Closing the gaps needs to be realistic and practical

Comments on Michelle Grattan “Failure to make progress closing the Indigenous employment gap”, 12/02/2014, https://theconversation.com/failure-to-make-progress-closing-the-indigenous-employment-gap-23099

While we all like to see the close of the gap between Indigenous Australians and the rest, it will be very challenging to achieve all targets, particularly those like life expectancy within the set period.

Further, while I have very high respect to Deloitte Access Economics, the headline number of 1.15% economic benefit of closing the gap appears to be very optimistic, perhaps too optimistic.

What is the share of Australia's Indigenous population? How much can one realistically assume closing the gaps can achieve?

One must bear in mind that there are various gaps in a society such as Australia. For example, there is a perceived or observed pay gap between male and female in workplace in Australia that may take very long time to achieve to close that pay gap.