The Commonwealth Government and Council of Australian Governments (COAG) have accorded high priority to improving the condition of Indigenous Australians, engendering great interest in the recently released Productivity Commission report, Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage.
The report revealed that in 80 per cent of the 50 indicators of disadvantage that were measured, there has been a decline rather than an improvement. This negative slide has attracted much media coverage and expert comment.
Two subsets of the 50 indicators are given particular attention in the report. First, COAG's Closing the Gap Targets: life expectancy; young child mortality; early childhood education; reading, writing and numeracy; year 12 attainment; and employment.
Second, the Commission's previously established 'Headline Indicators': post-secondary education; disability and chronic disease; household and individual income; substantiated child abuse and neglect; family and community violence; imprisonment and juvenile detention.
Substantiated cases of child abuse and neglect have received the most attention. They have more than doubled in the Indigenous population between 2000 and 2008, compared to a 20 per cent increase in the non-Indigenous population. As has been noted, the figures are probably partly due to more rigorous reporting of cases, but by any measure these statistics are disturbing. They might even be below the actual rate of occurrence.
However, some perspective is required when considering the grim statistics. Two things are worth noting here.
First, many families are dealing with problems of abuse and neglect, often with remarkable success. I know of many cases in which children are taken by family members away from neglectful mothers/parents.
Just last week, in a desert community, I watched as a great-grandfather carefully made up a bottle of formula, using hot water from a thermos and bottled cold water, and tenderly fed an infant whose mother 'is in town drinking'; the child is in the care of her grandmother and other family members.
Such carers are now likely to be officially recognised, but they need to be supported and enabled, not undermined and denigrated by sweeping claims of neglect and abuse.
Secondly, many matters in the report that deserve attention have been all but overlooked in public discussion.
There was some mention of the worsening gap in imprisonment rates, with ever more Indigenous men and women being incarcerated. Many are juveniles who are sometimes placed in inappropriate adult facilities.
While greater policing of violent crimes is welcome, often offences leading to incarceration are trivial. In Western Australia, for example, a large number