Overview
Mission Australia welcomes the opportunity to provide input into the Review of the National Agreement on Closing the Gap 2026. We are committed to working as an ally alongside Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups and communities to serve their needs, provide a platform for their voices and drive real and sustained social and systems change. We strongly believe that successfully accomplishing Priority Reform 2: Building the community-controlled sector must centre Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ self-determination, which starts with understanding the priorities of communities, then supporting their choices on their terms.
Previous Closing the Gap reports and ongoing dialogues suggest that current efforts to progress Priority Reform 2 are falling short. Reasons cited for this include a lack of dedicated investment to build the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Community-Controlled Organisation (ACCO) sector’s capacities, and decisions about service delivery that do not reflect the views of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities regarding the type and characteristics of the services they want.
Rapid, underfunded and unplanned changes that replace trusted, reliable and established service providers with new ones without appropriate community consultation or support to transition creates distrust and dissatisfaction among communities and service providers and may stall or reverse progress towards the Closing the Gap socioeconomic targets. This undermines the intent of Priority Reform 2 and does not ensure that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have access to high-quality, holistic services that effectively meet their needs.
To effectively build the community-controlled sector and facilitate equitable, coordinated, connected and culturally appropriate service delivery, we recommend system-level reforms in five areas: collaborative commissioning, formal relational contracting, funding the full cost of service delivery, providing longer grant terms and investing in place-based work.
Together, and alongside practical and genuine ways of embedding voice and choice, sharing knowledge, building capability and respecting cultural authority, these mechanisms can generate and sustain meaningful progress towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander self-determination and the Closing the Gap socioeconomic targets.
Empowering communities to make decisions that are right for them, alongside shared decision-making and robust, respectful partnerships with governments, mainstream community service organisations (CSOs) and ACCOs will help to deliver high-quality services that meet the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people across the country, and better address persistent and complex disadvantage.