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Mundine throws weight behind Aboriginal job scheme

Posted September 2, 2008 08:12:00
Updated September 2, 2008 09:20:00

Job scheme talks: Warren Mundine (AAP: Alan Porritt, File photo)

Unemployed Aborigines could be offered apprenticeships and jobs building roads, rail and port facilities around the country under an ambitious new plan to be proposed to the Federal Government.

The Government will be asked to use its $76 billion national infrastructure fund for the scheme, which has been brokered by Kevin Rudd's business adviser and Infrastructure Australia head Sir Rod Eddington, and leading Aboriginal figure and former ALP president Warren Mundine.

Mr Mundine says Aboriginal workers would be willing to travel around the country for jobs in a scheme he likened to a 21st century "walkabout".

He told ABC NewsRadio that Aboriginal people could be employed in a variety of capacities building road, rail and port facilities across the country.

"We'll be looking at apprenticeships, we'll be looking at trades, we'll be looking at the back office people and a wide variety of positions, and this is the outcome that we want," Mr Mundine said.

Mr Mundine raised the issue with Sir Rod during an Australian Industry Group conference in Canberra yesterday.

Mr Mundine said he received a sympathetic hearing and pointed to last month's recent announcement by mining figure Andrew Forrest of a program to create 50,000 jobs for Indigenous people in two years.

"Sir Rod has said that he'll take me around, introduce us to the construction companies, all the different infrastructure people," he said.

"We'll have conversations with them and if the conversations have been the same as what we're getting out of the mining industry and other people we're been talking to lately we'll have a very big outcome here.

"We want a commitment from the whole of Australia, that's why its called the Australian employment covenant.

"And so far everyone has come on board, everyone's been very enthusiastic. This is going to be a big change, not only for Indigenous people but for the whole of Australia."

Mr Mundine rejected a suggestion of quotas for Indigenous jobs and said the jobs created should be real and not simply for appearances' sake.

He said real money was going to spent on infrastructure by the Federal Government and that the jobs too should be real.

Mr Mundine also said that Aboriginal people would be willing to travel for infrastructure jobs.

"It was Indigenous people, Aboriginal people who invented the word walkabout," he said.

"We're the people who, when an area wasn't economically sustainable, we moved on to another area. This is how we travelled for the last 40,000 to 60,000 years.

"We need now to transform that into a 21st century model."

During a speech to an Ai Group conference in Canberra last night, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd stressed the Government's infrastructure plans, listing highways, ports, broadband, public transport and low carbon power infrastructure as examples of the government's priorities to help drive Australian economic growth in uncertain times.

Tags: business-economics-and-finance, industry, indigenous, government-and-politics, federal-government, australia, nt

Comments (41)

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• Bullfrog:

  02 Sep 2008 8:27:59am

  I support getting anyone who wants to work into work.
  
  In my admittedly limited understanding of Aboriginal culture, it appears that many Aboriginals have real issues (cultural, social) with leaving their community, for any reason.
  
  It strikes me that major construction jobs tend not to be in the remote and rural areas, but are more focused on areas where some facilities exist, and then are to be expanded. Particularly ports, road and rail facilities. My hope is that these infrastructure projects can give a leg up to many people, providing them with a skill set, work ethic and financial base to launch them into a future which is driven by self-determination, rather than government handout.

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• Harry:

  02 Sep 2008 8:36:34am

  This is a great idea. It seems crazy that we are having to consider bringing labour and skilled people from outside of the country when we still have unemployed Aboriginal people.
  
  Some people might say "why a special apprenticeship programme for Aboriginal people?". But there's been such a long cycle of exclusion from employment it needs a specific programme.
  
  Unfortunately, Aboriginal people are excluded from many employment opportunities because of racism. To simply leave it up to market forces wont shift things along.

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  • chalkie:

    02 Sep 2008 11:12:34am

    which racism are you (without evidence) tossing around as an excuse-all for indigenous underemployment? Certainly there are systemic and extreme social and personal reasons why individuals (including aborigines) can't/don't get jobs but simply blaming whitey misses the point.
    
