The remote community education scandal in the NT

                                                            That glib and oily art

to speak and purpose not.

King Lear, Act one, scene one.

 

The Weekend Australian (23-24 September 2023) has begun publishing a series of articles (link here and link here $$) researched and written by three independent journalists and has also published an editorial titled NT schools worsen disadvantage (link here $$). The front page article is accurately titled Nation’s forgotten schoolkids scandal, and the back up article is titled Thirst for learning in education desert.

 

 The articles describe appalling conditions in makeshift classrooms in remote outstations, endemic shortfalls of registered teachers, and quite atrocious educational outcomes. The article also points out that large numbers of Indigenous students fall below established minimum standards and attendance rates are extraordinarily low. The NT Education web page (link here) provides a good overview of the extraordinarily poor attendance levels particularly in very remote regions. What those figures do not tell us is the proportion of students who are attending 90 percent of the time. For example, fifty percent attendance may mean that every student is attending only half the days in the school year, or that fifty percent are attending every day, and fifty percent none. The devil is in the detail. In any case, those outcomes scandalous in their own right, a ‘scandal’ informed observers have been aware of for decades (link here), and a ‘scandal’ the NT Government has been aware of and has done nothing substantive to address. Of course, the real scandal is that these outcomes are scandalous, but not a scandal that forces government action.

 

 The ‘scandal’ The Australian article authors point to are the funding mechanisms in place in the NT education system for remote schools. In particular, they point out that the NT is the only jurisdiction that funds schools on the basis of attendance numbers, and not enrolment numbers.

 

 According to The Australian articles, following a 2022 Deloitte Report that identified the harm arising from this system, the NT Government announced it will move to an enrolment based system over the next five years, but the NT Minister would not answer the authors questions on the current status of this transition. The result is a massive level of underfunding, estimated at $214m, that impacts on the most disadvantaged students in the nation.

 

 The second funding mechanism that is defective, and according to the article directly affects an estimated 400 remote students, relates to so called Homeland Learning Centres, that are in effect classrooms notionally attached to a hub school. The article states:

There is no public record of HLC student numbers, teaching ratios, educational outcomes, facilities or funding.

 It is not clear if the hub schools incorporate these statistics or not. A 2014 Review commissioned by the NT Government and cited by the article raised “issues about equity and quality in the delivery of education for all NT students” and suggested that hundreds of Indigenous students lived in homelands with no education provision at all.

 

 A third issue, raised by the Australian Education Union NT (AEUNT) was that education funding required on the ground is instead directed into the NT bureaucracy. According to Productivity Commission data compiled by the AEUNT, the NT has 22 non-school staff per 1000 students compared with nine in the ACT and eight in Tasmania.

 

 The Australian’s editorial includes the following assessment, with which I would agree:

The situation is unconscionable and suggests the NT government is not fit for purpose. The indifference, warped priorities and maladministration that have created the problems stretch back for decades across the political divide.

 

 So what are we to make of all this in policy terms?

 

 At the risk of gross simplification, and bearing in mind that remote NT is not the same as remote Victoria, it is worth assessing this from two perspectives, a micro community level perspective; and the macro jurisdiction wide perspective.

 

 At the micro level, the provision of education services by the public sector is just one element in a labyrinthine intercultural world, where community priorities are shaped by the seasons, the geography, cultural responsibilities, localised conflicts and alliances, family obligations, and the obligations and opportunities across multiple sectors emanating from mainstream institutions. To use a gross over-simplification, it is a complex micro policy environment. Mainstream values and assumptions are not guaranteed to operate as they might in Melbourne. Nor do local communities necessarily punish a government that does not provide services (particularly when all governments effectively treat them the same); instead, bush community members may take the view that voting is irrational and not a priority (link here).

 

 At the macro policy level, mainstream policy engagement is shaped overwhelmingly by political pressures and opportunities, with Cabinet and Ministers making zero sum decisions regarding the allocation of resources, both in terms of what is available to a particular sector (like education) and then where the finite and perhaps insufficient resources are allocated, making zero sum decisions within the sector, funding some schools more than others. If for example urban infrastructure is the paramount priority in a polity with small electorates, and where winning margins are razor thin, politicians and governments will be strongly incentivised to put electoral considerations above fairness, above long term investments with payoffs in the future, and above the interests of particular groups of citizens, above the public interest, and above the national interest.

