Pre-training needed for Indigenous scheme to work: council
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Andrew Forrest has proposed a plan to employ 50,000 Indigenous people over the next two years (ABC TV)
The Kimberley Land Council says basic education levels among Indigenous people need to be improved if a new employment scheme is to have any chance of success.
Australia's richest man and the head of Fortescue Metals, Andrew Forrest, has proposed a plan to employ 50,000 Indigenous people over the next two years with the backing of the private sector.
The Federal Government is promising to provide the training places needed to achieve the target.
Kimberley Land Council executive director Wayne Bergman says if the plan is going to work, pre-employment training needs to start now.
"The biggest challenge is that most Aboriginal people's numeracy and literacy levels aren't that good and aren't sufficient to be able to do the general mine training courses," he said.
"We need a lot of pre-training to get people ready to join the mining industry or any kind of industry.
"We need to have a longer term target than two years I think, we need to establish cradle to grave strategies for employment and training.
"We need to start focusing children as young as grade two and ensure that they are starting to establish the basic foundations in numeracy and literacy."
Mr Forrest says his consultation with the private sector has been incredibly positive.
"From the highest in the land to the employers of two or three people only, the question to me is how can I help," he said.
"I'm gratified by that and I believe this is now an idea of Australian employers, not of mine, of Australian employers whose time has come."
Scheme welcomed
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says the program could be a breakthrough in the effort to improve the conditions of Aboriginal Australia.
"What I do know is that unless you set targets, unless you set goals - we have one as a Government it's called closing the gap - you turn around in five, 10 or 15 years and there's no progress," he said.
"Far better to set some ambitious goals, even if you fall short and I commend Andrew [Forrest] for his ambition."
Mr Rudd says the program is part of an overall plan to help Indigenous people.
"A welfare-only response to these communities is precisely the wrong way to go," he said.
"We've got to get housing right, we've got to get education right, we've got to get health right but we've also got to get jobs right.
"And that's where corporate Australia comes in and I look forward very much to partnering with our major Australian corporations in what is their initiative."
A working group has been set up to oversee the scheme, including Noel Pearson, who says he is thrilled with the idea.
"I've hung around corporate Australia for a number of years, I've heard a lot of goodwill from people but I've never been actually sure about
whether those doors are openable from the outside," he said.
"Andrew [Forrest] assures me - and I'm sure he's correct about this - that these doors are there for the opening."
