Speaker 1: Already and this is the daily This is the Daily
Speaker 1: ohs oh, now it makes sense. Good morning and welcome
Speaker 1: to the Daily Ods. It is Thursday, the fifteenth of February.
Speaker 1: I'm Billy, I'm Lucy, Lucy. Before we move on, I
Speaker 1: feel like anytime I tell anyone about your job at
Speaker 1: the Daily Odds, they are so intrigued. Can you just
Speaker 1: tell us what you do here?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I'm the fact checker.
Speaker 1: I check the facts. That's what I do all day.
Speaker 1: And what does that involve? How do you check the facts?
Speaker 2: Mostly? I bother the journalists. I ask them questions that
Speaker 2: they would think would be obvious.
Speaker 1: You're a big advocate for the primary sources.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. I'm always calling people and looking up PDFs and
Speaker 2: figuring out what the truth is. A full time fact checker,
Speaker 2: I think it's a rarity at a news organization, especially
Speaker 2: one of our size. Yes, definitely one of our size.
Speaker 1: Now now, on today's episode, we have heard two updates
Speaker 1: on the Closing the Gap scheme this month, first that
Speaker 1: governments are at serious risk of not meeting their goals,
Speaker 1: and then from the federal government this week we learned
Speaker 1: that progress is not just stalling, but actually going backwards
Speaker 1: in some areas. Lucy, you're here to explain the failures
Speaker 1: and successes of the closing the gap scheme. But first,
Speaker 1: what's making headlines?
Speaker 2: More than two million calls to cent a link when
Speaker 2: unanswered over a six month period last year. Services Australia
Speaker 2: data for July to December shows seven million callers received
Speaker 2: congestion messages and had to wait an average of more
Speaker 2: than thirty minutes to speak to a staff member. Federal
Speaker 2: senators analyze the data from Services Australia during hearings this week,
Speaker 2: finding nearly a third of callers hung up after long
Speaker 2: wait times.
Speaker 1: The Competition Watchdog has won a case against car manufacturer
Speaker 1: Mazda after it received reports of recurring issues with new
Speaker 1: car peres. The Federal court ordered Mazda to pay eleven
Speaker 1: point five million dollars in a fine, as well as
Speaker 1: eighty two thousand dollars to some customers in compensation. Their
Speaker 1: AGREBRAC accused Mazda of deceptive conduct after it denied dozens
Speaker 1: of customers refunds or replacements on vehicle faults, which they're
Speaker 1: entitled to under the Australian consumer law.
Speaker 2: Two opposing parties in Pakistan have made a deal to
Speaker 2: share power after an election last week resulted in a
Speaker 2: hung parliament, meaning neither party won enough seats to form government.
Speaker 2: Independent candidates backed by former Prime Minister Imran Khan, who's
Speaker 2: currently in jail, won the most seats but can't form
Speaker 2: government on their own. Another former prime minister, Noa's Sharif
Speaker 2: has agreed to lead a coalition with former Foreign Affairs
Speaker 2: Minister Bilawal Bhutu Zadari. Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League is politically conservative,
Speaker 2: while Zadari's People's Party is described as center left. Despite
Speaker 2: their differences, the parties have enough seats to form government
Speaker 2: and have announced their work to gather.
Speaker 1: And Today's good news. Breakthrough satellite mapping technology has helped
Speaker 1: researchers from the University of Queensland find unknown coral reefs.
Speaker 1: The newly mapped three hundred and fifty thousand square kilometers
Speaker 1: of reefs means there are more coral ecosystems in the
Speaker 1: world's oceans than scientists previously thought. The Global Reef Mapping Project,
Speaker 1: which is focused on conservation efforts, also found new areas
Speaker 1: of coral reefs up to thirty meters deep.
Speaker 2: Billy. It was the sixteenth anniversary of the National Apology
Speaker 2: to Indigenous People this week. I have a very clear
Speaker 2: memory of that day in two thousand and eight when
Speaker 2: my teacher rolled the TV into our year six classroom
Speaker 2: so that we could watch the speech. And that same
Speaker 2: year the first iteration of the Closing the Gap targets
Speaker 2: were set, and we've heard some very interesting updates about
Speaker 2: those targets this month.
