What are the National partnership agreements and how do they fit in?

The National partnership agreements are agreements between the Commonwealth of Australia and the states and territories. The six agreements included in the Closing the gap policy are detailed below. These agreements are applicable from 2009.

Indigenous early childhood development [1]

see agreement (PDF - 308KB)

COAG has committed $564.6 million over six years to improve Indigenous early childhood development. Through this agreement, the parties are committed to the following objectives:

• improving developmental outcomes for Indigenous children and achieving key targets;
• achieving sustained improvement in pregnancy and birth outcomes for Indigenous women and infants;
• improving Indigenous families' use of the early childhood development services they need to optimise the development of their children; and
• contributing to COAG's social inclusion, early childhood development, education, health, housing, and safety agendas, by identifying models and reforms that will improve outcomes for Indigenous children.

This agreement seeks to contribute to the following overarching outcomes:

• Indigenous children are born and remain healthy;
• Indigenous children have the same health outcomes as non-Indigenous children;
• Indigenous children acquire the basic skills for life and learning; and
• Indigenous families have ready access to suitable and culturally adequate early childhood and family support.

Three key elements are at the core of the desired outputs. These are: (1) the integration of early childhood services through children and family centres; (2) an increased access to antenatal care, and pre-pregnancy and teenage sexual and reproductive health; and (3) increased access to and use of maternal and child health services by Indigenous families.

To achieve the objectives of this agreement, each party has specific responsibilities.
The Commonwealth will be responsible for providing financial contributions to the states and the Northern Territory (participating in consultation when appropriate), and participating in the planning of bilaterally agreed implementation plans, in consultation with Indigenous communities and other stakeholders.

The states and territories will be responsible for providing financial contributions and planning and implementing bilaterally agreed implementation plans, in consultation with Indigenous communities and other stakeholders.

The states, the territories and the Commonwealth will: (1) share the responsibilities for ensuring the effective implementation of this agreement (2) evaluate the outcomes of the agreement, at both national and local levels; (3) review annually the implementation process, and re-align it with COAG reform when appropriate: (4) identify and share best practice; and (5) provide sufficient data to allow national comparisons for evaluations.

The performance indicators are:

• increased proportion of Indigenous children attending the Children and Family Centres who have had all age‐appropriate health checks and vaccinations;
• increased proportion of Indigenous three and four year olds participating in quality early childhood education and development and child care services;
• increased proportion of Indigenous children attending the Children and Family Centres who go on to attend school regularly;
• increased proportion of Indigenous children and families accessing a range of services offered at or through Children and Family Centres, including childcare, early learning, child and maternal health, and parent and family support services;
• increased proportion of pregnant Indigenous women with an antenatal contact in the first trimester of pregnancy;
• increased proportion of Indigenous teenagers accessing sexual and reproductive health programs and services;
• reduced proportion of Indigenous babies born with low birth weight each;
• reduced mortality rate of Indigenous infants;
• reduced proportion of Indigenous women who use substances (tobacco, alcohol, illicit drugs) during pregnancy;
• reduced proportion of hospital admissions of Indigenous children aged 0‐4 years.

Remote service delivery [2]

see agreement (PDF - 146KB)

A total of $291.2 million over six years has been allocated to support improvements across 26 remote locations across the Northern Territory, Western Australia, Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia. Coordination and delivery of services in these remote locations will be improved at all levels of government. There will be a focus on reforms to service delivery in early childhood, schooling, housing and health. Importantly, engagement with local communities will include attention to governance and leadership within Indigenous organisations. Through this agreement, COAG seeks to contribute to the following objectives:

• improve the access of Indigenous families to a full range of suitable and culturally adequate services;
• raise the standard and range of services accessible to Indigenous families to the level provided to the other Australian families;
• improve the level of governance and leadership within Indigenous communities and organisations;
• provide better and simpler access to government services in remote Indigenous communities; and
• increase social and economic participation to promote personal engagement, responsibility and, more broadly, positive social norms.

In addressing these objectives the Commonwealth will be responsible for:

• working with the states and the Northern Territory to establish a new integrated service planning and delivery mechanism;
• providing financial contribution to the states and the Northern Territory, as stated in the implementation plans;
• dedication of staff to the new integrated service delivery mechanisms;
• establishing mechanisms for problem-solving with concordance of the states and the Northern Territory and ensure the development and implementation of service delivery;
• baseline mapping, building and maintaining the evidence base, monitoring, and evaluation in identified locations;
• providing advice to governments on local and systemic issues associated with cultural adequacy and cross-cultural training materials; and
• introducing a national framework for the correct use of Indigenous interpreters and translators (including related protocols).

The states and the Northern Territory will be responsible for:

• working with the Commonwealth to establish a new integrated service planning and delivery mechanism;
• providing financial contributions as stated in the agreement;
• dedicating staff to operate new integrated service delivery mechanisms;
• delivering all the land tenure components; and
• assisting in the creation of coordination mechanisms.

