The Rudd Government while reintroducing Community Development Employment Projects after the previous Howard government took the axe to it, is never the less winding back an employment program that effects many, many Indigenous communities across Australia.
It is being replaced by the Indigenous Employment Program (IEP) which does provide funding to help create employment opportunities in communities but is geared towards employment that will eventually be able to exist on its own.
While this sounds fantastic, the communities that I have spoken to so far say that since July 1, 2009 when the first winding back of CDEP took affect, the impact on their communities has been devastating.
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People whose lives were structured around their weekly work through CDEP, businesses relying on CDEP to enable them to grow, whole communities relying on CDEP as a cash injection into their fragile economies suddenly don't have that.
You can simply imagine the turmoil in taking this structure away from communities where there is very little other employment opportunities to make up the shortfall.
So my question is this, in their campaign to Close the Gap, is the removal of CDEP some kind of shock therapy to try to engineer communities to create economies/move to where there is work because they are so desperately bereft of opportunities or did they simply not realise the impact it would have?
If it's the first option, well I can't think of a better way to support Indigenous communities to develop economies than through CDEP and if it's about assimilating Indigenous people, well governments have being trying for years to do just that and it's not going to work. Then all we will be left with is what we have now; Indigenous communities around Australia doing their best to survive without the services that all Australian citizens deserve.
Or is it something else?
Patrick Pollock
