Robert Oakeshott (Lyne, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to ask some questions about the silo mentality within government. The delivery of some outcomes on the ground for our area, broadly covering the Education, Employment and Workplace Relations portfolio, is dependent in the future on a couple of considerations by you as minister—not necessarily within the existing portfolio brief but in some critical areas alongside that.

As a low SES area we have been a priority employment area. That is starting to come to the end of its life. You will be pleased to know that the Small Area Labour Markets figures for our area show record levels, which is fantastic for us. We certainly want to keep that going. We have a jobs plan through the regional employment process that we want to have released sometime soon and will want to start implementing. That will transition over time and sit under Regional Development Australia. That is one of the silos that sit alongside DEEWR at the moment. So, my first ask is: with the jobs plan that is about to hit the ground and with the welcome money through the vocational education implementation plan that we have talked about over the past couple of weeks, where does RDA and RDA resourcing sit with regard to the delivery of DEEWR programs into the future?

Another silo is what FaHCSIA and the Attorney-General’s Department are doing, particularly with regard to Closing the Gap strategies. In my view that is an important contributor to our jobs plan, which we are starting to focus on more and more, with education being a critical part of that. Is there any consideration, from your end, to either resourcing or having greater input into how FaHCSIA delivers Closing the Gap strategies and how RDA does resourcing from its department? At the moment there is not much, and it is going to be a problem in the near future unless it gets some resources—particularly for programs through your department on the ground.

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