The Commonwealth and the states and the Northern Territory will share the responsibility for:

• completing reporting against performance indicators and timelines, as well as fund allocation;
• creating an interface for interactions between communities and all government agencies, including one or more senior business manager to coordinate the implementation of the agreement;
• establishing whole-of-government, regionally-based operation centres to ensure the timelines and accountability of implementation plans;
• working with selected communities to feed into local implementation plan processes;
• establishing programs to develop community leadership skills;
• providing translation services and cultural awareness training in the identified locations;
• providing technical support and funding to establish and maintain appropriate structures and capacity for corporate governance, when appropriate;
• participation in consultation, when appropriate;
• planning and implementing bilateral plans;
• identifying and sharing good practice across all parties; and
• providing sufficient data to enable effective planning and a thorough evaluation of the outcomes of this agreement, at both national and local level.

Performance indicators will vary between jurisdictions and will be detailed inspecific implementation plans.

Indigenous economic participation [3]

see agreement (PDF - 158KB)

COAG has committed $228.8 million over five years to improve opportunities for Indigenous people to engage in private and public sector jobs. This agreement comprises four elements to significantly contribute to halving the employment gap between Indigenous and other Australians:

• creating real, sustainable employment areas of government service delivery that have previously relied on subsidisation through CDEP;
• strengthening current government procurement policies to maximise Indigenous employment;
• incorporating Indigenous workforce strategies into all new major COAG reforms contributing to the Closing the gap targets; and
• reviewing all public sector Indigenous employment and career development strategies to increase employment to reflect population proportions by 2015.

In terms of roles and responsibilities, both the Commonwealth and the states and territories will be responsible for the creation of service delivery jobs by 1 July 2009. They will be jointly responsible for:

• the development of sustainable strategies with private sector, local government and Indigenous communities to improve Indigenous employment outcomes;
• creating properly paid jobs for service delivery that previously relied on CDEP scheme;
• creating specific, transition strategies for communities especially affected by the CDEP reforms;
• informing current partner employers on employment reforms;
• incorporating Indigenous workforce principles in the government services; and
• developing Indigenous workforce strategies.

To achieve the performance benchmark of halving the employment gap, this National Partnership is expected to assist up to 13,000 Indigenous people into employment over a five-year period. Specific performance indicators and administrative data are used for each of the four elements. The individual states and territories will contribute in varied proportions.

Remote Indigenous housing [4]

see agreement (PDF - 152 KB)

COAG has committed $1.94 billion over ten years for housing reform and infrastructure arrangements in remote Indigenous communities. This is expected to: (1) address severe overcrowding by increasing the availability of new houses; (2) improving the condition of current houses; and (3) ensuring rental houses in remote Indigenous communities are well maintained and managed. These three objectives should contribute to the improvement of amenity and reduction of overcrowding, particularly in remote and discrete communities.

To achieve these objectives, the agreement stipulates:

• supply of safe and adequate housing;
• robust and standardised tenancy management of all remote Indigenous housing to be consistent with public housing standards;
• a program of ongoing maintenance and repairs to increase life cycles of Indigenous remote public housing from 7 years to 30 years;
• construction and ongoing maintenance of new houses in remote Indigenous communities;
• increased employment opportunities for local residents in remote Indigenous communities;
• accommodation, such as hostels and subsidised rental housing, to allow Indigenous people from remote areas to move to regional centres to access education, training and support services;
• progressive land tenure on remote community-titled land to best secure government and commercial investment, economic development and home ownership in economically sustainable communities;
• upgraded housing and related infrastructure in town camps where appropriate; and
• improved data collection for three-yearly community housing and infrastructure need surveys.

The Commonwealth is responsible for:

• funding of additional housing and related infrastructure in remote Australia to ensure unmet needs are met within the ten years on the agreement;
• funding for the provision of some municipal and essential services for community audits for specific need assessments of required housing and related infrastructure;
• agreeing on the modalities of the municipal and essential services for community audits for specific need assessments of required housing and related infrastructure.

The states and the Northern Territory are responsible for:

• provision of housing via their housing authorities as the major deliverers of housing for Indigenous people in remote areas;
• ensuring the consistency of housing and related deliveries with the public housing standards of tenancy management; and
• developing and implementing land tenure arrangements to facilitate effective asset management, essential services and economic development opportunities.

Commonwealth, states and the Northern Territory are sharing the responsibility for:

• reporting back to COAG by December 2009 on a proposal for clearer roles, responsibilities and funding with respect to the various municipal services in remote areas, and a timeframe for future implementation to be in place for 1 July 2012;
• refining the performance indicators and providing data to better reach the desired outcomes of the agreement;
• maintaining a national minimum data set to allow jurisdictional comparisons;
• Performance benchmarks and indicators include reduction of:
• the average occupancy per remote dwellings, by 2018;
• the incidence of homelessness by 50% in 2018; and
• overcrowded dwellings by 4,200 in 2018;
• 4,200 new housing construction completed by 2018;
• 4,876 repairs and replacements completed by 2014;
• tenancy management, rent collection and tenancy support services in place for all existing and repaired and replaced housing by 2015;
• comprehensive rolling program of repairs and maintenance by 2010;
• all communities connected to operating water, sewerage, power and rubbish disposal by 2018;
• a number of hostel-style and family-style accommodation at affordable prices in regional centres and 100% available for Indigenous people from remote communities; and
• 20% of new housing construction employment roles occupied by local Indigenous people.

