Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for External Territories) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Remote Engagement Program) Bill 2021 and the amendment moved by the member for Barton. I say to the member for O'Connor, who just spoke: I've met Mac Jensen at Wiluna, and you're right. He's a person with a great deal of drive and commitment, and he does an outstanding job. He is someone who has done his bit, if I might put it that way. I won't make any other observations about the member for O'Connor's speech. I just want to talk about this bill. It would have been helpful if the member for O'Connor had done that.

This bill, in my view, is an absolute acknowledgement of the failure of the government's Community Development Program. What an absolute disaster it was when the old CDEP scheme, the Community Development Employment Program, was abolished by the Howard government. The stupidity of the abolition of the CDEP scheme was acknowledged by subsequent Prime Minister Tony Abbott when he said, 'Abolishing CDEP was a well-intentioned mistake, and CDP is our attempt to atone for it.' What a miserable observation, frankly. The CDEP scheme should never have been abolished. I might say that I'm somewhat ashamed that the former Labor government, subsequent to the Howard government, continued with the process to abolish the CDEP scheme by putting a sunset clause in place. I opposed that.

I worked on a report on the initial CDEP scheme in 1979 and 1980 in the Pitjantjatjara homelands area of the north-west of South Australia and into the Ngaanyatjarra of Western Australia. I saw an observation only a day or so ago by people saying that getting rid of the CDP is in part to stop people getting sit-down money. Let me make it very clear. CDP is a welfare program. CDEP was a work program. It's worth contemplating that CDEP was part-time work for part-time pay at award-equivalent wages. There were deficiencies—superannuation wasn't paid and sick leave and long service leave weren't given. They were absolute deficiencies of the program.

It's worth reflecting on how the CDEP started. The program started in the early 1970s. The process commenced in the early 1970s when Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory said to the government: 'We're sick of getting unemployment benefits. We don't want sit-down money. We want to have our communities work for the money they're receiving.' The first communities involved in this were Barunga, then Beswick outside of Katherine, and then Kalkarindji, or what is now known as Wave Hill walk-off country. What happened was that the government, under an enlightened social security minister at the time, Margaret Guilfoyle, a Liberal minister, agreed that what they would do was accept paying the unemployment equivalent for the community that they were addressing. The sum of that money was paid to the community for distribution by the community, which distributed the money in a way that met their priorities and made sure people did something in return for that income. That evolved into the Community Development Employment Program which, as I said, was part-time work for part-time pay at award rates. That happened as the result of an initiative by Aboriginal people; it didn't come from government. And to hear people in this place disparage the intent of Aboriginal people across this country to seek employment options and to imply that somehow or another they don't want to work because of the failure of CDP is an absolute insult. What we know—and this is apparent, as I've experienced it over many years now—is that there aren't sufficient jobs for all working-age people in remote communities. I'm sure the member for O'Connor understands that.

Each of these communities has their own discrete small-area labour markets, which are not really understood at the macro level. Where the population is rising relatively quickly in comparison with the rest of the Australian population, large numbers of young people are left looking for an opportunity. They don't want to leave their home communities, but if they're lucky enough to have an education they might be attracted to go off and do further training. But what they need is labour market intervention; what they need is an investment in a program that will create work opportunities which are defined by the communities themselves. That's what CDEP used to be; it was controlled and managed locally, by local organisations. They determined the nature of work to be undertaken and the people who were to do that work, and those people were paid award wage equivalents. If someone didn't go to work then they didn't get paid.

This was a very popular program because it also allowed wage top-ups; if people undertook jobs and worked for their 15 hours and there was still work available in that workplace, they could get that work and be paid a wage top-up for doing that work, and at the award wage equivalent. It was a very successful program. It wasn't perfect, by any stretch, and in some places the administration left something to be desired. But what we need to understand is that we need to give people back that responsibility.

CDP took that responsibility away, breached people needlessly and caused people to suffer. It was a welfare program and it is a welfare program. What we're after now—and communities have argued for this for a long time—is for them to have control. They expect to do the work, but they need to be paid proper award rates and they need to have their income guaranteed. They understand the penalties of not going to work. They need to be paid superannuation and they need to be given entitlements. That's something which can be done, and I'm sure that the economic benefit of doing that sort of investment would far outweigh the costs in the long-term of not proceeding with such a proposal.

A new job-creating Community Development Program should at least have the following objectives: decision-making powers should be devolved to local communities and local community organisations; the objective, of course, should be to provide work opportunities and training opportunities where they're relevant; and to alleviate the issues of lack of access to jobs, low-income-support payments, remoteness and small community size, and the current welfare conditionality that imposes income penalties and barriers in gaining access to appropriate payments.

It's worth noting that the August report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Indigenous Affairs, Report on Indigenous participation in employment and business, contemplated the failure of CDP and made the following recommendations:

The committee recommends that in engaging in the process of codesign, the Australian Government should consider incorporating the following elements into the redesign of the Community Development Program:

These are entirely sensible recommendations, not reflected in the government's CDP or its reform.

Whilst the government talk about co-design, what we do know is that they've chosen five sites, we're told, for a total of 200 people in this trial, over two years—bizarre. How is that going to alleviate or change things? It ain't. What they need is action now, and there should be a co-design process which talks to the people in this country who have been working in this space for many years. Aboriginal organisations and their peak organisations, their representative bodies, need to be involved and consulted, and they have not been. Why not? Is it the arrogance of this government? We need to do this, and we need to do it now.

Labor is committed to getting rid of CDP and replacing it with a real jobs creation and economic program for remote Australia, developed in partnership with local communities and organisations as I've described. I might just go back a moment. My observation and experience of the old CDEP program was that it generated its own economy, it created real opportunities and it provided the capacity for additional staffing to go into places like schools and health services. Sadly, when the CDEP was abolished, the positions that they were undertaking in those schools as additional staffing, not within formula, were taken away. Their jobs were gone. So not only did those jobs go but it meant that the schools lost the important contribution that was being made by language speakers, parents, in those school communities. That is directly what happened.

Of course, we had people say, 'But these are jobs that should have been paid for by government.' They weren't within the formula. They weren't part of the staffing profile of the school. They were additional, as they were in some local government areas, doing what might have been additional local government jobs. Somehow or other, what we've done is say, 'Well, they're jobs that should be paid for by local government, by Education or by Health, and therefore what we'll do is abolish CDEP, because they're not real jobs.' What an absurdity! At the same time, we know that they were generating business opportunities. I know of a number of communities where large CDEP organisations ran small businesses such as shops and the like.

Labor will end the CDP and put in place a remote employment program to create jobs and economic growth in remote areas. I say to the government: it's not too late to change, but you need to do it now. Aboriginal people want this in remote parts of this country, including in the member for O'Connor's communities.

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