The latest Closing the Gap report has confirmed the government is failing in its efforts to reduce the structural disadvantages holding back First Nations people.
The figures show a mixed bag of improvements in some areas, lagging progress in others and even deterioration in the case of four measures.
Released by the Productivity Commission, the report gathers data from within First Nations communities on 17 socio-economic measures.
Four of them are currently on target, with three of those showing improvement at twice the required rate: land rights, employment, pre-school enrollment and the number of young people in detention all met or exceeded expectations.
But adult imprisonment, suicide, children in out-of-home care rates, and also early development targets all took a backwards step.
The remaining measures in areas ranging from health, education, employment, housing, safety, and strength in culture and language either had insufficient data or were improving too slowly.
"Progress has also been made ... but not at the level required for the targets to be met on schedule,” said Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney.
“Overall, the gap is not closing quickly enough.”
The report also noted uneven results from the states and territories, saying worsening outcomes in some jurisdictions were "cause for concern".
"The Northern Territory's outcomes worsened across eight target areas in which it was already performing relatively poorly at the starting point," the report states.
Victoria was trailing the national average for children in out-of-home care, as was South Australia, which has also seen its rates of adult imprisonment worsen.