 

 The funding available to a particular school, and its associated homeland learning centres, is a function of factors operating at both micro levels and macro levels. Governments are adept at finding bureaucratic processes (that is, systemic institutional processes) to allocate resources which deliver the outcomes desired by the political agenda of the government while appearing to be neutral and fair. The use of attendance rather than enrolment to allocate school resources across the NT is a prime example of this. It is not a policy mistake or oversight, but a deliberately chosen policy mechanism designed to deliver political outcomes while appearing anodyne and even appropriate. Other strategies adopted by governments include deliberate reliance on opacity or overt confidentiality, prioritising secrecy over openness. The articles in The Australian mention a number of times various reports that have been commissioned and not released, and information that is not available or not even collected. Transparency is the friend of the public interest and good policy, not its enemy (as governments implicitly argue).

 

 The educational outcomes at a particular school, and aggregative across the sector, are a function in large measure of funding availability, but also a function of other factors at both micro and macro levels. This is widely recognised by all participants in the sector, but paradoxically, it becomes a further reason for governments to rely on under-investment as a political strategy as outcome failure can always be blamed on something else (e.g. poor parental commitment, poor teacher skills, remoteness and poor roads, the weather, welfare dependence and so on). Yet while adequate funding is not in itself sufficient to guarantee good educational outcomes, it is certainly necessary (that is, essential) for good educational outcomes. Other factors that are essential include  effective alignment between the curriculum and approach to instruction and the cultural values of the school community; safe and secure housing; social stability within the community (including protection from alcohol related violence; and of course access to good health services. There may well be others such as effective community governance, and perhaps access to sport and recreation facilities, access to traditional country, and so on.

 

 In other words, if we as a nation wish to ensure that remote Indigenous communities are able to access an effective education system, we need to adopt a more holistic policy approach that is both culturally aligned and which priorities the community interest over short term political interests. This may sound somewhat naïve and idealistic when written in abstract prose, but it needs to be remembered that politicians are making decisions that are affecting adversely the life opportunities of tens of thousands of children and adolescents over the course of any decade. Those decisions are, in a very real sense, shaping and determining future life paths: prison or employment, alcohol or sobriety, sickness or health, long life or early death.

 

 If this all sounds too hard, I beg to differ. It is certainly complex, difficult and challenging. But there are people in the NT, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, who in the face of the widespread political indifference and obstruction outlined in The Australian article, are giving it their best shot. I refer readers to the Karrkad Kanjdji Trust (KKT) (link here) which is primarily an organisation established to care for country. It has apparently taken the view that education is too important for its members and their children to be left to the NT education system’s under-performance. They established and supported an associated entity, the Nawarddeken Academy (NA) which now operates three schools in western Arnhem Land. Their 2021 Annual Report (link here) outlines in detail what they are seeking to do. I do not have first hand knowledge of their educational approach and strategies, but what is available in their documentation strikes me as a significant step in the right direction. The fact that there are people working hard in the face of the political and bureaucratic indifference outlined in The Australian’s article is to my mind inspiring.

 

 I am however very conscious that micro success in delivering education programs (if achieved) is not the whole solution. It needs to be replicated across the whole sector. It may well be that the talents and commitment of the intercultural teams at KKT and NA are not widely available even if funding were to be made adequate and other ancillary requirements provided. Macro policy is, in this respect, more difficult than micro policy. This leads me to conclude that there is a need to focus on making macro policy settings effective and fit for purpose.

 

 In a recent submission to the Productivity Commission in relation to their draft report on the review of the operations of the National Agreement on Closing the Gap (link here to a my post on this issue – click through to my submission), I argued that the current closing the gap policy architecture was sub-optimal and used the absence of a target which directly monitors the effectiveness of school education as an example. I cited Productivity Commission research that links poor education outcomes to continuing deep disadvantage. I also argued strongly that the Commonwealth should step up and take an oversight role in relation to the performance of the states and territories on closing the gap. Importantly, I argued that the Productivity Commission should make the case for a more effective policy architecture, an approach that I hadn’t discerned in its draft report.

