CANBERRA – In a major policy announcement hailed as “cost‑neutral innovation”, the government has unveiled a new Closing the Gap strategy that simply moves the goalposts several kilometres to the left.
Under the plan, targets on health, education and life expectancy will be replaced with more achievable indicators such as “has heard of a GP” and “might graduate if bus doesn’t break down”.
“We’re proud to say we’ve already smashed our new target of ‘some progress, vibes‑based’,” the Prime Minister said, flanked by a chart showing a line going up for no obvious reason. “This is what partnership looks like—provided First Nations people agree with everything in the press release.”
Asked why the government rejected calls for a national Human Rights Act, a spokesperson explained that current arrangements were working fine for people currently in government.
“Rights are already implied in the Constitution for everyone who owns a waterfront property,” they said. “Expanding that would be very confusing for the markets.”
First Nations advocates cautiously welcomed the announcement as “at least funny”.
“It’s nice they’ve finally admitted the plan was always to close the gap between their promises and their attention span,” one community leader said. “At this rate, we’ll reach parity with non‑Indigenous Australians approximately one year after the sun burns out.”
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