Increasing Indigenous employment during an economic downturn

Given the enormous under-representation of Indigenous Australians in full-time employment, it is hard not to be sympathetic or supportive of any efforts aimed at increasing employment opportunities, even if one has doubts about the prospects of success. So the announcement last year by mining magnate “Twiggy” Forrest that he was working with the federal government to establish the Australian Aboriginal Employment Covenant, aimed at providing 50 000 jobs for Aboriginal people, was widely welcomed.

However, there was a curious contrast between two separate stories published today.  One, in The Australian newspaper, said the job creation scheme was “being jeopardised by federal government bureaucrats who are creating roadblocks and not sticking to their end of the deal.”

It quoted from a letter Mr Forrest had written to the Prime Minister, which stated that “surprisingly the economic downturn is not a risk to the Aboriginal Employment Covenant.  Rather, employers will not sign up to the AEC unless they know there are improvements in the government system for training and support and that the AEC is involved through the whole process.”

No prizes for guessing who leaked that letter.

At the same time over in the Sydney Morning Herald, an article reported views from indigenous academic, Professor Marcia Langton, that “hundreds of Aboriginal workers had lost their jobs as the mining industry sheds employees and deals with Aboriginal contractors collapse.  Miners had not been targeting indigenous workers, but their growing reliance on indigenous employees and contractors had left them exposed.”

Marcia Langton is also on the steering committee of the AEC.

One could hardly blame Mr Forrest or the AEC if they decided to reduce their original target given the major economic decline, including in the mining industry, which has occurred since the plan was first announced.  It was an ambitious goal even at the time – although I hasten to add we should encourage ambitious efforts to make major improvements in the situations faced by many Indigenous people.

But it is hard not to see Mr Forrest’s letter as, at least in part, an attempt to shift the blame on to government and its bureaucrats when the target isn’t reached.