 

 It struck me that the Productivity Commission should be using its status as an independent expert body to provide potential solutions to the deep-seated inequities confronting First Nations citizens. The Australian exposé just reinforces the argument that the Productivity Commission, and indeed, the Commonwealth, must look beyond the strict terms of the National Agreement on Closing the Gap if they wish to see real progress in the next thirty years.

 

 In relation to the NT education system, it seems obvious to me (and increasingly others) that the NT Government has neither the political incentives, nor the policy capabilities to deliver adequate education services to remote communities. The Australian’s editorial suggested that elements of the NT education system be handed over to ‘an experienced non-government education service.’ I don’t support this idea as any such non-government entity would be at risk of direct or indirect  interference and pressure by electorally (and not policy) motivated NT politicians.

 

 It is time that the Commonwealth accepted that the NT Government is incapable of delivering remote education in a manner consistent with the public and national interest, and in such a way that it actually delivers outcomes. These poor outcomes are feeding directly into the social dysfunction that is endemic in parts of remote Australia, and which I have previously argued is a slow burn catastrophe (link here). I suggest that what is required is a joint Commonwealth and Territory Authority, inclusive of Indigenous representation and interests, to oversight the allocation of funding resources and development of policy for the delivery of education across the Norther Territory outside of Darwin and perhaps Alice Springs.

 

Such an Authority should be established by Commonwealth legislation, and should have a finite term, say twenty years. The Commonwealth should fund the authority, and adjust the existing funding to the NT if it so wishes to effectively ensure joint funding. There may also be merit in considering whether such an authority should be extended to remote regions in other jurisdictions. The 1967 referendum provided the Commonwealth with the legislative remit in relation to Indigenous matters in the states and territories (as does section 122 of the Constitution in relation to the Territories). The Commonwealth Government should fulfill its responsibility to the citizens of the NT who are being systemically deprived of the opportunity for an education, and the life opportunities that flow from that by the longstanding policy decisions of the NT Government.

 

 

 

 

Reconsidering the architecture for closing the gap

 

                                                 Go, tread the path that thou shalt ne’er return.

                                                 Richard III, Act One, scene one.

 

Following the publication of the Productivity Commission’s draft report for its Closing the Gap review (link here), I published a critique arguing for a more wholistic approach to the review. Having already made a submission, I was initially reluctant to make a further submission, but eventually decided I should make the effort to put my views formally to the review.

 

Last week, I submitted a second submission (link here) focussing primarily on the high level problems with the architecture for Closing the Gap, and argued that the Commission should take the opportunity to look beyond the Priority Reforms to the policy architecture generally and the targets in particular. I also attached an appendix outlining one alternative approach to designing the policy architecture for Closing the Gap. My purpose was not to advocate for that specific design, but merely to demonstrate that alternative design approaches are feasible which would address the flaws and gaps in the current policy architecture (which I pointed to in the body of my submission).

 

As it is reasonably short, I include the appendix below, and encourage readers to read the full submission.

 

Appendix A: Outline of one possible alternative framework for closing the gap

 

[This potential framework is included merely to demonstrate that alternative approaches to devising a framework for Closing the Gap are possible.]

 

The first step would be for the Productivity Commission to be requested to make an independently refereed estimate of the potential cost of closing the gap over (say) a fifty year period. This estimate should be indicative, revised every five or ten years, and designed to inform the Australian community of the scale of the challenge involved. Such an estimate should be contextualised with an analysis of the broad causes of existing disadvantage to undercut any suggestion that these are self-inflicted costs or that First Nations citizens are somehow responsible for their disadvantaged status. Such an estimate might be complemented by a revival of the Productivity Commission’s previous Indigenous expenditure reports, albeit better framed to take into account positive and negative expenditures, to differentiate between citizenship entitlements and discretionary investments, and perhaps even broadened to include tax expenditures as well as appropriated expenditures.

 

Core principles of the framework would be that the targets should be high level and address systemic issues, and implicitly acknowledge that deep disadvantage has multiple causes and symptoms.

 

The primary purpose of the targets would be to provide a generalised indication to governments whether or not disadvantage exists and continues. To this end, a limited number of targets would be set based on the availability of reliable data, and their power to communicate a readily understood narrative to the Australian population. To this end, they would generally involve comparisons between Indigenous and non-Indigenous citizens, and may benefit from being aggregated to amalgamate differing data points within each cohort into a single index (e.g. to amalgamate outcomes for education outcomes at different schooling years into a single index). There should be no expectation that Governments should allocate funding to these particular targets.

