ABSTRACT
Performance indicators, introduced at many levels of government at a time when ‘management by objectives’ was adopted in Australia in the late 1980s, have remained an area of confusion within Aboriginal health. Why they are needed, how they are established and the uses to which indicators are put have all been subject to a high level of debate and dissension. This chapter aims to examine the reasons for this, as well as discussing what a ‘performance indicator’ is. It focuses on the implementation of performance indicators for the Commonwealth-funded community-controlled Aboriginal Health Services. There has been a gap in the development of Aboriginal health policy-making mechanisms which has implications for performance evaluation. The lack of a national Aboriginal health policy apparatus also jeopardised the implementation of the NAHS, including the establishment of national goals and targets and performance indicators.
