National Indigenous reform agreement: report on performance 2008-09

  Under the National Indigenous Reform Agreement, all Australian governments have shared responsibility for Closing the Gap in Indigenous disadvantage across six key areas -- life expectancy, child mortality, access to early childhood education, literacy and numeracy, education attainment and economic participation. This report assesses the performance of governments against these commitments. In this report, the COAG Reform Council presents a comparative analysis of the baseline data for indicators to track governments’ performance towards the six targets under the National Indigenous Reform Agreement. The analysis also highlights contextual differences between the jurisdictions that are important in understanding the data.  The council’s other reports on healthcare, housing and disability—released concurrently—are complementary reports, presenting the baseline data for performance against outcomes for those sectors. Each of these reports contains performance indicators relevant to Indigenous Australians and plays a role in meeting the Closing the Gap targets. This executive summary outlines: key contextual differences between the jurisdictions that are important in understanding the performance of the States and Territories the findings from the comparative analysis against the six targets and the council’s recommendations on ways to improve the performance reporting framework