 

Examples of potential targets include:

•          Comparative lifespans.

•          Comparative educational outcomes.

•          An indicator of comparative geographic disadvantage across urban, regional and remote regions (incorporating physical infrastructure elements such as housing and essential services; and perhaps other core services such as health and education).

•          An indicator of comparative health disadvantage.

•          An indicator of comparative justice system disadvantage.

 

Beneath the high level targets there would be a limited series of high level ten year sectoral priorities linked to the allocation of additional funding locked in to legislated appropriations.  These core priorities would be supplemented by additional priorities locked in to the forward estimates. The priorities and their associated funding would be underpinned by a published policy or program rationale that includes indicators of current comparative socioeconomic status, a program logic and rationale, and links back to the overarching aim of the Closing the Gap agenda, namely, removing comparative disadvantage and inequity. However, there would also be scope for these priorities to encompass initiatives directed to strengthening culture, including for example language programs, support for the various forms of artistic expression, and support for maintaining links to land and country. Stronger cultures strengthen the capabilities that are a core part of citizenship and contribute indirectly (but importantly) to addressing disadvantage. In other words, such a model builds in a tangible mechanism for governments to acknowledge and fund alternative life choices by First Nations citizens.

 

In relation to the ten year sectoral priorities, there would be benefit in requiring these to be agreed Commonwealth /state funding programs which are designed to be additional to current funding initiatives and programs and can be monitored and assessed as a unified strategy.

 

There should be regular independent evaluations of each the sectoral and additional priority programs, with the evaluation reports tabled publicly in Parliament.

 

Additionally, there should be a series of Priority Reforms (such as currently in place) focussed on driving institutional and systemic reforms designed to support and underpin the Closing the Gap policy architecture. These should be framed in qualitative and not quantitative terms, and should be assessed by regular reviews (such as the current review process).

 

Finally, the Commonwealth should take the lead in this national project as the ‘first among equals’, rather than the current model where is sees itself merely as one of nine jurisdictions with responsibility for closing the gap. This would mean that it should take a direct leadership role in ensuring high level consistency in the closing the gap activities of states and territories, and in engaging with the Coalition of Peaks. The Commonwealth should take responsibility for amalgamating performance monitoring and reporting related to the closing the gap architecture across all jurisdictions. It should also provide robust feedback (perhaps through establishing a statutory office) to the states and territories on the quality of their program reports and implementation plans. This would be consistent with the implicit purpose of the 1967 referendum which gave the Commonwealth powers to legislate in relation to Indigenous citizens.

The semiotics of the 2023 Intergenerational Report

 

But thou didst understand me by my signs,

And dids’t in signs again parley with sin…

King John, Act four, Scene two.

 

The Commonwealth recently published the 2023 Intergenerational Report (link here). The thumbnail description on the Treasury website states:

The 2023 Intergenerational Report projects the outlook of the economy and the Australian Government’s budget to 2062-63. This is the sixth report. Its analysis and projections of the key drivers of economic growth will help inform and improve public policy settings to better position Australia for the next 40 years. The report considers 5 major forces affecting the coming decades:

·         population ageing

·         technological and digital transformation

·         climate change and the net zero transformation

·         rising demand for care and support services

·         geopolitical risk and fragmentation.

 

The Treasurer’s Foreword states (inter alia):

The Albanese Government’s first Intergenerational Report provides a big picture view of the forces that will shape our economy and fiscal position over the next 40 years as we work to create prosperity, expand opportunity, and build a stronger, more sustainable and more inclusive nation. Digitalisation and the adoption of new technologies, shifts in our industrial base, the energy transformation, demographic change, and serious geopolitical uncertainty are already changing the shape of our economy and this will continue over the coming decades. 

 

There has been a plethora of commentary over the past week which I do not propose to replicate. Instead, this post will focus on what the Report says (or does not say) regarding Indigenous people, and what this means for future policy directions.

 

The Report makes a series of passing mentions of Indigenous policy issues: life expectancy at birth for First Nations people are about 8 years lower than the mainstream population (p. 43); First Nations people have a ‘significantly younger’ age profile than the general population (p. 49); and participation rates for First Nations people are low:

The share of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in employment remains lower than for other Australians. Census data suggest that the gap in employment rates has narrowed slightly from 25 percentage points in 1991 to 22 percentage points in 2021 (Chart 3.11). The employment rate of First Nations people is lower in more rural and remote areas (pp.72-3).

