Indigenous community health organisations met in Melbourne on Thursday to talk about the most pressing issues in the health sector.
John Brumby, former Victorian Premier and current head of the independent body reporting on Indigenous health, the COAG Reform Council, was speaking in one of his last public appearances for the Council.
It's going to be axed at the end of the month as part of budget savings measures.
Mr Brumby says he is anxious about the impact of the cuts.
“Who's going to measure progress? Who's going to say independently whether progress is being made or whether failure is occurring."
For nearly a decade, the Council has tracked the progress of the states and the Commonwealth in meeting their health targets and closing the life expectancy gap.
Last month, it released its last major report on Indigenous health. It found promising results in reducing child death rates but Mr Brumby says there are still more goals to be met.
“In most of the other areas, particularly closing the gap on life expectancy, closing the gap on employment outcomes, we're nowhere near achieving the target,” he says.
In COAG Reform Council findings released today, the organisation puts the pressure on governments to do more to improve health outcomes for Indigenous communities in Australia.
The Prime Minister's department will take over reporting on Indigenous health data. It’s a move Mr Brumby is wary of.
“They're not independent, they're not impartial, they're not independent of any government," he said.
Justin Mohamed, the chair of the National Aboriginal Controlled Community Health Organisation (NACCHO), says he'll read government reporting cautiously.
“We'll continue to review the reports which come out of government, which come out of Prime Minister and Cabinet to ensure they're saying what's happening on the ground”
The COAG Reform Council and the NACCHO say there's no lack of goodwill on improving the lives of Indigenous people but it wants government to tell Australians the good news and the bad when it starts tracking the community’s progress.
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