Andrew Leigh (Fenner, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury) Share this | Hansard source

The latest Closing the Gap dashboard is troubling. Nineteen national targets—four on track, and several improving, yet still off the pace required to meet the 2031 goals. In areas such as incarceration, youth detention and suicide, the trajectory is headed the wrong way. In others, including family violence, baseline data is still incomplete. The gap narrows in some places and widens in others, and, in too many domains, progress lacks momentum. If outcomes are uneven, our response must be sharper. Closing the Gap rests on partnership, and partnership must be matched with precision. Governments need to know which policies shift outcomes and which leave them unchanged. That requires disciplined evaluation.

The Australian Centre for Evaluation is strengthening that discipline across government. It supports rigorous methods, including randomised trials where appropriate, so policy is tested rather than assumed. Evidence from past trials shows why this matters. In the Northern Territory, the School Enrolment and Attendance Measure linked welfare payments to school outcomes and school attendance. In a study run by Rebecca Goldstein and Michael Hiscox, around 400 children were randomly assigned to treatment, and a similar number to control. Attendance did not improve. The trial provided clarity in a contested policy area and informed a shift towards community led approaches to school attendance.

In Dubbo, a study by Isabella Dobrescu and colleagues tested whether culturally relevant exam passages improved literacy outcomes. Replacing unfamiliar contexts with local references produced a substantial gain, roughly halving the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students. A carefully designed trial revealed how assessment design itself can shape performance.

In a report last year, Patrick Rehill, Ethan Slaven, Harry Greenwell, Peter Bowers, Scott Copley and Eleanor Williams of the Australian Centre for Evaluation identified 369 published randomised policy trials conducted in Australia since 1976. More than two dozen of these trials were undertaken in First Nations communities. Some of those trials show strong positive effects. Early childhood intervention that began during pregnancy reduced dental decay among Aboriginal children by more than 80 per cent in early follow-up. A Victorian trial found that sending personalised letters to parents increased influenza vaccination rates among Aboriginal children, while pamphlets alone made little difference. A school based program in remote communities targeting executive function and self-regulation showed gains reported by parents and carers, shaping how such interventions are delivered across home and school settings.

Other trials delivered harder lessons. A cluster randomised trial across Aboriginal community controlled health services had mixed results on whether training and support lifted rates of alcohol screening and brief intervention. A pilot randomised evaluation of a smoking cessation app for Aboriginal Australians revealed low engagement and significant implementation barriers, prompting redesign rather than full-scale rollout. A long-term randomised study of health assessments found increased service use but no overall mortality reduction. Each of those trials improved our policy understanding. Some identified interventions worth scaling, whilst others prevented expansion of programs that didn't deliver despite the best of intentions. Together, they demonstrate that rigorous evaluation in First Nations contexts is feasible and informative.

Evaluation in this space demands respect for First Nations data sovereignty and cultural authority. Reviews of programs such as Connected Beginnings have highlighted how inconsistent data collection and barriers to sharing can limit understanding of population level impacts. Strong evaluation requires good data, ethical design and meaningful involvement of Indigenous evaluators. Methods must be fit for purpose. Last year, the Paul Ramsay Foundation's Experimental Evaluation Open Grant Round committed $2.1 million to seven organisations to undertake rigorous evaluations over three years. The Australian Centre for Evaluation is supporting the grant round at various stages. Two of these funded projects are Indigenous led initiatives.

Yiliyapinya Indigenous Corporation is evaluating its Yili program, a brain health and healing program for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people. The evaluation uses a culturally informed, randomised design to examine impacts on educational engagement, wellbeing and social reintegration. An Aboriginal organisation is leading both delivery and the framing of evidence about its impact.

Justice Our Way, an Aboriginal led program supporting women transitioning from correctional centres back into community, is being evaluated using a stepped wedge experimental design. The evaluation will measure reoffending alongside health, wellbeing and community connection. In a domain where incarceration rates remain deeply troubling, credible evidence on what reduces reoffending carries direct relevance to Closing the Gap targets.

These projects operate within realistic budgets and timeframes. They confront practical challenges—ethics approvals, recruitment, retention, access to administrative data—while maintaining methodological rigour. They demonstrate that experimental approaches can be embedded in community led work, with cultural authority and partnership at the centre of these randomised trials.

Closing the Gap requires programs that deliver measurable change in school readiness, justice outcomes, health and wellbeing. It requires governments willing to test, learn and adapt. The Australian Centre for Evaluation is helping to build that culture of learning across the Commonwealth. By supporting rigorous trials, especially those led by First Nations organisations, it strengthens the link between commitment and outcome. The dashboard tells us where progress is falling short; rigorous evaluation shows how to move the line.

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