Time’s up for Aboriginal work-for-dole scheme
Patricia Karvelas & Padraic Murphy; 7/10/08
The indigenous work-for-the-dole scheme will be abolished in all regional areas, and Aborigines will no longer receive higher welfare payments to do community work, under a radical Rudd Government plan to toughen the welfare system and force 100,000 indigenous people into real jobs within a decade. The new regime will restrict the Community Development Employment Projects program to Aborigines in remote communities. The program will be changed into a work-readiness scheme to improve literacy and numeracy. The changes will force about 4500 indigenous people in regional communities into the mainstream job network to look for work. And for the first time, mainstream job agencies will be required to have a comprehensive indigenous employment strategy.
See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24457897-5013404,00.html
Jenny Macklin moves to scrap Indigenous work program in cities; Samantha Maiden; 6/10/08; http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24454110-5013172,00.html
Indigenous people need right to work
Editorial; 7/10/08
The lost cause of indigenous economic separatism was dealt a further blow yesterday with the release of the Rudd Government’s proposals for future work schemes, most or all of which are likely to be foreshadowed as legislation later this year. The tantamount intent of the reforms announced in the Government’s discussion paper is to include Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders as part of the mainstream workforce instead of leaving them to languish as perennial public welfare clients. But there would be a wide front of special assistance to meet many of these Australians’ undeniable disadvantages, and an acknowledgment that remote settlements and towns lack enough mainstream jobs and still need external cashflow for survival, at least until some build a better economic base. The paper, Increasing Indigenous Employment Opportunity, is focused on the future of the Community Development Employment Projects program, a kind of open-ended work-for-the-dole scheme subject to little monitoring, despite paying better than the dole. Its tasks can range from street cleaning through community policing and arts-centre staffing to home-building.
See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24456876-16741,00.html
Tags: Aboriginal, Australia, Employment