Anne Stanley (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Standing Committee on Indigenous Affairs, I present the committee's report entitled Report on Indigenous participation in employment and business, together with the minutes of the proceedings. I start by acknowledging where we meet today has been the meeting place for the Ngunawal and Ngambri peoples for thousands of years. I pay my respects to elders past, present and future and acknowledge the cultures of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people wherever they are in Australia. The deliberations for the report tabled today were suspended with the onset of COVID-19 so that the committee could undertake a report on food pricing and food security in remote Indigenous communities, which was presented to this House in December 2020. The committee resumed hearings for this inquiry that we table today in February this year.

The inquiry received 85 submissions and conducted 19 public hearings. Unfortunately, although the committee understood the benefits of meeting interested parties on site to properly understand the nature of the challenges, travel was thrice cancelled due to border closures and travel restrictions. I would personally like to thank all the communities, business owners and Commonwealth departments who joined as participants to our hearings. Your assistance has helped inform the recommendations of this committee.

Current estimates suggest that here are between 12,000 and 17,000 unique Indigenous businesses across the country. The sector is diverse, from administration through to education, health, construction and ICT. The committee heard from many successful businesses, and these are detailed in our report. Our recommendations seek to build on that success and seek to encourage opportunities for Indigenous business. We heard from many Aboriginal businesses that they were proud of their businesses and of their legacy that they were leaving for their children and grandchildren.

The committee looked at Supply Nation and the support and confidence it provides. If a business or government department procures services from a listed Supply Nation business, they can be assured of the bona fides of that business. Certainly, all federal departments have met and exceeded targets for Indigenous procurement, which is why the committee has recommended a review, to build on the successes and the integrity of the scheme.

The other part of the committee's work for this report centres on growing Indigenous employment pathways and opportunities. The committee found time and time again in evidence at the hearings that there were several barriers, particularly remote locations, and these affected training, supportive workplaces and long-term job opportunities. Poor transport access, even if the jobs were available, is also an issue. The committee notes the government is currently redesigning the Community Development Program, or CDP. However, what must happen with this new design is that the needs of the communities are implemented. Any implementation must have the consent and input of these communities to ensure there is change that guarantees positive outcomes for the people who are part of the program. The views of remote communities and small labour markets must be considered when these programs are set up. Clearly a one-size-fits-all approach will not be useful or accepted. It is also important to ensure that training on country is part of any changes. This will ensure that women and girls in remote communities have opportunities to secure work where they live and not have to leave country for opportunities in larger population centres. Communities should be front and centre leading the way in changes to CDP.

In the time that is left for me today I would like to express my appreciation for all the work of the inquiry secretaries, Dr Kilian Perrem and Ms Jenny Adams, for their support and forbearance, particularly with the extra work needed to account for the continued changes during the pandemic. I also thank my fellow committee members for bipartisan support for this report, and I especially note the chair, Mr Julian Leeser, the member for Berowra, for his willingness to discuss and support our deliberations. I would also like to note that this may be the very last contribution by the member for Lingiari, the Hon Warren Snowdon. I therefore want to recognise his support and generosity to me personally to better understand Indigenous concerns. His mentorship, support and time for conversations is appreciated. But most of all, I want to recognise in Hansard his passion for his electorate and First Nations people as a whole. He will be missed when he retires.

In accordance with standing order 39(e) the report was made a Parliamentary Paper.

Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] I acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land and pay my respects to elders past and present. I thank the member for Werriwa for presenting the report today. I want to pay tribute to her and to other committee colleagues, including the members for Newcastle, Longman, Curtin, and to the deputy chair, the member Lingiari. We will miss him in the next parliament. His generosity and knowledge and his contribution, giving as he has done all his working life to the benefit of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, are things of which he should be justly proud.

One of Australia's most important economic and social policy goals is to improve the economic participation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Having a job or running a business can be life changing. Witnesses told the committee that owning a business gives people greater freedom, choice and independence. It can provide pride, a purpose, a legacy and a sense of achievement. Many of those sentiments are also true of having a job. Indigenous businesses have grown in number from 13,700 in 2011 to over 17,000 today across a very wide of industries. Some of the business success stories—like Kulbardi, an office supplies business; Voyages, a tourism company; Manapan, a furniture company; and the Eather Group, a construction and logistics firm—are profiled in the report.

Indigenous businesses have an employment rate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people 60 per cent higher than other businesses. The government's Indigenous Procurement Policy, introduced in 2015, is playing a significant role in that growth and success. The IPP's purpose is to drive economic develop and employment. The IPP sets a target of three per cent by volume and one per cent by value of all Commonwealth procurement contracts for Indigenous businesses. The policies are $4.3 billion in contract value today. The IPP has been a great success, with many federal departments repeatedly smashing their targets by volume and value. As the IPP becomes an established part of the culture of Commonwealth agencies, it's important to ensure the policy continues to serve its purpose of driving economic development and employment for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

The committee has made recommendations about whether Indigenous ownership by itself should be the qualification for participation in the IPP and whether some evidence of employment and skills transfer, the use of company profits and the ability to attract work from the broader commercial marketplace should also be taken into account. The committee recognises that there are further opportunities for growth in Indigenous business through the expansion of Indigenous business hubs, more training and support around the tendering process and further increases in Indigenous business opportunities through free trade agreements and foreign direct investment. We also recommend removing legislative and other barriers that prevent Indigenous Business Australia from expanding its operations and lending to more customers.