    What is racist are race-based measures such as this. Sure, it is for a good cause, but let us not be fooled into thinking it is not racist, and paternalistic in so doing. What is even more worrying is that there are implicit moves to hardwire racist preferential treatment for Aborigines, presumably irrespective of need.
    
    How else can we read Mundine's statement that "We want a commitment from the whole of Australia, that's why its called the Australian employment covenant". Code for enduring race privelege?
    
    

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  • Realist:

    02 Sep 2008 11:24:03am

    Oh yes it's all about exclusion and racism. It couldn't possibly have anything to do with the fact that most live away from cities and places where the work is and want government handouts, could it?

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• Georgia:

  02 Sep 2008 8:39:36am

  Great idea., however from what I have seen, its not the skills that are lacking, rather an attitude to work...

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  • OLDIE:

    02 Sep 2008 8:55:21am

    Its not only the work attitude, but also when someone gets a job and money, all the rellies turn up on payday, with their hands out.
    I feel that they should be employed in groups, same clan, and housing must be supplied

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  • Zwenty:

    02 Sep 2008 8:55:46am

    We want to avoid unfair generalizations but it is clear that a welfare state has destroyed self confidence and the ethic of hard work in many communities. Handing out money is one of the most unproductive things you can do as it does not teach responsibility or the value of hard work. I think this program is a good idea if they can get it off the ground.

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    • BlzBob:

      02 Sep 2008 10:24:57am

      Zwenty
      It is not the welfare that destroyed their self confidence, It was past mistreatment and racism dealt out by employers.
      Welfare just does not have anyway of restoring it.
      Perhaps system of working away, one week on, and one week off, might work in with their culture and social demands for their initial employment.

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  • Harry:

    02 Sep 2008 8:59:34am

    Georgia, it's a bit more complex than just being "work shy". Maybe that's where specific work structures for Aboriginal work teams should be looked at because it provides empowerment.

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  • Stewie:

    02 Sep 2008 9:01:51am

    I dont think it is just the attitude to work that is the issue, I believe it is the welfare dependency culture that governments and businesses that has been generationally placed on Aboriginal people, yes, a insidious form of racism, that is the cause of the lack of work attitude.

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  • Teddy Ningi:

    02 Sep 2008 9:27:40am

    I believe it is now the right time that they have to avoid the don't care attitutde and have thier mindset to help them selves. lets get rid of attitude problem in carrying out the jobs.
    get the priorities right.
    
    A lot of work has been done to help them, what I saw..

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  • bjh:

    02 Sep 2008 11:37:16am

    the biggest barrier to entry into work is lack of basic literacy and numeracy. Without these people cannot qualify to work on building sites due to OH&S
    
    I want this scheme to work but there are some pretty big mountains to climb.
    
    Maybe the signs/course could be written/conducted in dual languages al-a Quebec (French English)

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    • topend:

      02 Sep 2008 12:38:33pm

      What all 500 indigenous languages most of which are oral and can not be written without the help of linguists and indigenous people dont know how to read or write their own language - because it has never been written.
      
      

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• alan:

  02 Sep 2008 8:44:24am

  Whilst not being indigenous but having worked in the welfare / employment public service for 40 years this seems to me to be another 'throw money at indigenous people' scheme.
  
  CDEP and it various machinations over the years was little more than stay at home money and whilst some communities made use of the scheme the highest proportion did not and simply could not. It was quite simply window dressing and I am sorry but this is the same.
  
  I don't know what the solution is other than the same old same old things like culturally specific schemes in remote Australia. In metropolitan Australia the problem is quite different. Here the problem is often indolence and the welfare family syndrome, simply put for many people indigenous and non indigenous alike it is easier to live on welfare than to work and have the associated responsibilities.
  
  For indigenous people it appears to me that it is sometimes even more difficult due to the family process and having some form of wealth requires it to be spread across the whole family and this then becomes a drain on the individual trying to break the cycle. Those indigenous people and there many more than most acknowledge who have broken the cycle it is still difficult due to the coconut tag and its associated demeaning issues.
  
  I am sorry if this comes across as patronising but throwing money at this issue needs to stop and more thought given to what needs to happen.

