Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ Well-Being

Running head: ABORIGINAL AND TORRES PEOPLES’ WELL-BEING 1
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ Well-Being
Student’s Name
University

ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER PEOPLES’ WELL-BEING 2
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ Well-Being
Closing the gap is a government project specifically initiated for reducing the
disadvantages that the Aboriginals and the Torres Strait Islanders face in relation to education,
child mortality, education achievement and even access to health. By using the affirmative action
approach, the program ensures that the marginalized communities can access these services
regardless of the disadvantaged location that they come from (Australian Indigenous Health
Infonet, 2019). This is the reason why Matt’s mother was assisted to travel and given
accommodation when in real sense she could not afford. Thus this program offers support to the
marginal communities and assists them to ensure that they are able to access the services that
other non-indigenous groups access easily.
i. The differences between the ‘Close the Gap’ campaign, and the ‘Closing the Gap’
Australian governments’ policy framework.
Closing the gap is a government initiative for reducing the challenges the indeginous
people face in different areas of life. This is seen as a formal commitment that is made by all
Australian governments through policies that seek to reduce the challenges that the people face
(Thompson, Gee, & Talley, 2018). This was started in 2007 when the Council of Australian
Governments (COAG) all committed to meeting the specific needs of the indigenous people.
Since then, the governments have committed to different reforms, policies, and initiatives that
seek to address the needs of the people. This strategy is based on the vision 2030 strategy that
will ensure that equality will have been achieved by 2030.
On the other hand, close the gap entails different campaign initiatives that are developed
to address indigenous needs. Georges, Guthridge, Condon, Barnes, & Zhao (2017) argues that
every year, there is a new closing the gap campaign that focusses on addressing specific issues

ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER PEOPLES’ WELL-BEING 3
for this population. These campaigns are built on evidence that shows the significant
improvement made in closing the gap and developing strategies for addressing the gap to ensure
that the objective will be achieved by 2030 (Barden, 2016). For example in 2018, the Close the
Gap initiative released a 10-year review that presented the gaps that have made it difficult to
achieve the initiative by 20230.
Therefore, closing the gap is ratified by all governments and committed to ensuring that
the gap is reduced. This entails policies and reforms that are made by different governments to
meet the requirements by 2030. On the hand, close the gap is an initiative that entails different
interest groups within Australia that have come together to focus on addressing the issues that
the indigenous people face in the country. Thus, close the gap is an initiative that seeks to ensure
that closing gap strategies are achieved by Australian governments.
ii. Explain what the AHRC Close the Gap 2018 report refers to in its fifth major finding,
as the ‘funding myth about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health’.
According to The Lowitja Institute for the Close the Gap Steering Committee (2018), the
funding myth about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health is based in the fact that many
people and policymakers feel that dedication of health expenditure on the specific needs of these
people is a waste of taxpayers’ money. The same myth is held by one of the young nurses in the
case study who felt that these populations are getting everything and not being treated like the
rest of the population. This myth is thus based on the fact that the indigenous people should not
get any specialized care but rather need to be treated like the rest of the population. This has been
the challenge in closing the gap since this challenges the efforts of the initiative by acting as a
barrier to reducing the gap. If health expenditure is supposed to be based on the burden of
disease, then every indigenous person is supposed to get 2.3 times as compared to the non-