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Minister says meeting Closing the Gap target a major step, but more work needed on others

Malarndirri McCarthy, the minister for Indigenous Australians, said early childhood education enrolment for First Nations children was a milestone in the effort to reach the Closing the Gap targets.

It is important to see this milestone achieved, and that is because of the work of the Aboriginal and community controlled sector and those involved in the preschool sector. ... Clearly, the challenges with all the other targets remain, but I do take heart at the fact that this has been achieved.

It's very, very difficult to deal with these situations where you have particular pieces of legislation that see the high incarceration rates of First Nations people. What that means is that we have to go harder, we have to keep pushing the states and territories around the justice factors. Clearly, that is a real concern.