Closing the Gap

Closing the Gap is an agreement between the Coalition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peak Organisations (the Coalition of Peaks) and all Australian Governments.

The first of its kind.

The Agreement has four priority reform areas and 17 socio-economic targets in areas including education, employment, health and well-being, justice, safety, housing, land and waters, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages. These targets have been developed through a co-design process to meet the aspirations of Aboriginal people to improve life outcomes.

The Priority Reforms are:

1. Developing and strengthening structures to ensure the full involvement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in shared decision making at the national, state and local or regional level and embedding their ownership, responsibility and expertise to close the gap.
2. Building the formal Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-controlled services sector to deliver Closing the Gap services and programs in agreed focus areas.
3. Ensuring all mainstream government agencies and institutions undertake systemic and structural transformation to contribute to Closing the Gap, improve accountability and respond to the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
4. Ensuring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have access to, and the capability to use, locally relevant data and information to monitor the implementation of the Priority Reforms, the Closing the Gap targets and drive local priorities.

Download the National Agreement on Closing the Gap.

Implementation of the National Agreement

The NT Government, Aboriginal Peak Organisations NT and the Local Government Association of the NT have developed the first NT Closing the Gap Implementation Plan.

The Plan focusses on key actions to address the priority reforms, and establishing the ongoing framework for oversight and governance of Closing the Gap in the Northern Territory. Further actions will be added in future iterations of the Plan.

Under the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, all jurisdictions must align relevant policies and programs to the Agreement, which in the NT context includes the NT Government’s Everyone Together Aboriginal Affairs Strategy. It is intended that future reporting against the objectives of both of these policies will be integrated into one unified report.

Download Closing the Gap Implementation Plan PDF (4.5 MB).

To find out more about the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, go to the Aboriginal Peak Organisations Northern Territory (APONT) website and the Coalition of Peaks website.

To access data on the targets agreed to as part of the National Agreement, go to the Australian Government Productivity Commission Dashboard.