The ‘Indigenous capability–right to health' and Australia's ‘Close the Gap’ Indigenous health policy

This chapter adopts the concept of ‘capability–rights’ in Sen’s capability approach to develop an alternative conceptual and policy framework to analyse the current Australian government’s ‘Close the Gap’ Indigenous ¹ health policy agenda. In 2005, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commissioner set out the core principles and objectives for a new national Indigenous health policy framework (ATSISJC 2006: 9–98), by proposing a human rights approach as the core conceptual underpinning for a nationwide ‘Close the Gap’ campaign to overcome the Indigenous health disadvantage. In 2008, former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and the opposition leader signed the Close the Gap Statement of Intent at the Close the Gap Campaign’s National Indigenous Health Equality Summit. ² The Close the Gap Statement of Intent initiated a process of endorsement of this new Indigenous health policy agenda by the governments and oppositions of the states and territories. Since then several ‘Closing the Gap’ national partnership agreements (NPAs) have been agreed and a generational Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health equality plan was introduced as the fundamental basis to achieve specific targets supported by a partnership between Australian governments and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and their representatives. Its foundational human rights-based approach has been largely embraced by both the Australian governments and the non-governmental ‘Close the Gap’ alliance (AHRC and SCIHQ 2008; ATSISJC 2009; CGSC 2010; FaHCSIA 2009; Australian Government 2010). The Australian government’s commitment ‘to respect and promote the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ ³ is adopted as the shared platform on which the ‘Closing the Gap’ Indigenous health policy machinery is founded and developed (FaHCSIA 2009: 1).