Speaker 1: Before we look at what the updates have been, can
Speaker 1: you first just explain to ours what are the Closing
Speaker 1: the Gap targets.
Speaker 2: Well, they're an acknowledgment that there's a significant difference in
Speaker 2: the overall quality of life of First Nations people and
Speaker 2: not Indigenous Australians. So life expectancy, representation in the prison system,
Speaker 2: health school completion in all of these areas and more
Speaker 2: statistics tell us that broadly First Nations people are worse
Speaker 2: off than other people in this country. These targets were
Speaker 2: first set in two thousand and eight, as I said,
Speaker 2: and they were renewed in twenty twenty. More importantly, probably
Speaker 2: the targets are commitments made by all levels of government,
Speaker 2: federal all the way down to local to improve First
Speaker 2: Nations people's lives. Many of these targets actually have deadlines,
Speaker 2: so governments need to show that they've met these goals
Speaker 2: by twenty twenty five or twenty thirty one, depending on
Speaker 2: the target. We've learned quite a bit about how governments
Speaker 2: are progressing towards those targets this month.
Speaker 1: And so what exactly have we learned? How are they progressing?
Speaker 2: They're not progressing well, is the thing. So earlier this
Speaker 2: month we heard from the Productivity Commission. So that's a
Speaker 2: federal government body that gives independent advice and can evaluate
Speaker 2: how different government services are performing. I feel like we
Speaker 2: hear about the Productivity Commission all the time, all the time.
Speaker 2: They've got their fingers in a lot of different pies.
Speaker 2: So they shared what's been achieved since those targets were
Speaker 2: renewed in twenty twenty, and their report was pretty scathing.
Speaker 2: It called current Efforts week and said that although there
Speaker 2: were some pockets of good practice, measures have been slow, uncoordinated,
Speaker 2: and piecemeal, so all over the place.
Speaker 1: Like you said, that's pretty scathing. Did it call out
Speaker 1: any specific failures.
Speaker 2: One of the more damning comments I think was that
Speaker 2: lawmakers have quote failed to fully grasp what they'll actually
Speaker 2: need to do to live up to those commitments they made.
Speaker 2: So that's one specific The Productivity Commission doesn't think those governments,
Speaker 2: So that's all levels of government are showing they understand
Speaker 2: what they've actually agreeed to. And another big point that
Speaker 2: was called out was that governments haven't actually consulted enough
Speaker 2: with First Nations communities to design measures together to close
Speaker 2: the gap. It's said that First Nations community organizations actually
Speaker 2: deliver better outcomes than governments in many areas, and that
Speaker 2: part of the report really reminded me of this saying,
Speaker 2: which I think comes from disability activism. Nothing about us
Speaker 2: without us. Basically, people need to be involved in policies
Speaker 2: that will affect them.
Speaker 1: And did the Productivity Commission have any recommendations about what
Speaker 1: the government can do to fix that?
Speaker 2: So the report recommended our fundamental rethink of systems used
Speaker 2: to address disadvantage and it's said agreeing to those targets
Speaker 2: requires government decision makers to accept that they do not
Speaker 2: know what is best for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Speaker 2: It said that without large scale changes, governments risked quote
Speaker 2: another broken promise to First Nations people, and it said,
Speaker 2: the agment can and should be a blueprint for real
Speaker 2: WALK reform, but governments need to move beyond business as
Speaker 2: usual and address entrenched attitudes, assumptions, and ways of working
Speaker 2: that stop progress. So all of that came out last
Speaker 2: week and really foreshadowed what happened this week when we
Speaker 2: got a federal update on how the targets are progressing.
Speaker 1: So we know that broadly the targets are not progressing
Speaker 1: well before we look at what the update this week was,
Speaker 1: can you first just explain what actually are the targets
Speaker 1: that we're looking at here, how many of them are there?
