Budget 2024: Indigenous work-for-the-dole overhaul a priority to help close the gap
For those living in remote Indigenous communities, the overhaul of the troubled scheme cannot come soon enough.
The reinvention of Australia’s troubled work-for-the-dole scheme cannot come soon enough in Ardyaloon, the remote Aboriginal community where Vincent Williams watches non-Aboriginal contractors receive $2 per kilometre in mileage to drive in from Broome.
The 36-year-old once co-ordinated the work-for-the-dole scheme known as the Community Development Program in his community. He saw its potential and its weaknesses close up. As the program fell dormant in remote communities awaiting the overhaul, Mr Williams moved to a permanent job in the private sector. Fewer than 10 per cent of participants in the work-for-the-dole program found a job that lasted more three months, according to the latest commonwealth government data.
Ardyaloon does not have mining or other industries on its doorstep but Mr Williams says there are jobs that local Aboriginal people could do with a little or no training. He currently works for a contractor that is partly Aboriginal owned – Kimberley Regional Service Providers – and his responsibilities include maintaining the lawns at the local school and rubbish collection.
He is looking forward to having his say about how the new scheme should operate in his community. “It will be nice for the community if there are people busy making it look good,” he said. “People can do the old people’s gardens so snakes can’t hide.”
While the old program was criticised for being heavy on punishment and light on incentives, Mr Williams says it would be no good to have a scheme that pays people the same whether they turn up or not.
“Some work then have a rest is nice for people getting used to it. But not voluntary,” he says.
Under the federal government’s new remote jobs scheme, community leaders and employers will jointly identify the jobs that Aboriginal people could do in their communities. The employer will then get help from the National Indigenous Australians Agency, a federal government department, to apply for a grant to employ locals to do that work. The NIAA will visit Ardyaloon – 217km north of Broome – on June 19 to ask what locals want from the scheme. It is part of consultations around the nation.
Mr Williams will be at the meeting to share his ideas about the new remote jobs scheme.
The Albanese government is listening to the ideas of Aboriginal people in remote communities as part of consultations on the design of the new Remote Jobs and Economic Development program. It says the $707m program “will deliver real jobs to remote communities across Australia, initially creating 3000 jobs over the three years”.
