Unemployed Indigenous peoples in remote Australia still penalised and impoverished

A key plank of the Albanese government’s Indigenous policy platform is to abolish the remote mutual obligation initiative known as the Community Development Program (CDP). As the jobs and skills summit starts, it is deeply disappointing to see the CDP still in place — and still punitive. The dire circumstances of remote-living Indigenous Australians are still missing from the policy agenda.

The CDP was a response of the Abbott government to the Forrest review of Indigenous jobs and training in 2014. It operates in more than 1000 communities in an area that covers 75% of Australia and is imposed on 40,000 people, almost all Indigenous.

Initially it required that all able-bodied people aged 18 to 49 work for the dole for 25 hours a week, five hours a day, for a payment that works out at about $10 an hour.

The program uses complex computer systems to ensure that “jobless participants” meet their mutual obligation requirements such as working for the dole, engaging in training, and attending monthly appointments. All participants needed to sign a job plan — even in the tiniest, most remote homelands where there are no jobs.

The CDP has been far more effective at penalising and impoverishing remote-living Indigenous peoples than helping them into jobs.

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic allowed the Morrison government to quietly ease the program’s draconian mutual obligation requirements and temporarily double the weekly incomes of the unemployed with the coronavirus supplement. Then in May 2021, without quite admitting that the program had been a cruel and expensive failure, the government announced that the scheme would end from 2023.

Participation in work-for-the-dole has now become voluntary, but attending monthly meetings with CDP service providers to meet activity requirements and update “job” plans remains compulsory.

Quarterly government compliance reporting shows that the penalising of the poorest Australians continues unabated today.

The latest available information for June 30 2021 to March 31 2022 indicates that there were 67,810 income support payment suspensions triggered by a “Did Not Attend-Invalid” (DNAI) flag that providers are compelled to enter on to a computer program.

On a visit last week to remote Arnhem Land, I was shocked to see this penalisation process was continuing, despite the Albanese government’s pledge to end the CDP. In effect this means that people facing prohibitive costs just for basic foodstuffs and struggling to survive on a JobSeeker allowance of $620 a fortnight continue to be financially penalised.

All available statistical indicators show that remote-living Indigenous peoples are the poorest and most disadvantaged Australians.

More than a year ago a discussion paper I co-wrote outlined principles for a sensible remote work and livelihood policy for remote Indigenous Australia: ensure a stable economic floor to alleviate poverty; avoid the myth that the private sector will deliver sufficient waged employment; make suitable paid work available; support those who are unable to work; ensure a flexible response to social fluidity.

The humane government that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese purports to lead would not allow Indigenous peoples to be financially penalised for not being enthusiastic job seekers in areas where there are no jobs. The government should stop any form of penalties and suspensions — it should simply instruct providers not to submit reports that trigger suspensions. First Nations peoples should not be punished for living on or near their ancestral country.

A new remote Indigenous economic development policy is urgently needed to deliver publicly funded and locally determined forms of work for community-based social and commercial enterprises, the expansion of successful programs already providing employment — in caring for country, caring for people, and caring for culture, and realistic levels of income support that provide a stable economic floor for all.

As the government contemplates the nationwide problems resulting from skills shortages and an overheated labour market in the mainstream economy, it should not overlook the extraordinary challenges faced by Indigenous peoples living remotely where there are too few jobs.