Eighteen years ago, the year Racheal Dungay-Dates and Trevor Towers’s eldest daughter, Skye, was born, the Rudd government pledged to close the life expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians within a generation.
That goal is not on track. According to the latest data on the federal Closing the Gap goals, released this month, First Nations males born in 2020-2022 are expected to live up to 71.9 years and females up to 75.6 years – a gap of 8.8 years and 8.1 years respectively from non-Indigenous children born at the same time.
