Mind the gap: Why the First Nations self‐governance advantage is important
William Nikolakis, Justin O'Brien, Joe Morrison, Harry Nelson, Lyndon Ormond‐ParkerAbstract
This Practice and Policy article examines the Australian federal Closing the Gap (CTG) framework to resolve Indigenous socio‐economic disadvantage. A 2024 Productivity Commission review revealed persistent failures in the CTG and called for greater First Nations autonomy in program design and service delivery. Australian governments are reluctant to support self‐governance—reflecting the ‘gap’ in the national polity. Drawing from the US experience, this article highlights why a ‘self‐governance advantage’ for First Nations is important for addressing persistent socio‐economic disparity.
Points for practitioners
The Closing the Gap (CTG) framework set 19 ‘concrete’ socio‐economic targets for governments to address Indigenous socio‐economic disadvantage. These targets included delivering measurable outcomes on education, life expectancy, early childhood development, and adult imprisonment. As of 2026, only one of the 15 targets being tracked had been met, three are on track, five are improving but are not on track to be met, and four are worsening (and two are showing no change from the baseline). A 2024 Productivity Commission CTG review recommended that First Nations play a greater role in the design and delivery of services to their communities. First Nations representative organisations have consistently advocated to govern their own affairs. Australian governments are reluctant to support genuine self‐governance—this is a serious gap in the national polity. The Victorian Treaty statute is one important step to filling this gap. Evidence from the United States documents a ‘self‐governance advantage’ for First Nations. When peoples take control over their own community issues, there are improved and sustained outcomes documented. We offer three pathways to self‐governance that circumvent constitutional change, with the first two being programmatic and the third jurisdictional in nature: (1) identifying the ‘self’ in self‐governance; (2) mobilising capital and creating resources and partnerships for enterprise development; and (3) establishing government‐to‐government relationships through state‐level treaty processes.