Government’s work-for-the-dole scheme ‘breaches Racial Discrimination Act’

Aboriginal people taking Morrison government to court, claiming low pay and ‘meaningless’ work.

More than 350 Aboriginal people from the remote Ngaanyatjarra lands are taking the Morrison government to court over its work-for-the-dole scheme, claiming it breaches the Racial Discrimination Act.

The Commonwealth remade the work-for-the-dole scheme in 2015 and called it the Community Development Program. It is for unemployed people in designated remote areas, about 84 per cent of the scheme’s approximately 33,000 participants are indigenous. Critics describe the scheme as too punitive and not as good as the previous Community Development Employment Program under which communities were in charge of the work that residents did.

The state MP for the remote desert lands, Nationals backbencher Vince Catania, is among critics of the CDP and has previously called it unworkable.

Bret Walker SC, who was commissioner of the Murray-Darling Basin Royal Commission, will represent the people of the Ngaanyatjarra council in their Federal Court action.

Warburton residents Basil Dawson, 36, Kamis Dawson, 27, and Kresna Cameron, 37, are named in the case as representatives of 354 other Aboriginal people from the lands who are on CDP. In a statement of claim lodged in the Federal Court, the participants say they are paid significantly less than JobActive participants elsewhere in Australia and forced to do meaningless activities.

The claim says CDP participants on the lands face more onerous obligations than people who are JobActive participants. The CDP is difficult for people on the lands — close to the border of Western Australia and the Northern Territory — because they speak little or no English and live 1000km from the nearest bank and Centrelink office, according to the statement of claim.

The statement of claim says that even though people on CDP make up 4.2 per cent of the total number of Australians taking part in either the CDP or JobActive schemes, they get 55 per cent of all penalties.

Between July 2015 and June 2018, CDP participants were hit with 559,298 financial penalties which can include being struck off with no payments.