Indigenous jobs plan ‘a bid to recover from failure of voice’ referendum, says Jacinta Nampijinpa Price

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has described Labor’s remote jobs policy as ‘a last-ditch attempt to be remembered by something other than the failed voice referendum’.

Coalition Indigenous affairs spokeswoman Jacinta Nampijinpa Price. Picture: Gera Kazakov

Coalition Indigenous affairs spokeswoman Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has described Labor’s remote jobs policy as “a last-ditch attempt to be remembered by something other than the failed voice referendum”.

Senator Price, whose responsibilities include the Coalition’s new government efficiency portfolio, accused the Albanese government of taking too long to come up with a replacement for the failed work-for-the-dole scheme that supports 40,000 Indigenous Australians but does not require them to work.

It has been optional to work for the dole in the Commonwealth Development Program since May 2021, when the Morrison government began redesigning the scheme.

“Despite Labor’s promise at the last election, the CDP has been extended until 2025. Three years into this government we are none the wiser as to how any eventual replacement will properly work,” Senator Price told The Australian.

The Albanese government began the first phase of its two-step plan to replace the CDP in December after lengthy consultations with remote communities and advice from an Indigenous working group. So far only 200 ­Indigenous people have started work in a real jobs scheme that will employ 3000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people within three years.

In the second phase of Labor’s plan, the CDP becomes a remote employment service placing Indigenous people in public and private sector jobs and in training. Communities would identify the work that participants should do, such as road maintenance or caring for the elderly.

Indigenous Australians Minister Malarndirri McCarthy told The Australian this week that Labor’s plan was about the dignity of work. She said there would also be help and training for those who wanted to start their own businesses.

However, Senator Price said Senator McCarthy was in “a race to save face” before the federal election.

“The government needs to admit they put replacing the CDP on hold while they were distracted by the voice,” she said. “The delay and inertia hurts our most marginalised the most.

“Ensuring there was a proper jobs and training program in place should have been a priority for this government, not a fourth-quarter afterthought.”

The Morrison government dropped the requirement for CDP participants to work for their payments as it became apparent the scheme was faltering. At the time, the government was preparing to mediate a settlement in the Federal Court with the people of the Ngaanyatjarra lands who claimed the CDP was racist.

A government review found the CDP was more punitive than earlier iterations of work for the dole, and Indigenous participants of CDP were more likely to be penalised and less likely to be granted exemptions for illness than participants of mainstream JobSeeker programs.

In the lead-up to the 2022 election, then Indigenous Australians minister Ken Wyatt was taking steps to reform the CDP.

“Advocating for people to get up and go to work and make a contribution to society is nothing new, at least for the Coalition,” Senator Price said.

“We had a replacement for the CDP in train. Labor decided to scrap that, start from scratch, and we still don’t have a replacement.

“Empowering Indigenous Australians to be economically independent and stand on their own two feet is what I’ve long advocated for. It’s Labor governments that have been hellbent on keeping remote communities living in socialist enclaves, always dependent on them for survival.

“The new program must have proper training and job requirements that do not bow to the tyranny of low expectations, whilst recognising the unique challenges of remote Australia.

“The jobs need to be real jobs, with an emphasis on private enterprise. The announcement illustrates yet again how badly the Albanese Labor government has fallen asleep at the wheel in the Indigenous Affairs portfolio.

“The truth is, those things which made the Albanese government a hero in the eyes of the east coast activists don’t actually work, don’t actually get outcomes and don’t improve the lives of marginalised Indigenous Australians.”

Senator Price’s criticisms come as former Labor minister Gary Johns and researcher Samara McPhedran prepare to release an analysis of remote jobs policies that finds criteria for success has been adjusted over time.

Their report calls for serious policy focus on changing the circumstances that render people unemployable in the mainstream labour market rather than “merely providing a closed system in which the impacts of those circumstances can be conveniently downplayed”.

Some of Dr Johns’ past writing and commentary on Indigenous affairs has been condemned as disrespectful and caused upset. He has called for DNA or blood tests to prove Indigeneity and said there should be “no race-based programs and no race-based benefits” in Australia.

In the remote jobs report, Dr Johns and Associate Professor McPhedran write: “Why fund jobs in remote communities with no prospects other than permanent reliance on government largesse? As long as policy deliberations neglect these uncomfortable questions it remains unlikely that remote employment programs will help to Close the Gap”.