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  • Harry:

    02 Sep 2008 9:38:27am

    Sure Alan, there's a lot of cyclic welfare dependency. But there's also no denying reduced employment opportunities for Aboriginal people because of racisim. Employers are just like everybody else in the broader community, and some of them have prejudices as well.

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    • chalkie:

      02 Sep 2008 11:14:36am

      Yet racist prejudices can be overcome. Just consider the turnaround in the attitude to Chinese: once spurned now respected for work ethic (and perhaps the subject of more than a little envy?).

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• Vulcan:

  02 Sep 2008 9:03:10am

  Well, well, well at long last somebody has a sensible suggestion to help our indigenous people help themselves. If this scheme provides training as well as jobs, then here is a practical way to break the cycle of sit-down money.
  
  My biggest concern will be enabling indigenous people to move from home for the jobs and training, but still be able to keep the strong family ties. The greatest strength (and also greatest weakness...at times) of indigenous culture is family ties - unless these bonds are maintained there will be problems of disorientation and loss of identity down the track.
  
  Never thought I'd say this - good idea Mr Rudd.

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  • Doh:

    02 Sep 2008 9:38:16am

    Before we get too excited about Mr Rudd's brilliance, not that the idea is being put TO the government and is not coming FROM the government.

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    • Noel:

      02 Sep 2008 11:15:44am

      Would have been pointless to put it to the previous government thats for sure. They were all stick and no carrot.

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• LOZZA:

  02 Sep 2008 9:17:06am

  Why is it that people CHOOSE to live in remote areas have an indifferent attitude to getting an education that will open up employment opurtunities, then ask for special assistance for employment, and if you dare challenge their attitude they will call you racist.

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  • Doh:

    02 Sep 2008 9:50:11am

    Perhaps because they were born there and don't wish to adopt the life of those in the town camps?

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  • martini:

    02 Sep 2008 10:19:09am

    yeah Lozza, it's like farmers who CHOOSE to live in the country and then ask for special assistance in droughts or people who CHOOSE to get old and then ask for pensions. Point is Lozza, in a country like Australia, indigenous people have the right to maintain cultural links that have last for tens of thousands of years; we, as a rich country, can afford to provde services to remote communities - like schools, Flying Doctor, roads and communications.These services for remote communities are needed for both black and white communities.
    

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  • one who chose:

    02 Sep 2008 10:36:51am

    A big part of the picture is missing here.
    
    For generations Aboriginal people have been born in remote areas. This is their homeland, where they have grown up and the area they are familiar with. Going to the urban areas is like going into a foreign country, with different ways do to things, houses all crammed together etc. Like any race, Aboriginal people can make the transition, but the unfamiliarity from the open spaces, clean air and cultural ties draws people back to their homelands.
    Ask any person born in the country - most still think fondly of the area they grew up in. We even have it between states where people see themselves as belonging to a particular state and take on that personna in football matches etc.
    
    Do people in remote areas have an indifferent attitude to getting an education or is it that the education provided does not meet their needs, is not of the same quality as available in the cities? My experience is that education is severely lacking in remote areas (and I work in the industry) so how can employment opportunities be taken up?
    
    There are lots of things that impact - health, povery, housing, access to resources and services etc. These are not excuses - these are blockers and some of them are monumental.
    
    So good on anyone who has an idea and plan for trying to improve the quality of life for anyone who 'chooses' to live in remote areas.

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    • ed:

      02 Sep 2008 12:37:26pm

      They choose to live in remote areas. They choose to have limited access to facilities and luxuries. They choose to accept government hand outs instead of working.
      
      This 'blacks only' benefit is 21st century racism. Oh wait, you can only be racist if you're white, hey...

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  • JIM:

    02 Sep 2008 10:37:10am

    Iam from the kimberley of W.A and have seen it all.I remember 40 years ago and up to about 20 years ago when EVERYONE worked,NO suicides and a lot less of the other problems we see today.This current idea i s that we can have a reverse apartheid,where people are asked on every form if they are aboriginal and if the answer is YES their world changes and the "goodies"start flowing.I know of many "born again aboriginals"as we call them that just surf the net looking for "the special benefits"they can access based on race.And they are many.This job proposal will be no different.The group that will access any "special"consideration for employment will not be the target group,but the the sons of daughters of ordinary australians who have the race ace up their sleeve.in a country where a white person can be a black person without suffering day to day discrimination based on their appearance.The other question is why would any person go to work if they dont have to.But dont hold your breath for change because the so called Aboriginal leaders,also called gatekeepers will not let the collective(anyone identifying as aboriginal)deal with the mainstream,because they lose their power(like unions).

