Australian Government priorities for 2009
In 2009 the Australian Government will continue the important work commenced in 2008. The Government will continue to strengthen and deepen its relationship with Indigenous people, and continue to make progress through COAG to expand education and employment opportunities, improve service delivery and improve data as a basis for tracking progress.
Meeting the challenge of remote Australia
In 2009 the Australian Government will continue a strong focus on the needs of remote Indigenous communities. The Government recognises that its approach needs to be flexible. It is committed to assessing the level of need and type of services required on a community-by-community basis.
Experience in the delivery of the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER) has confirmed the importance of a ‘hands on’ role in the delivery of services, particularly in remote areas and where services are the responsibility of more than one agency or level of government.
To achieve this, the Government is creating the new position of Coordinator General for Remote Indigenous Services to drive implementation of reforms. The Coordinator General will focus initially on 26 communities in priority areas across the Northern Territory, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia and New South Wales. The Coordinator General will work closely with heads of agencies, reporting to the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and acting as a circuit breaker to solve problems in the provision of services and programs for Indigenous Australians and priority communities.
In the Northern Territory, the Government will also continue to work to support fragile remote communities involved in the NTER, with a view to helping them transition to a longer-term development phase.
Indigenous economic development
Improving employment opportunities and the job readiness of Indigenous Australians is crucial to building pathways out of poverty and disadvantage. Reforms to the Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP) Program and the Indigenous Employment Program (IEP), beginning 1 July 2009, will ensure more Indigenous Australians have the skills they need to get and keep a job.
Two thousand jobs will be supported through previously CDEP-subsidised positions in government service delivery, and these will attract mainstream benefits such as access to superannuation, training and professional development. The Australian Government will also provide $203 million for the continuation of more than 1,500 jobs already created in the Northern Territory from CDEP activities, and 40 jobs in four Cape York welfare reform trial communities.
Four hundred new traineeships across the government services sector and 60 full-time additional ranger positions in remote communities will also be supported through the new Indigenous remote workforce strategy.
These reforms will build on recent improvements to universal employment services and contribute directly to the Government's aim of halving the employment gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians within a decade.
2009 will also see steps taken towards achieving long-term economic independence for Indigenous Australians through the development of an Indigenous Economic Development Strategy (IEDS).
This will promote economic participation and wealth creation by Indigenous communities and individuals and seek to build on partnerships with the corporate sector. Fresh ideas and a long-term commitment have the potential to broaden job opportunities for Indigenous Australians in an environment where many Australian companies are willing to expand their engagement with Indigenous people.
In addition, the mainstream Universal Employment Services (UES) program – the major employment program operating in urban and regional centres – has been reformed to give greater weight to the needs of disadvantaged jobseekers, including Indigenous Australians.
The Government is working to improve the native title system to help encourage economic development. Properly structured property rights to land are a key component in expanding commercial and economic opportunities. The number of agreements reached with native title parties to allow mining and other development to proceed is increasing, as are the income streams and other benefits which form part of those agreements.
There is the potential for these significant payments to be better harnessed for the economic and social advancement of native title holders, claimants and their communities. We must not allow this potential to go unrealised.
The Government will continue to work with the states and territories through COAG to drive further improvements, with a particular focus on service delivery to all Indigenous Australians, wherever they live. This will include a meeting of COAG later in 2009 with a focus on the Closing the Gap targets, including:
- further development of the national strategy for Closing the Gap, building on the work of COAG to date including further data collection improvements, an Indigenous consultation strategy and the identification of further policy reform priorities
- a strategy for closing the gap in regional and urban areas
- an agreement on the infrastructure needs of the 26 remote Indigenous locations identified in the Remote Service Delivery New Partnership agreement, and
- development of a reform proposal to improve family and community safety services to Indigenous Australians.
In its first year the Government has set important directions for the future. The Australian Government’s strategy to Close the Gap has been clearly established and adopted across Commonwealth, State and territory governments. The Government has clear, ambitious targets to drive real change. The Australian Government has worked hard to improve relationships across all levels of government, end the blame game and establish genuine accountability for progress and results.
In the year ahead the Government will work with Indigenous Australians to establish a national Indigenous representative body. In 2008 the Government held consultations that involved listening to local people all around the nation about their aspirations and vision for this body. The Government has now asked the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner to appoint an Indigenous steering committee to complete the consultation process and bring forward a proposal to Government in mid 2009.
The Government will also continue to address the needs of the Stolen Generations, and assist healing in the Indigenous community more generally. The Indigenous Healing Forum, held in September 2008, was the first in a series of practical measures to improve the health and wellbeing of Indigenous Australians affected by past policies of forcible removal, recognising that healing has many dimensions and that the healing journey can take people along different paths. For this reason we are continuing our efforts to work with Indigenous Australians, in particular members of the Stolen Generations, in the development of targeted programs to support national healing.
The Australian Government recently appointed eminent Australians Professor Lowitja O'Donoghue and Mr Gregory Phillips to establish a Foundation for the Stolen Generations to address trauma and healing in Indigenous communities, with a strong focus on the unique needs of Stolen Generations. The Foundation will provide practical and innovative healing services, as well as training and research.
Feature Box: Improving health outcomes for Indigenous Australians
As part of the Government’s commitment to improve health outcomes for Indigenous Australians, the Australian Government is continuing efforts to lift the standard of Australia's Indigenous health and aged care services, above and beyond those commitments agreed in COAG.
Many Indigenous children suffer from significant hearing loss, which is commonly linked to poor school attendance and educational outcomes. The early onset of middle ear infection, which results in fluctuating hearing loss, can prevent active participation in education and limit future employment opportunities. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are also at increased risk of developing avoidable blindness and vision loss and are less likely to access eye health care practitioners than other Australians.
The Australian Government has committed $58.3 million over four years to expand eye and ear health services for Indigenous Australians. The measure includes expansion of the Visiting Optometrist Scheme; increased services to address trachoma, training of health workers, medical equipment for hearing screening, additional ear and eye surgery and hearing-health promotion. Through improved hearing and eye health, children will have a better start to education resulting in improvements in literacy and numeracy. These have flow on effects to improved employment outcomes.
Additionally, in 2008 the Australian Government announced a $46 million Indigenous Aged Care Plan to support a number of programs, plans and measures to improve Indigenous aged care, including the first quality framework for Indigenous-specific services.
The Government is committed to taking practical and commonsense measures to improve the care and welfare of older Indigenous Australians and will establish an Indigenous Aged Care Taskforce this year to oversee the implementation of this Plan.