More than half the socio-economic targets outlined in the Closing the Gap agreement will not be met. 

That’s according to the Productivity Commission’s annual data compilation report, although the report’s authors stressed the data should be treated with caution, being the first set since the baseline year of 2021. 

The commission says progress on healthy birth weight for babies, enrolment of children in pre-school, youth detention rates and land mass subject to rights and interests (4,027,232sq km) are on track. 

But other areas, including children starting school developmentally on track (34.%), children in out-of-home care (57.6 per 1000), adults in prison (2222.7 per 100,000) and people who took their own life (27.9 per 100,000) are not on track. 

Data in those key areas has worsened, while there’s been improvement in Sea Country subject to rights and interests (90,555sq km) but not enough to be declared as on target…