 

It seems likely however that the uptick in participation rates noted above are the result of higher levels of identification rather than any underlying policy response. Even so more than four in ten Indigenous persons between ages 25 to 64 are unemployed, a level of under-participation that has existed for over thirty years.

 

The Report asserts the Commonwealth ‘is making significant investments in closing the gap’ (p. xvii). In this statement, the word ‘significant’ is bearing all the weight, and is open to varying interpretations. An amended version, stating the Commonwealth is making ‘significant but not adequate’ investments would perhaps better reflect the reality.

 

In a discussion of critical minerals, the Report notes that 80 percent of the continental land mass is under-explored for critical minerals and that this might offer ‘opportunities’. There is no mention of the fact that the Indigenous estate comprises around 57% of the continental land mass (not all in direct Indigenous ownership: link here), and thus there is no discussion of the implications either for the supply of critical minerals nor for the economic and other impacts on First Nations communities of this sui generis institutional framework.

 

In relation to pre-school enrolment, the report notes (p. 181) that 99% of First Nations children in the year before school age cohort are enrolled in preschool, a 225 increase since the 2016 census. The report also reports encouraging school retention rates for all Australian students including First Nations of 97 percent (p. 182) but falling mainstream and First Nations attendance rates since 2015, with First Nation student’s attendance being some 12 percent below mainstream rates (p.182). Not mentioned are the geographic differences, with remote attendance rates and levels being much lower than the national figures. For example, the most recent ACARA national report on schooling in Australia (link here) contains data suggesting in very remote regions, Indigenous attendance levels (ie the proportion of students who attend more than 90 percent of available school days) is only 8.7 percent nationally and drops to only 4.4 percent in the NT. The gap between very remote non-Indigenous students and Indigenous students’ attendance levels is 33 percent. Unsurprisingly, Indigenous educational outcomes are sub-optimal. Along with the recently released NAPLAN figures, ACARA (the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority) released a two page short commentary on the results for each of the years 3, 5, 7, and 9 (link here). Each commentary included the same text:

Non-Indigenous students’ average NAPLAN scores are substantially above and significantly different from those of Indigenous students in all 5 testing domains.

 

The most consequential mention of First Nations in the Intergenerational Report comes in the very last paragraph of Chapter Seven on Government Spending. The Chapters major points are summarised at the front of the chapter (p. 143):

Total Government spending is projected to increase by 3.8 percentage points over the next 40 years, rising from 24.8 per cent of GDP today to 28.6 per cent in 2062–63.  Major spending pressures include health and aged care, the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), defence and interest payments on Government debt. These are projected to rise from 8.8 per cent of GDP today to around 14.4 per cent in 2062–63.  Demographic ageing alone is estimated to account for around 40 per cent of the increase in Government spending over the next 40 years.

In a discussion of non-modelled ‘other payments’, the report notes (p. 187; emphasis added):

Non-modelled payments includes spending on all other areas not elsewhere included in this chapter, including environmental protection and conservation, national parks and world heritage area management, supporting First Nations people and communities, the arts and the film industry, and the Australian Public Service. Payments that are not modelled are assumed to grow in line with GDP so are held as a constant share of GDP over the projection period.

 

Of course, in the scheme of things, these payments are comparatively minor, and arguably any variations will not be statistically significant. Yet there is also an inference here that notwithstanding the significant shortfalls in health, education, infrastructure, housing, and justice outcomes, and the consistent failure to make a dent in closing the gap, that there is no substantive pressure to increase the proportion of GDP that is allocated to these issues.

 

Moreover, notwithstanding the Report’s silence, the salience of mainstream programs in addressing (or not addressing) Indigenous disadvantage is increasingly acknowledged in policy circles, not least in the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, and in particular in its Priority Reforms. Considering the five major forces shaping the future, it is worth considering how those forces might impact Indigenous interests and communities.

