In 1973, the Australian government gave itself 10 years to raise the standard of health of Indigenous people to the level of that of the rest of the population. Almost 30 years later, Indigenous life expectancies remain stuck at around 20 years lower than the rest of the Australian population. The first reasonable national estimates of Indigenous mortality were obtained from 1981 and 1986 Census data and revealed life expectancies to be around 56 years for males and 64 years for females. Also apparent was a relative lack of mortality variation between the states and territories, although life expectancies were lowest in regions with the most remote and rural communities, a situation that has persisted. However, a pattern of relatively high death rates at all ages, but especially in middle adulthood between 30 and 50 years, was found to be universal. Once again, this feature has shown little sign of subsequent abatement. While analysis of 1991 Census and mortality data indicated a slight improvement in overall survival prospects, data from the 1996 Census point to a slight worsening of overall mortality, with no change in male life expectancy but with female life expectancy falling below 64 years. One consequence partly associated with this differential mortality is that the Indigenous population has a much younger age profile with a median age in 1996 of 20 years compared with 34 years for the non-Indigenous population.

Leaving aside problems of identification of Indigenous people in official records, there is sufficient evidence to suggest that underlying age-specific death rates vary among Indigenous populations living in different parts of the country. The lowest life expectancies (53.7 years for males and 58.9 years for females) are found in the western half of the continent in Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory. In the eastern half, life expectancies are somewhat higher (59.2 years for males and 63.6 years for females). Not surprisingly, the western jurisdictions closely match the distribution of regions which have persistently displayed the greatest socio-economic disadvantage against indices incorporating measures of housing adequacy, educational attainment, employment status and income status.

The most striking feature is the overall lack of progress in raising Indigenous life expectancies, given that survival chances for the total Australian population have undergone marked improvement over the period for which reliable Indigenous estimates have been available. More poignant is the fact that the level of mortality observed for Indigenous males at the end of the twentieth century is equivalent to that recorded for all Australian males at the beginning of the century. Among females, the comparison is similarly discouraging, with life expectancy for Indigenous females currently hovering around a level last recorded for females generally in 1920. This lack of steady improvement in life expectancy, despite declines in infant mortality, is a different demographic phenomenon compared with that of Indigenous peoples in New Zealand and North America, and it persists because of much higher rates of Indigenous Australian adult mortality.