Indigenous health outcomes [5]

see agreement (PDF - 1.7MB)

COAG has committed $1.57 billion over four years to contribute in closing the gap in health outcomes and achieving the following five key objectives:

• preventive health: reduction of the factors that contribute to chronic disease, including tobacco, and an integrated alcohol, drugs and mental health services;
• primary health care: access expansion and coordination of comprehensive culturally appropriate health care, services and allied services;
• hospital and related care: delivery of better outcomes through quality improvement, cultural appropriateness of hospitals and related care;
• patient experience; ensuring the cultural appropriateness of the health care workforce by engagement in genuine partnerships with Indigenous communities in order to allow the most vulnerable people to re-engage with hospital and related services; and
• sustainability: augmentation of Indigenous people in the health care workforce, reform and improvement of health care supply, creation of sustainable programs and funding schemes and performance benchmarks and indicators to best respond to the changing need of Indigenous people's service need.

The objectives of the agreement are expected to be achieved by tackling tobacco use, ensuring healthy transition to adulthood, making Indigenous health everyone's business, making a primary health care service more effective, and fixing the gaps in continuity of care and improving the patient journey. The implementation of these objectives is predominantly the responsibility of the states and territories apart from some discrete intervention that will be under the umbrella of COAG. Performance indicators are various and specific to each objective, these are for:

• preventive health: the incidence and prevalence of a wide range of health issues (including preventable diseases and injury, babies born with low birth weight, and teenage birth rate), health service attendance (including immunisation rates, cancer screenings, number of women attending antenatal visits in the first trimester of pregnancy), and additional indicators (tobacco smoking during pregnancy, social and emotional wellbeing, and health promotion);
• primary health care: access to general practitioners (GPs), dental and other primary health care professionals; prevalence of diabetes and chronic disease management; life expectancy; infant mortality; preventable hospitalisations; and time between GP/specialist visits;
• hospital and related care: waiting times; selected adverse events in acute and sub-acute care settings; unplanned readmissions within 28 days of surgical admissions; survival rates of people with cancer; rates of services provided by private/public hospitals; and rate of discharge from hospital against medical advice;
• patient experiences: access to services; level of patient satisfaction; and barriers to accessing care;
• sustainability: Indigenous people in the healthcare workforce; expenditure on health services; Indigenous people in tertiary education for health-related disciplines; and recruitment and retention.

Remote Indigenous public internet access [6]

see agreement (PDF - 800KB)

COAG has committed $6.967 million over four years to expand and maintain public access to the internet. This NPA seeks to:

• increase social inclusion and wellbeing of remote Indigenous communities;
• improve access to basic information and communication services required for Indigenous participation in contemporary Australian economic, political and social life;
• reduce barriers to basic information and communication services; and
• increase the understanding of the benefits of the effective use of the internet and associated hardware and software in remote Indigenous communities.

The desired outcome for internet access is to be a lever to increase educational, health, economic and social capital, doing so through both enhanced computer literacy and greater public information use. It also seeks to facilitate communication with government agencies, businesses, communities and families. Installation of internet facilities will be coupled with the appropriate filtering facilities for illegal and offensive materials. Importantly, maintenance of the internet facilities will be provided, as well as training sessions tailored to the individual community needs.

In delivering public internet access, priority will be given to remote communities of 100 people or more that have no public internet access.
To achieve these objectives each party has specific roles.

The Commonwealth will: (1) provide financial contribution to the states and the Northern Territory; (2) hold intergovernmental consultations regarding the implementation; and (3) assess the eligibility and priority of the remote communities.

The states and the Northern Territory will: (1) identify and nominate eligible communities (2) administer the funding and organise service delivery and implementation; (3) deliver the full value of the Commonwealth financial contribution: and (4) monitor and assess the performance in delivering the facilities and services.

The Commonwealth, states and the Northern Territory will: (1) share the responsibility of consultation with Indigenous communities and other stakeholders (2) plan and agree on bilateral implementation plans; (3) agree on nomination and priority for service delivery to remote Indigenous communities; and (4) conduct evaluations and reviews of the service delivery of the agreement.

The performance indicators are threefold:

• reduction in the number of remote Indigenous communities that have limited or no public internet access
• increased number of people in remote Indigenous communities that have received training in information technology and internet use;
• increase in the transactions and communication between remote Indigenous communities and government agencies, businesses, communities and families.

References

1. Closing the gap: national partnership agreement on Indigenous early childhood development (2009) Council of Australian Governments
2. National partnership agreement on remote service delivery (2009) Council of Australian Governments
3. National partnership agreement on Indigenous economic participation (2009) Council of Australian Governments
4. National partnership agreement on remote Indigenous housing - [variation] (2010) Council of Australian Governments
5. National partnership agreement on closing the gap in Indigenous health outcomes: implementation plan. Jurisdiction: Commonwealth (2009) Commonwealth of Australia
6. Closing the Gap: National partnership agreement on remote Indigenous public internet access (2009) Council of Australian Governments