Speaker 1: So they cover all areas of quality of life. They
Speaker 1: include things like increasing the number of people speaking Aboriginal
Speaker 1: and Torres Strait Islanders languages, making sure small children are
Speaker 1: thriving before school and when they go into school, reducing
Speaker 1: the number of kids and out of home care, ensuring
Speaker 1: people aren't living in poor quality overcrowded houses, and even
Speaker 1: increasing native title rights to land and sea country. And
Speaker 1: then in terms of numbers, there's these four Priority reforms
Speaker 1: which cover more of the enacting programs, and then there
Speaker 1: are seventeen targets and a couple of subtargets, so kind
Speaker 1: of nineteen broad targets and so we're flagged that there
Speaker 1: was another update this week. What was that?
Speaker 2: So PM Anthony Albanizi made a speech in Parliament this
Speaker 2: week kind of touching on what that update was.
Speaker 3: Sixteen years after the apology, only eleven out of nineteen
Speaker 3: socioeconomic outcomes for average on Tyres Strait Islander people's are improving.
Speaker 3: Just four are on track to meet their targets. What
Speaker 3: should give us pause is that outcomes have worsened for
Speaker 3: four critical targets.
Speaker 2: And that worsening that he mentioned, that's got the government
Speaker 2: very worried.
Speaker 1: We just heard him mention four targets that are getting worse.
Speaker 1: What are those?
Speaker 2: So they're critical targets as he said, So those targets
Speaker 2: are one first nation's children hitting developmental mind in their
Speaker 2: first year of school, to making sure adults aren't overrepresented
Speaker 2: in the justice system, three keeping kids out of home
Speaker 2: care and for reducing the suicide rate. So the stats
Speaker 2: show us that all of these things are getting worse,
Speaker 2: not better. The government said it's determined to fix this.
Speaker 2: But considering what we've just heard about the Productivity Commission's report,
Speaker 2: it does sound like a lot of work needs to
Speaker 2: be done.
Speaker 1: Are there any targets that are on track?
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're silver linings. So some of those targets that
Speaker 2: are on track are actually related to those that are
Speaker 2: getting worse, so we could possibly see better outcomes in
Speaker 2: the future. So like, for example, the target for the
Speaker 2: majority of First Nations children to be in culturally appropriate
Speaker 2: early childhood education is on track to be met, so
Speaker 2: we could see better outcomes in terms of that target
Speaker 2: of kids meeting markers in their first year of school.
Speaker 2: You know, if preschool attendance is getting better, then KINDI
Speaker 2: is probably going to.
Speaker 1: Start to look better.
Speaker 2: And there's also been improvement in the overrepresentation of children
Speaker 2: in the criminal justice system. First Nations children are still
Speaker 2: very much overrepresented, but those numbers are getting lower, and
Speaker 2: that relates to the overrepresentation of adults in the system
Speaker 2: because research shows us that incarceration as a child is
Speaker 2: a key driver of incarceration as an adult, So fewer
Speaker 2: kids being incarcerated could possibly lead to fewer adults being incarcerated.
Speaker 2: We can see the whole trajectory of this possibly getting better.
Speaker 2: And then the other targets that are on track are
Speaker 2: increasing access to land and the employment rate for adults.
Speaker 2: One thing to note, not all of this data is new,
Speaker 2: so we'll probably hear more from the Productivity Commission and
Speaker 2: from the government throughout the year as more of those
Speaker 2: stats start to come through, more data gets updated, and
Speaker 2: we'll keep you across all of that on TDA.
Speaker 1: Lucy, Thank you so much for joining us. It is
Speaker 1: always a treat when we get to pull you away
Speaker 1: out of primary sources and deep into every document ever
Speaker 1: to be on the mic. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: What would it be here?
Speaker 1: And before you go, we are currently during a podcast
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Speaker 1: the things that you don't like or that you think
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Speaker 1: survey in the show notes. See it is the first
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Speaker 1: and we will be back tomorrow.
Speaker 2: My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Dunda
Speaker 2: Bungelung Caalcuttin woman from Gadigol Country. The Daily oz acknowledges
Speaker 2: that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the
Speaker 2: Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres
Speaker 2: Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the
Speaker 2: first peoples of these countries, both past and present,