The gap between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and other Australians isn't closing fast enough, Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney admits.
Productivity Commission data shows a number of key Closing the Gap targets are not on track and some are going backwards.
Closing the Gap is a strategy that aims to achieve equality for Indigenous people by improving health, social, education and economic outcomes.
"I know many people are frustrated by the lack of progress," Ms Burney said.
Last month, in partnership with the Coalition of Peaks - which represents more than 80 Indigenous organisations - the federal government announced its implementation plan for Closing the Gap, which included more than $400 million in extra funding.
There are 19 socio-economic targets in the National Agreement on Closing the Gap.
The Productivity Commission has released data on nine of those targets, which shows only two are on track to meet their goals: employment of Indigenous adults and land rights.
Seven are not on target, including babies with a healthy birth weight, finishing Year 12, appropriate housing and reducing suicide rates.
Ms Burney said the data showed "encouraging" increases in employment and land rights, but in other areas figures were going backwards.
"More of the same isn't good enough," she said.
"We need to do things differently by working in partnership with communities to get better results."
Indigenous Labor senator Pat Dodson said Australia should never forget its history "the good, the bad and the ugly".
"We also need tangible action to address the poor outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people," Senator Dodson said.
"We must not lose sight of the very real human cost of inaction."
First Nations Greens senator Dorinda Cox said colonisation had changed how Indigenous people connected with their land, their culture and their community, with racist policies resulting in catastrophic outcomes.
"We get sicker, we die earlier. We are poorer. We are arrested and locked up more and we have our children taken away from us," she said.
Her former colleague turned independent senator Lidia Thorpe said the gap couldn't be closed by the same institutions that uphold disadvantage.
"Real support cannot be provided by just another one of your colonial institutions where black fellas don't feel safe," she said.
"Where at every moment they feel like they're doing something wrong, not fulfilling another one of your colonial criteria and risking being reported and having their child taken."
Country Liberal Party senator and Indigenous woman Jacinta Price said the lives of Indigenous children in rural Australia "are being left in dysfunctional circumstances because of their race".
"The gap does not exist between Indigenous Australia and everybody else," she said.
"It exists between those in remote communities whose first language is not English, who still live by their traditional culture, who are out of sight out of mind in places like Canberra."
Senior Liberal frontbencher Simon Birmingham said it was a "stain on Australia" that the gap existed.
Australian Associated Press
