The George Institute for Global Health welcomes the new national agreement on Closing the Gap.

The landmark reforms are a culmination of generations of advocates, community members and experts joining together to drive shared decision making with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and communities.

Keziah Bennett-Brook, Program Lead of the Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Health Program at The George Institute said: “The Closing the Gap strategy and targets clearly required an overhaul in order to be enacted properly through true self-determination of communities. This is something the Coalition of Peak Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-controlled organisations have been advocating for over many, many years.

“It’s incredibly important that the holistic definition of health for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples is meaningfully integrated into the new targets.

“It’s great to see a broader focus on social and cultural determinants of health, as we know that systemic and entrenched issues such as racism, must be addressed in rectifying health inequities.”

The agreement, which includes 16 targets and four priority reforms, were formulated by working in partnership with Aboriginal organisations and federal, state and territory governments.

The four priority reforms include:

• Build and strengthen structures to empower Indigenous people to share decision-making with governments
• Build Indigenous community-controlled sectors to deliver services to support closing the gap
• Transform mainstream government organisations to improve accountability and better respond to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s needs
• Improve and share access to data and information to enable Indigenous communities to make informed decisions.

In 2018, The George Institute contributed a submission to the refresh of the COAG Closing the Gap framework and targets. It supported the need for principles of self-determination to underpin the targets and to develop and maintain genuine partnerships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders, communities and organisations.

The George Institute’s submission called for a multi-disciplinary group of stakeholders to be included in decision making processes including across health, housing, education, the justice system and welfare, as well as government and non-government bodies to work together in order to set priorities and solve problems collectively.

“We are thrilled these priorities have been acknowledged and included within the 16 targets”, said Bennett-Brook.

“Constant changes in policy, cuts to services, changes in leadership and approaches to funding have all impacted on the ability for the Closing the Gap strategy to make steady progress as hoped for by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.

“There is a need for ongoing evaluation and monitoring of the new targets that is centred in valuing Indigenous knowledges and voices as the experts in affairs that impact Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

“With adequate resourcing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-controlled services and cross-sectoral engagement within the strategy, I am hopeful that we can move towards meaningful progress.”

Head of the Injury Division, Associate Professor Julie Brown; Senior Research Fellow, Dr Kate Hunter; and, Head of the UNSW School of Public Health and Community Medicine and Honorary Professorial Fellow at The George Institute, Professor Rebecca Ivers appeared before the Australian Parliament’s Joint Select Committee on Road Safety to discuss the growing burden of injury and death on roads in Australia.

Associate Professor Julie Brown explained: “Road safety is a critical public health problem. Road transport injuries are the fourth leading cause of total injury burden in Australia. We think there is a need for greater acknowledgement across society and government that road related deaths and injury are one of our country’s current greatest public health challenges and they are not inevitable. They can be prevented.”

Representatives from The George Institute and UNSW attended the hearing in response to a submission developed in partnership with the Transurban Road Safety Centre at the Neuroscience Research Australia. The committee’s purpose was to inquire and report on steps that can be taken to reduce deaths and injury on Australian roads.

Dr Kate Hunter said that applying an equity lens to the burden of road injury in Australia is essential: “In reducing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander road injury burden, programs and initiatives must be Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander led and contextualised to community.”

Professor Ivers further explained: “One of the things we need to be aware of is that having long term, sustained funding that allows for ongoing delivery and evaluation of community-based programs are essential for injury prevention. Otherwise effective local programs continually start and stop and are unable to realise impact.”

The burden of injury in Australia is significant. According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 12,000 deaths a year are due to injury — 8% of all deaths. The number of hospitalisations due to injury has steadily increased each year over the past decade and now exceeds 460,000.

In recognition of the ongoing and substantial burden of injury, the Australian Government committed to developing a National Injury Prevention Strategy in the 2018-19 budget. In March 2019, The George Institute was appointed by the Federal Department of Health as the Project Lead to facilitate and write the Strategy.

The George Institute is a leading injury research centre and its Injury Division is a designated World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre in Injury Prevention and Trauma Care. The Injury team investigates solutions to prevent the world’s most significant injury problems and transform injury and trauma care globally. Harnessing the power of governments, markets and communities through research, advocacy and thought leadership, The George Institute is at the forefront of innovations to reduce the burden of injury.  

• Read The George Institute’s full submission here.
• Find out more about the National Injury Prevention Strategy here.

The George Institute for Global Health welcomes the decision by Ministers of the Australia and New Zealand Food Regulation Ministers Forum to improve alcohol labelling but fears the lost opportunity to optimise the health benefits of the Health Star Rating system.

Ministers voted to implement a mandatory tri-coloured pregnancy warning label on alcoholic beverages – an essential public health measure to reduce the incidence of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder in the community.

Professor Simone Pettigrew, Head of the Food Policy Division at The George Institute and Board Director of the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education said: “This decision reflects the efforts of a generation of public health advocates and experts who have tirelessly campaigned for evidence-based public health policy.

“We are thrilled that Forum Ministers have voted on the side of the community to make this label mandatory – it’s a decision that will have meaningful and lasting impact.”

Forum Ministers also voted on final recommendations emerging from the government’s Five Year Review into the Health Star Rating front-of-pack nutrition label. The George Institute has been a supporter of the Health Star Rating since its introduction in 2014. Research from The George Institute suggests the system works well overall, while also highlighting areas where it must be strengthened to improve public health impact.

Dr Alexandra Jones, Research Fellow in Food Policy at The George Institute and public health lawyer said: “It’s disappointing to see that changes to the Health Star Rating algorithm remain modest, and favour industry interests over addressing consumer concerns that products high in sugar and salt score too highly.

“Today’s decision is a missed opportunity to improve alignment with existing Australian Dietary Guidelines. While it is promising that an update to the Guidelines has been announced, this process should not replace action now to address the known risks associated with excess sugar and salt in the diet.”

Ministers confirmed a decision to allow Health Stars to remain voluntary, with industry to work toward a target of 70% uptake by 2025. Dr Jones said: “It’s pleasing to see clear targets set, but even if reached this means consumers will still miss the benefit of Stars on a third of products after 10 years.

“Over the same period of time that Health Stars have been appearing on products, Australian manufacturers have implemented new requirements for mandatory Country of Origin Labelling. If we’re willing to use regulation to provide consumers more information about where their food comes from, we should be willing to do the same to provide more information about how healthy their food is too.”

The George Institute was pleased to see Forum Ministers have confirmed some other important improvements to Health Stars. These include removing the ‘energy icon only’ option of the label, closing the ‘as prepared’ loophole, and reforming Health Stars governance to improve transparency and government leadership in the next phase of implementation.

The George Institute recognises that front-of-pack nutrition labelling is recommended by the World Health Organization as an important tool to promote healthier diets. The George Institute will continue to support food labelling reform to improve consumers’ ability to identify and avoid unhealthy foods.

• Read more on our submission to stakeholder engagement - implementation of changes resulting from the Health Star Rating Five Year Review