 

An ageing mainstream population is not aligned with the current and likely continuing youthfulness of the Indigenous population, and will likely engender a shift in the political pressures shaping governments’ policy priorities towards the concerns of an older mainstream community, and at the expense of younger cohorts. This is a potential risk for Indigenous interests that is rarely mentioned let alone considered in depth. There is a related issue of the surging growth in the national Indigenous population, driven by increasing self-identification. The report makes a glancing reference to ‘changing First Nation identification rates’ in a footnote (p.49), but does not consider whether the recent trends will continue into the medium term, nor what the implications then might be.

 

The coming technological and digital transformation will adversely impact the least educationally qualified segments of the Australian population, and Indigenous interests are over-represented in that cohort.

 

The accelerating impact and risks of climate change and the potential of the net zero transformation will impact remote and regional Indigenous interests significantly. The increasing salience of energy insecurity in remote communities is just one example (link here). The commercial and economic opportunities are significant, but rely on the development of widespread (not isolated pockets) commercial and economic expertise amongst Indigenous communities as well as the structural and systemic changes to the institutional frameworks designed to facilitate the taking up of those opportunities. The existence of the potential will require sustained and complex policy engagement by all governments, but particularly the Commonwealth. Unfortunately I see little evidence that policymakers are prepared (in both senses of the word) to focus on making these opportunities realities. Moreover, the risks of climate change, especially if global temperatures rise to 3 degrees or above (as the Report canvasses and as many scientists are predicting) will have huge and adverse consequences for the viability of many First Nation communities across remote and regional Australia, and perhaps for the medium to long term viability of human habitation in these areas.

 

The rising demand for care and support services will impact Indigenous interests severely given their existing vulnerabilities in the health, mental health, disability and other sectors. There may be a silver lining in terms of increasing employment opportunities for Indigenous people in these sectors, but it is difficult to suggest that the net impact will be unequivocally positive.

 

Finally, the increasing strains of geopolitical risk and fragmentation will impact Indigenous interests in variable ways. The biggest risk of rising international tension will be to distract policymakers from focussing on the needs of the most disadvantaged and to divert funding away from social and ‘soft’ priorities towards military spending aimed at enhancing our strategic priorities. While there may be opportunities for Indigenous interests in some of this activity, the risks are considerable and the shift towards sophisticated and technologically complex military systems (including support systems) does not bode well for the least educationally qualified members of society, a segment where Indigenous interests are over-represented.

 

Conclusion

The Intergenerational Report is designed not as a definitive prediction of the future, but as a mechanism for building support for the policy reforms required to address the challenges the nation faces over the coming forty years. It is also deliberately framed so as to lay out a narrative that makes the Government’s current policy priorities appear rational and necessary. In doing so, it is inevitable that it unintentionally provides signposts to the Government’s underlying priorities, and to the pace at which it wishes to prosecute those policy agendas.

 

In terms of the Indigenous policy domain, the Intergenerational Report appears to signify a deep-seated complacency, and preparedness to merely keep kicking issues down the road. There are a plethora of systemic policy challenges that have been around for decades and continue to remain under-addressed and under-acknowledged. Moreover, the future trends identified by the Report are (on the whole) going to impact far more seriously and more adversely on First Nations than on the mainstream community. In other words, without systemic reform, the trends identified will contribute to greater social and economic inequality between First Nations and the mainstream community.

 

Implicitly, the policy settings of the current Governments appear to signify a commitment to business as usual. Clearly, the efforts to establish an Indigenous Voice is the major exception to that assessment. The proposed Voice is clearly important and would be a major institutional reform if the referendum succeeds. Yet notwithstanding the merits, importance and potential of the Voice, there remains a responsibility on governments to govern and to invest in desperately needed infrastructure and services.

 

The deep-seated comparative shortfalls in First Nations lifespans, education outcomes, in First Nations incarceration levels, in remote housing, in health issues such as FASD and suicide and mental illness, in alcohol and drug abuse, in domestic violence and the extraordinary levels of First Nations children in out of home care are all scandals in their own right. Taken together, they represent a human catastrophe which will endure well beyond the timeframe covered by the Intergenerational Report. In these circumstances, the inaction and lack of substantive policy focus by governments appears incompetent at best and malign at worst.  It is incomprehensible that any government focussed on advancing the public interest could in good faith merely assert these issues must wait while a mechanism is put in place that will itself inevitably call on governments to act on these very issues. Yet this is the underlying signal that the Intergenerational Report sends First Nations, and the wider community.

 

1 September 2023