Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

I know that. The changes to CDEP with which I am most familiar are the ones where I announced the change that, from 1 July, those areas where there is an unemployment rate of less than seven per cent would have CDEP removed. And that is because there was a very strong view that, in those areas where unemployment was less than seven per cent, there were opportunities for jobs and CDEP had become a continuous program of support which left people falling into a cargo net from which they were rarely able to climb out.

My understanding is that those changes were affecting around 7,000 Indigenous Australians. That is a relatively small number but obviously the changes were significant for them. Those areas were mainly metropolitan areas, but there were some urban fringes where those changes were making a difference. They were broadly supported by the Indigenous leadership of Australia. The aim of those reforms, in abolishing CDEP in those areas where the unemployment rate was less than seven per cent, was to try and get people into work. As I said before, that is the best safety net we could possibly provide to people.

Having said that, we were not simply going to convert them from CDEP recipients and put them on the dole and leave them nowhere. That is why we have beefed up the Structured Training and Employment Program, STEP, which is focused on trying to train people—

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