delay and deflection.

"Governments, including the federal government, have shown time and again that they have no good faith commitment to this partnership.

"I want to be very clear: these gaps are widening because governments are intentionally widening them. The list of attacks on First Peoples by governments is growing by the day. 

"In November, the federal Minister for Indigenous Australians brought together Indigenous Affairs ministers to address the shamefully high rates of unsentenced First Nations children in prison. 

"But instead of working to address the problem, since that November meeting, we’ve instead seen states introduce policies to hold more children on remand. 

"Labor Premiers Jancinta Allan and Chris Minns have both taken steps to make it more difficult for people to receive bail. In Queensland it is now harder to get bail as a child than as an adult.

"We are also seeing moves in the NT to dismantle the child placement principle, which is in place to keep our children connected to family, culture and kin. 

"$205 million of the federal funding package announced last week will go to sending cops to remote communities. 

"This will just funnel more of our people into the court and prison system at a time where courts are crumbling, as many people are unable to access legal assistance or even an interpreter.

"This crisis in legal assistance was created by the federal government, who have massively underfunded the sector for years, continuing this year when they allocated less than a quarter of necessary funding.

"We need the federal government to take a much stronger approach to hold the states and territories to account. They have constitutional power to enforce standards on the states and territories to bring this county into line with our international human rights obligations as we see with the Sex Discrimination Act and in other areas.

"The government must take much stronger action to stop the abuse and discrimination being perpetrated against First Peoples.

"We need a government who truly is committed and not just providing lip service."

KEY STATS 

• Productivity commission data released in January showed an increase in the number and rate of Indigenous children jailed, with 26.6 per 10,000 First Nations children and young people being incarcerated 2023-24 on an average day, up from 25.6 per 10,000 the previous year.
• On an average day, 65 per cent of children imprisoned are First Nations. In the same period, Indigenous children between the ages of 10-13 were imprisoned at a rate of 45.5 per 10,000—45.5 times more than their non-Indigenous cohort.
• Overall, state and territory governments imprison First Nations children at almost 27 times the rate of non-Indigenous children.
• The cost of imprisoning children has risen to over $1B annually. 
• The latest figures from the Productivity Commission shows 23,956 First Nations children were in at least one out-of-home care (OOHC) placement in 2023-24.
  
• Nationally, Indigenous children aged 0-17 were placed at least once in OOHC in the last financial year at a rate of 60.6 per 1,000, 10.4 times higher than non-Indigenous children and an increase from 12 months previous.
  
• The $840 million announcement for the Northern Territory will allocate $205 million to increased policing of remote communities.