A collaboration of Indigenous policy, peaks, and employment and empowerment organisations are calling for urgentaction to create significant growth in employment in remote Indigenous communities.
Aboriginal Peak Organisations NT, Cape York Institute, Empowered Communities leaders from remote regions and Indigenous controlled employment organisations have called on the government to fully fund at least 12000new jobs over the next two years as a first step towards full employment in remote Indigenous communities.
The First Nations collective agrees that unless there is a commitment to creating jobs, intolerable levels of unemployment will remain. They welcomed the Government's budget announcement to end CDP and co-design an alternative system.
The Federal Government's termination of CDP in 2023 paves the way for an historic cardinal shift from Governmentinvestment in managing peoples lives through the welfare system to investing in real employment and economicopportunity, according to Fiona Jose of Cape York Institute.
She says the focus appears to remain on training and activities, work-like-experience, but must be on real jobs that benefit communities and address current shortages.
"Our children must see local jobs in their future, not Work for the Dole. This requires a fundamental shift away fromWork for the Dole," she says.
APO NT spokesperson John Paterson says, "More than $300 million is currently paid to employment providers tomanage 'activities' for unemployed people, when what people really want is a chance for proper paid work."
Modelling commissioned by APO NT in 2018 showed that an extra 12,000 jobs in remote areas would immediatelyreduce poverty rate in remote areas, and narrow the employment 'gap' in these areas by one third. "And that isjust day one. More jobs mean more money in communities, more services and local growth."
"The longer we allow entrenched joblessness in remote communities to go on the worse it gets. Generations of young men and women in remote communities are not getting the chance to experience employment, or to get the skills and experience that work brings. Instead they stay on the dole and in 'work like activities'. People are getting poorer, and we see the results in poor health and wellbeing outcomes."
Around 40,000 people across remote Australia are required to enrol in the Commonwealth Government's Community Development Program. More than 80% of those are First Nations.
The First Nations coalition is calling on the Commonwealth Government to establish a jobs fund that will allow Indigenous communities to create meaningful paid employment for local people.
Fiona Jose says there is plenty of critical work that needs to be done around infrastructure, construction and maintenance of public sector projects.
"The non-state sector could use wage subsidies to support councils and NGOs to employ people on community development initiatives improve their local environment and sustainability, and the social sector couldprovide opportunities for training in health, aged, and disability care work."
"Over the next two years we are asking that the Government agree to fully fund at least 12,000 new jobs as a firststep towards full employment in remote Indigenous communities," John Paterson says.
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"This won't be enough to close the employment gap, but it will give communities the chance to build a future which is not shaped by the welfare system and prove the effectiveness of work as a social and economic policy intervention."
