Decades of failed Indigenous policy have condemned Aboriginal Australians to stark inequality and entrenched disadvantage.
That's the verdict of Oxfam Australia's latest report, which shows higher-than-average rates of disadvantage in Indigenous households.
Oxfam chief executive Helen Szoke says the findings show Indigenous disadvantage operates at an institutional level.
"One in five households are part of the poorest 10 per cent of Australian households. Now how can this be the case it it's not an institutional or systemic problem that's actually creating this poverty?"
The report found many fundamental rights of Aboriginal people have not progressed and much of the funding for Indigenous services was inadequate, misdirected, uncertain and lacked transparency.
Ms Szoke says Indigenous disadvantage isn't getting the attention it deserves.
She says a properly funded Indigenous organisation is part of the solution.
"These are all indicators that the outcomes that are hoped for for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are not being met and clearly the process of not allowing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to have some control and rights over their own lives is what's at stake here."
In May 1967, more than 90 per cent of Australians voted for a new Commonwealth responsibility for Indigenous policy matters.
But Oxfam says the groundbreaking referendum was the beginning of an unfinished journey to equality.
This year's Closing the Gap report showed that of seven targets to improve Indigenous health, education and employment outcomes, only one is on track to be met.
Aboriginal people still die up to 17 years younger than their non-Indigenous peers, and are grossly over-represented in national incarceration, domestic violence and suicide statistics.
Human rights campaigner Tom Calma wants the government to urgently implement the report's 10 recommendations, but he also says it's important to celebrate Indigenous success stories.
"Many of us are really looking and celebrating the successes that we have had from the Indigenous art sector, to the number of people that we have graduating from high school and going on to university and becoming medical doctors or lawyers or teachers. The whole range of disciplines we're starting to get represented in. They're all the positive stories."
The report's recommendations include funding an elected Indigenous body, funding preference for Indigenous service providers and minimum five-year funding agreements.
It suggests increasing Aboriginal representation in the federal parliament and policy development, and recognising Indigenous Australians in the constitution.
But Mr Calma is concerned those recommendations will go the way of many others from previous reports.
"These reports are like a lot of the other reports: they go into the public arena, into the departments, they don't get looked at in a serious way and so we don't see a difference. Governments need to get the confidence to start to work closely with organisations, ATSI research organisations or service delivery agencies who are able to tell what's needed. And until they start to do that, we're not going to see any meaningful changes into the future."
One of the organisations that says it's working to make a difference is the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples.
The organisation lost government funding in 2014 but co-chair Rod Little says the Congress would still like to continue working with the government to implement change in Indigenous communities.
"The body itself, we probably had some hiccups along the way, but we are still working extremely hard to be the voice of our peoples and that is working really well at the moment. Given the opportunity to get properly established - let's face it, Congress has only been alive for five years - so we just actually need that time to be properly established."