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    • antelope:

      02 Sep 2008 12:24:18pm

      You are right they have had so much handed to them for doing nothing that it is now a way of life it's time to stop.
      
      And it's not just Aboriginal its whites as well a lot have no incentive or intention to work a lot are geting more on the dole.
      
      Why do we need fruit pickers from over seas if those on the dole will not go and pick fruit for three months of the year then cut there dole by 25% for that year see how many go the next year.
      
      

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  • excantare:

    02 Sep 2008 10:43:54am

    Because if you can't even be bothered making the effort to understand different cultural sensibilities regarding lifestyles and conncetion to country, that is racist. Or at least ignorant.

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  • Daniel:

    02 Sep 2008 10:44:00am

    Lozza, most of us don't think of this attitude as racist, but we do think that you simply don't understand. For many in remote communities they didn't choose to live there, they were born there. For much of the poulation the community is all they know having grown up there and never given the chance to see other ways of life outside of the tv. So why should they move on? This attitude is not just prevalent in remote communites but all over Australia, from people here in Adelaide who cant see themselves moving out, to people who live in Waikerie all their lives because thats where their family lives. Aboriginals have all this plus a culture which places a massive importance on family commitments which many of us don't simply don't comprehend.

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  • Juno:

    02 Sep 2008 11:21:13am

    Given the shortage of...everything...in the cities (transport, homes etc) maybe it's best that some people choose not to live in the polluted, crime riddled slums of Melbourne and Sydney (well, let's be honest, mostly Sydney).
    Plenty of white Australians live in remote areas, should they be denied access to services that they're entitled to as well?
    My parents run a farm, they live about 4 hours from the nearest rural centre, should they not be entitled to workign telecommunication services, education, health, fresh food etc? Of course not.
    You can't wipe out 2 hundred years of oppression and marginalisation in the time it takes to say 'get over it'.

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• Concerned with Rhetoric :

  02 Sep 2008 9:48:39am

  Does it bother anyone else that the scheme is being touted as a walkabout for aboriginals which is colloquially understood to mean a spontaneous journey through the wilderness of one's choosing in an effort to satisfy one's itchy feet, a need to be elsewhere, the craving for the open road, that space over the horizon.
  
  Could someone please explain which part of walkabout means show up at work at 5:00am and work through a twelve hour day, seven days a week so the port/road/infrastructure is built sometime this century???
  

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• RuAlright:

  02 Sep 2008 10:02:20am

  This is great talk from Mr Mundine. Now it's upto the Aboriginal people to pick themselves up and be part of this "scheme".
  
  I do wonder though if the next step for the government will be to introduce a new pay incentive and/or structure for this so called scheme

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  • antelope:

    02 Sep 2008 12:01:21pm

    I agree you can only help those that will help them selves.

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• spewbag:

  02 Sep 2008 10:33:22am

  what is stopping anyone from applying for apprenticeships etc independently now?? Young people (including foreigners) with no money or skills seem to be able to find ways to relocate and get work so I'm not sure what this token funding scheme is about. Like many, I don't think the govt should take the blame nor be expected to solve Indigenous problems any longer - people need to help govts to help themselves.

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• Simon:

  02 Sep 2008 10:47:24am

  All the talk in recent weeks from Andrew Forrest, Kevin Rudd, Noel Person and warren Mundine has focussed on infrastructure, construction, mining etc 'trades' jobs. I wonder if any of these blokes have any intention of creating a few jobs for aboriginal women while they're at it? I'm not saying women can't do these jobs! Far from it ...but realistically most of these opportunities to work all over the country are going to be taken by men while aboriginal women remain tied to their communities with child caring responsibilities.
  
