Welfare stretcher at bottom of cliff
Sara Hudson; 8/10/08
The federal Government has announced that it is reforming the Community Development Employment Program, an Aboriginal work-for-the-dole scheme. But there’s an air of deja vu. The Howard government axed CDEP in cities and regional areas just last year. As a result, the number of CDEP organisations dropped from 212 to 153 during the past 12 months. The Rudd Government’s proposal to halt CDEP in non-remote Australia is just a continuation of the previous government’s policies and nothing new. What is new, however, is that from July 1 next year new CDEP participants will receive income support or welfare payments rather than CDEP “wages”. This clarification is important. CDEP is welfare, not proper work. CDEP has been referred to disparagingly as “sit down” money, as many participants are paid for doing housework, mowing their own lawns or for doing nothing at all.
See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24462677-7583,00.html
Aboriginal job seekers need extensive social support
8/10/08
I read with interest Jenny Macklin’s proposed reform of the Community Development Employment Projects program (7/10) and her observation that “indigenous employment programs must be geared towards creating opportunities and giving indigenous people the skills and training needed to get and keep a job”. I have spent the past three years developing the training for the Army Aboriginal Community Assistance Program (AACAP), and over the past six weeks or so have organised the relocation of Aboriginal teenager Rosemary Maraltadj from the Kalumburu community in Western Australia to her new job in Newcastle (”At last, Rosemary gets taste of ‘real life“‘, 3/10). The majority of the Aboriginal people who have been involved with AACAP training over the past three years have all had training before—and plenty of it. What they needed, but didn’t receive, was the support they required to gain access to the labour market. While I agree that people should be encouraged to move to full-time jobs under the correct circumstances, I believe that the mechanism underpinning the mobility of indigenous people in the labour force is not well understood.
See: http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/letters/index.php/ theaustralian/comments/aboriginal_job_seekers_need_extensive_social_support/
“Time’s up for Aboriginal work-for-dole”; See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24457897-601,00.html
Tags: Aboriginal, Australia, Employment