Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I want to take you to a different hemisphere, at least as far as your brain is concerned, and that is to ask you about another element of your portfolio arrangements to do with Community Development Employment Programs, which are in your budget papers. Is the minister aware that according to the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations appearance in the Senate estimates committee of 29 May, it is intended from 1 July that many CDEP participants living in high-cost remote areas—note: high cost remote areas—will have their allowable CDEP related income reduced by $2,826 from $23,492 to $20,666, a reduction of some 12 per cent. Does the minister understand the severity of the impact of this income reduction on these Indigenous communities? Can the minister provide information about the total number of CDEP participants living in remote communities who will be affected by these changes? I ask the minister to note particularly—Comrade, I am talking to you!

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