Closing the Gap in Urban Aboriginal Disadvantage - the Limits of Secondary Aggregated Statistics

Closing the Gap: National Urban and Regional Service Delivery Strategy for Indigenous Australians came into effect on 2 July 2009. Its policy objective is to reduce statistical inequality between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians in urban and regional areas through the adoption of a comprehensive and integrated approach across seven strategic platforms or what the document refers to as Building Blocks. The seven Building Blocks are: early childhood, schooling, health, economic participation, healthy homes, safe communities and governance and leadership. This approach also recognises that: An Improvement in the area of one Building Block is heavily reliant on improvements made on other Building Blocks. Closing the Gap in urban and regional Indigenous communities focuses on: Boosting Indigenous demand for and take-up of services, strengthening first peoples leadership and family and community well-being, individual capacity and responsibility for decision-making about their own lives, together with changes to health, education, housing, early childhood development and employment (Closing the Gap 2009: B-60). Clearly, the needs of urban Aboriginal peoples differ from those Aboriginal peoples who live in small regional, rural and remote localities. For example, many urban Aboriginal communities are living off-country and governance structures differ to on-country or nation based Aboriginal communities.