  Aboriginal men getting jobs will be great for aboriginal women, but why shouldn't aboriginal women have the same opportunities? We have a massive skills crisis in teaching, health and other industries in remote areas, and white workers come and go. Where is the investment in these sectors that could put aboriginal women on the path to financial independence that most of us white fellas..and women take for granted!

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  • Ben:

    02 Sep 2008 11:52:10am

    Surely infrastructure projects have administrative rolls that can be effectively filled by Aboriginal women.
    
    I agree with most people here this is a good start in training those in our indigenous regions who want to take up such a challenge. But I still think it is just a start, more relating to education needs to be done.

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• Dave:

  02 Sep 2008 11:13:34am

  Mr Mundine confuses me.
  
  One minute he wants the Aboriginals to part take in the special Pacfic Islander work program and bags the islanders for taking jobs, now this.
  
  Why dosen't he show that they can at least work under one scheme before espousing another.
  
  I would love them to be gainfully employed, but I think the Park Ranger scheme had more merit.

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• Robert2:

  02 Sep 2008 11:16:57am

  I would like to wish these instigators well but have grave doubts about the longevity and practicality of such a program. To reverse the walkabout culture into a roving infrastructure accomplished, skilled type person would be a massive achievment, if it ever gets off the ground.
  
  As a tradesperson (indentured apprentice type), who has had the opportunity to work in the construction and mining sector the majority of my adult working life, and, who has had the wonderful experience of living and working as a tradesman on isolated aboriginal communities, I am well aware of the disciplines required to be employable in major construction projects.
  
  Apprentices or trainees of all persuasions, to survive and complete the training to an acceptable functional level, need to have a self disciplanary attitude, and a respect for safety and the people around them , that requires a lot more than a photo shoot on reaching some pseudo academic standard, or box tiking quota on a statistical database.
  
  I have no doubt our aboriginal brothers have the intelligence and capability to achieve the highest of standards in all fields, but to place the walkabout culture in a hazardous working environment as an initial training program, is a formula for an accident waiting to happen.

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  • WhatThe:

    02 Sep 2008 12:09:09pm

    Well said Robert2. I too am a realist and even in my wildest dreams I cannot see this programme being fully effective due to the "walkabout" culture. However I certainly hope so.
    
    Surely with the mining boom in remote areas, there have been opportunities for aboriginals and others to make the most of the boom that has occurred.
    
    Why do we need another scheme that by definition offers "reverse discrimination". What ever happened to giving a job to the best person for the role not the basis of race, colour or creed.

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• simon:

  02 Sep 2008 11:29:04am

  It is so interesting and sad to see how this issue is now only viewed through the prisim of economic rationalism and quite a tribute to the determined pushers of this diatribe.
  While Mundines' idea is a good one it should not be used to proffer ideological arguements or reinvent history.
  An insight we can gather from this however, even at this early stage, is that it will fail without accross the board support, (Govt', industry, media), as self determination failed because its' foes were too many and too powerfull....not because Aboriginal people recieved welfare!!

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• Juno:

  02 Sep 2008 11:45:33am

  There's something vaguely ironic about a man who started in the Public Service then worked as an ALP flunkie calling on his people to work.
  Maybe Warren should try and experience actual work and then decide whether it's really all it's cracked up to be.

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• engineer:

  02 Sep 2008 12:40:05pm

  If I don't work, I will starve. That becomes my problem. To deal with this, I studied, went without, spent university years very poor indeed, and have positioned myself to be employable.
  
  If, however, I was not of immigrant stock, the rules change. Aboriginals (by whatever definition) who don't make themselves employable and are out of work and this also becomes my problem? Get real - it is time for a bit of tough love.
  
  Certainly the oldest civilisation on earth didn't last for 60,000 years on handouts and sitdown support. The past 200 years have seen almost total destruction in the ability of this civilisation to look after itself.
  
  I am very much for the employment of aboriginals and have demonstrated this in practice, for example, on a construction site in Alice Springs where I was project manager.
  
  "Employable" means, among other things, to have communication and team member skills, leadership skills, punctuality, reliability. Essentially the same skills are needed for communities and societies.
  
  This isn't rocket science. We all need a bit of tough love from time to time, regardless of cultural origins.
  
  By all means, Kevin and Warren, pursue this goal. But don't forget that employability is the main objective.

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