How Realistic are the Prospects for 'closing the Gaps' in Socioeconomic Outcomes for Indigenous Australians?

Book excerpt: 'Practical reconciliation¿ and more recently 'closing the gaps¿ have been put forward as frameworks on which to base and then evaluate policies to address Indigenous disadvantage. Jon Altman, Nicholas Biddle and Boyd Hunter use census-based analysis at the national level to examine trends in Indigenous wellbeing since 1971, and seek to use information of best-case scenario trends to make some crude estimates of when the gaps might be closed in order to assess the realism of this emerging overarching goal of policy.