thegreatdivide wrote on Apr 7
th, 2023 at 3:24pm:
Forgotten experiences - relevant to the current "closing the gap" voice debate:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14427591.1993.9686379What it means to get off sit‐down money: Community development employment projects (CDEP)Heather Jensen
Pages 12-18 | Published online: 26 Sep 2011
"CDEP has a two fold purpose: employment creation and community development. Work that the community identifies as important is carried out, and meaningful occupation is provided for individuals, increasing the workers’ skills and reducing boredom and drinking. The main thrust of self determination has been the development of Aboriginal organisations. The success of CDEP is dependent on these organisations which provide culturally appropriate employment, which includes the CDEP scheme. A recent review (ie, in 2011) of the CDEP scheme indicated that 71% of Aboriginal communities surveyed considered that CDEP was helpful in meeting the goals of the community and 82% considered that community members were better off under the schemePM John Howard, following disastrous Thatcherite neoliberal market orthodoxy, began dismantling the CDEPs in the 2000s.
Of course we now know Philip Lowe could fund - without taxing or borrowing - a reinstatement of the CDEPs, if he was authorized by the government to do so, because there need be no "crowding out" of (sensible) private sector claims on available resources.
But despite its good intentions, CDEP’s evolution has hindered rather than helped Indigenous people. At the program’s heart is the notion that Indigenous Australians are not capable of holding mainstream employment.
Instead of being a transition to real work, CDEP is an obstacle to employment. Only around 5% of CDEP participants move to mainstream jobs.
CDEP payments are combined with other forms of income assistance such as Newstart Allowance and Parenting Payment. A single mother with six children receiving CDEP for home duties plus welfare can receive nearly $2,000 a fortnight. These payments create a ‘welfare pedestal’ which prevents participants from considering study, training, or work opportunities. Participants are paid for doing housework, mowing their own lawns, attending funerals, and for doing nothing at all. Consequently, Indigenous people regard CDEP pay contemptuously as ‘sit down’ money.
If CDEP is excluded from employment figures, after thirty years of the CDEP program, the percentage of Indigenous people in ‘real’ employment in ghetto, fringe, and remote areas is only 17%.
CDEP has hidden the crisis in Indigenous education. CDEP participants do not need to know how to read and write, and CDEP training does not qualify them for mainstream jobs. So-called vocational certificates are awarded to participants unable to read, write, or count.
Most Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, even in remote areas, are located within commuting distance of work in retail, tourism, agriculture, and mining. They cannot access these jobs because they are not literate or numerate, and lack post-school vocational training.
Many people have vested interests in maintaining the status quo:
• CDEP has enabled territory and state governments to abdicate responsibility for providing local government, health, education, and policing services.
• CDEP has encouraged Indigenous organisations to expand their bureaucratic structures to service CDEP and associated activities, rather than stimulating a transition to employment.
• CDEP has enabled some communal enterprises to appear to succeed by subsidising them through the payment of wages and capital grants.
The part that CDEP has played in keeping Indigenous people out of mainstream employment must be addressed if the cycle of Indigenous joblessness, welfare dependence, and family and community dysfunction is to end.
For this and many other reasons, the Howard government decided to end the CDEP scheme. But although the Rudd government continued to phase out CDEP, existing recipients were allowed to remain on the program until July 2011; this was later extended to July 2012. And just last week the Indigenous Affairs Minister, Jenny Macklin, announced that the 4,000 people still receiving CDEP payments will remain on the scheme for another five years.
Macklin argued that many of the people on CDEP have been on the scheme for so long that it would be ‘pointless to move them on.’ The Coalition has criticised this approach, arguing that the Labor government was taking a lazy approach to CDEP by allowing Indigenous people to stay on it for a further five years without reforming it and returning it to its ‘original principles.’
CDEP was originally designed as a replacement for unemployment benefits in remote communities and to provide work and on-the-job training. But despite its good intentions, CDEP ended up hindering rather than helping Indigenous people.
At the program’s heart was the notion that Indigenous Australians are not capable of holding mainstream employment. Inevitably, because it was a separate program for Aboriginal people, lower standards were allowed to creep in and people ended up getting paid for doing very little.
https://www.cis.org.au/commentary/opinion/no-more-dreaming-of-cdep/
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