New work-for-dole scheme launched for remote communities

The Albanese government will put remote Aboriginal communities and organisations in control of a revamped work-for-the-dole scheme billed as real jobs.

Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

The Albanese government will put remote Aboriginal communities and organisations in control of a revamped work-for-the-dole scheme billed as real jobs, providing Indigenous workers with long-service leave and superannuation for the first time in the 37-year history of the scheme.

Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney will on Tuesday announce the new remote jobs scheme, initially for 3000 people, as the first step towards fully replacing the failed Community Development Program. It had about 40,000 participants but has been largely moribund since it was acknowledged as unworkable by both sides of politics.

In the new remote jobs scheme, local and community organisations will employ Indigenous people in regions of high unemployment.

The new program is designed to help build the remote workforce and reduce the reliance on fly-in-fly-out workers. For example, when homes are repaired in remote Aboriginal communities the work is invariably done by contractors who fly in or charge $2 per kilometre to drive vast distances to and from the job.

Ms Burney describes the new scheme as grounded in self-determination because it will let communities decide what jobs are created – such as community services and the care sector, hospitality and tourism, horticulture and retail.

“For too long, people in remote communities have missed out on economic opportunities and have been stuck in cycles of poverty, Ms Burney said.

“People in remote communities should have access to the benefits and dignity of work – for themselves, their families and the next generation. This is about putting communities in the driver’s seat to create local jobs and businesses.

“Rates of unemployment in remote communities are unacceptable and this is the first step in turning that around.”

The CDP was successfully challenged by the traditional owners of the Ngaanyatjarra lands, who took the Morrison government to court claiming it was discriminatory.

From 2015, the CDP funded service providers in capital cities to administer a work-for-the-dole program in very remote locations, which caused problems.

On the Ngaanyatjarra lands, near the border of the NT and Western Australia, Indigenous workers on CDP were regularly “breached” meaning their payments were docked or ceased for weeks at a time. This was often because they failed to meet reporting obligations that required them to have a mobile phone, regular access to the internet and to be proficient in English. Few participants had any of these.

About 350 Indigenous adults on the lands sued the former Coalition government and the case ended in an agreement that the program would be overhauled.

Ms Burney will provide details of the new remote jobs program when she presents the government’s annual report on the Closing the Gap national agreement to parliament on Tuesday. The agreement is a commitment to reduce the disparity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians in 17 areas by 2031. Australia is on track to meet only four of the 17 targets.