The latest report card on the federal government's Closing the Gap strategy shows just three of its seven targets are on track, a decade after it was launched to improve the lives of Indigenous Australians.
The targets to halve the gap in child mortality by 2018 and have 95 per cent of all indigenous four-year-olds enrolled in early childhood education by 2025 are both now on track.
The only target found to be on track in 2017 - to halve the gap in Year 12 attainment by 2020 - also remains on track.
However, the remaining four targets, including a key one to close the 10-year gap in life expectancy between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians by 2031, are lagging.
As well, three of the remaining four targets - to halve the gaps in employment, reading and numeracy, and in school attendance for indigenous students - are due to expire in 2018.
Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion says while some targets are not on track to be met, there has been "solid progress" in other areas compared with a decade ago.
"While we celebrate these important accomplishments, it remains clear we need to continue to work in partnership with indigenous communities to deliver improved outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people into the future," he said.
Former prime minister Kevin Rudd, whose Labor government introduced the Closing the Gap strategy after his historic apology to the stolen generations in February 2008, said the original targets were always going to be hard to meet because "overcoming 200 years of disadvantage is a bloody hard thing".
"The key thing is ... that of the seven targets we set, we are on track to realise three of the seven. but in all of them what you see is either some improvement, significant improvement, or a lot of improvement if not full realisation of the targets.
"So I say today let's not bash the targets, let's enhance the targets but we should not water them down."
The original Close the Gap targets
Close the gap in life expectancy by 2031
Halve the gap in child mortality by 2018
To have 95 per cent of all indigenous four-year-olds enrolled in early childhood education by 2025
Close the gap in school attendance by the end of 2018
Halve the gap in reading and numeracy for indigenous students by 2018
Halve the gap in Year 12 attainment by 2020
Halve the gap in employment by 2018
