To conclude, I think we are well placed in terms of data that describes the difficulties that Indigenous people face, and in terms of data that documents their deep economic and social problems. My own feeling is that we need to know more about the interplay of culture and Indigenous decision making and how to create an environment within which Indigenous people can make better choices for themselves. To be thinking of poverty and employment problems in economic terms alone is clearly inadequate. We need to know more about motivation and the mechanisms that can create communities with more productive outcomes.

Policies for Indigenous young people of exceptional talent seem to be working well. For this group, there are efficient and effective pathways into professional sport, into universities, into business activities and into the public policy arena. And things are getting better each year.

What is not working at all are policies for the majority of Indigenous people and for the young who do not relate well either to a school environment or to the discipline of a work environment in the mainstream economy. How to design effective policies for these groups and how to collect the right sort of data to help develop good policies is not straightforward.

Finally, as indicated earlier, we need more administrative data that relate directly to policy interventions and directly to policy outcomes.