Advance Indigenous Australia fair

In the absence of adequate access to higher education standards or training needed for well paid jobs, government agreed to fund the Community Development Employment Program (CDEP), a scheme largely devised by Aboriginal leaders of the 1970’s. CDEP had three major aims. These were to provide:

1. employment and training in relevant skills;
2. self esteem for those employed; and
3. communities with local government services and create commercial opportunities. Very noble but so often a failure.

All too often “employment opportunities” turned out to be the chance of working one or two days a week in return for a sum of money, sometimes less than the unemployment benefits hitherto received. The training given was and largely remains to a standard that satisfies local community needs - collecting rubbish, filling potholes, simple maintenance - but rarely to a level sought by employers in the wider community.

Employers outside Aboriginal communities look for skills and experience derived from training to standards set down in recognised apprenticeships, as well as literacy and fluency in English. But then the idea of some people was that CDEP need only satisfy the needs of Aboriginal communities, isolated from and not regarded by them as part of the wider Australian community.

Regular, properly paid, full-time employment with businesses established in Aboriginal communities has always been limited, or a non-starter, because those businesses rarely extend beyond a general store and a club - neither employing many people. Why not start new businesses offering new training and employment opportunities? Easier said than done given the policy of Aboriginal Land Councils, usually supported by communities who may not be fully informed about their options, that Aboriginal land can only be held and used by communal consensus.

This arrangement provides no security for a would-be lender or collateral for a would-be borrower, let alone incentive to an outside investor. Result: funding from lending institutions is unavailable for potential investors, there is lack of development, limited or no individual initiative, few if any new employment opportunities and economic stagnation becomes the norm.

In the name of Aboriginal Land Rights, maybe hoping to promote a separate de-facto Aboriginal State within Australia, we have a permit system ensuring that Aboriginal communities remain largely isolated from the broader Australian community. How would Aborigines react if they needed to seek permission before entering non-Aboriginal land? One would hope with outrage.

When it applies the other way round, few care, indifferent to the damage it does to attracting investment, new development, job opportunities or contact with new ideas which, heaven forbid, might weaken Aboriginal “tradition and culture”. Indeed, we now hear calls from Aboriginal community leaders in Queensland that, before being permitted to enter their communities, non-Aboriginals should be required to have a “Black Card”.

This would be obtained by learning about Aboriginal culture and satisfying Aboriginal leaders that they understood the culture and were aware of the sensitivities of individual communities. Again, we should ask what the reaction would be were such requirements applied in reverse? We should also ask ourselves how these attempts at keeping the non-Aboriginal world out will benefit Aboriginal communities, increase their opportunities and advance their prosperity.

It should not be left to the valliant efforts of Milton James “Boys from the Bush” project or Jack Thompson’s house building efforts to effectively address problems of Aboriginal disadvantage in the areas of employment and housing. Government must do a lot more, so must Aboriginal communities.

Governments need to review policy and legislation applied to Aboriginal people and remove all those “protections”, regulations and practices which contribute to Aboriginal disadvantage, even when they are presented in the guise of fostering Aboriginal cultural values and so called “rights”.

The responsibility of Aboriginal families and communties, particularly the younger generations, is to join the broader population and embrace the 21st century, not fend it away. Many have already done so and prospered. Many more need encouragement and assistance to do so.