We've heard many life-changing employment success stories, like that of Woolworths deli manager Lisa Hohoi, who told the committee:

I was surrounded, mentored and influenced by positive leaders at Woolworths that gave me the courage and vision of success by believing and seeing my potential that I couldn't even see in myself … They pushed me to own my success. I can now say proudly that I'm a department manager leading a diverse team with 18 team members, two of which have come out of the same pathways program for Indigenous people here at Woolworths.

Unfortunately, there's still a significant gap between the employment rate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and other Australians. The government has two major employment services programs: jobactive and CDP. In addition, vocational training and employment centres work with those programs to match, mentor and place longer term unemployed Indigenous jobseekers. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people make up around 10 per cent of jobseekers on jobactive and 82 per cent of participants in CDP.

The government is changing its employment services policy for all Australian jobseekers, with a new employment services model to commence in July 2022 and a new remote jobs program to replace CDP in 2023. The committee have made some observations, which we believe may help feed into those new programs. The committee would like to see a national Indigenous jobactive provider and greater collaboration and integration between jobactive and VTEC, with payments ensuring there are more incentives to place people into long-term jobs. There should also be better alignment with jobactive and CDP activity requirements. There should be more community leadership in the design of activities under CDP and a focus not on welfare but on part-time work for part-time pay, given the realities of the thin labour markets in remote Australia. There should also be a focus on the development of locally generated entrepreneurial activity. We've made recommendations about the importance of training for real jobs delivered on country, transport to work and the vital importance of mentoring. A recurrent theme in evidence was the difficulty of placing jobseekers with police records. More needs to be done to better place these jobseekers and encourage employers to take them on.

In examining these policies, we wanted to consider their effect on people in urban, regional and remote settings. On behalf of the committee I want to thank everyone who made submissions and gave evidence. I also want to take the opportunity to acknowledge the secretariat, and Annette McHugh, from my office, who did so much work on this report. I commend the report to the House.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too appreciate the opportunity to speak on the committee's report following the inquiry into Indigenous participation in employment and business. At the outset, I do want to acknowledge the work of the chair, the member for Berowra; the secretariat; and my parliamentary colleagues for their very collaborative approach to this inquiry and report. I also want to acknowledge those who made submissions and gave evidence at public hearings. Your insights and expertise have been invaluable. The committee received some 85 submissions in total and conducted 19 public inquiries, consulting with a diverse range of community groups and stakeholders. I support all 17 of the committee's recommendations but, given the limited time available today, I want to focus on just two: recommendation 12, regarding the Community Development Program, and recommendation 8, which underscores foreign trade and investment opportunities.

One of the key issues identified by the committee relate to the Abbott government's punitive Community Development Program, or Welfare to Work, policy approach to unemployment in regional and remote communities. Since its inception in 2015, the CDP has had significant negative repercussions for First Nations communities across Australia, with poverty rates rising and income levels falling. Underpinned by purely punitive and discriminatory measures, CDP has torn at the fabric of remote communities, deeply affecting families and kinship networks. The harms are now well documented.

As part of the committee's responsibilities it was important that we reflected on the key lessons learned from the inadequacies of the current CDP to ensure that the harms experienced by participants and communities are avoided into the future. In my view CDP is a shocking public policy failure, and recommendation 12 provides the Australian government with an opportunity to co-design a successor program that moves away from the top-down, short-term, inflexible approach of CDP and moves towards a model that is place based, flexible and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community controlled and would foster long-term social and cultural development.

I want to turn to recommendation 8 of the report, which creates a new pathway to advance Indigenous economic development through trade and investment. OECD countries like Canada, the USA and New Zealand already have inclusive trade clauses within their free trade agreements, and it's time Australia caught up. That's why the committee is recommending all future free trade agreements contain Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander inclusions and make use of geographical indicators to protect Indigenous knowledge and products alongside our national interest.

Just like the French winemakers from the Champagne region have exclusive rights to name and market their sparkling wine as champagne, Australia should follow their lead and protect the thousands of Indigenous botanicals that are currently at risk. The uniqueness of these botanicals comes specifically from their geography, from their location and from the cultural practices of propagation, maintenance, harvesting and uses by First Nations people, so it makes sense to include them in a list of geographical indicators for protection. Likewise the committee recommends that the Australian government support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander access to foreign direct investment. This additional and significant source of money could be injected into investment-ready Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander enterprises.

In closing I also want to acknowledge the work of June Oscar AO in her landmark report Wiyi yani u thanganiwomen's voices: securing our rights, securing our future, which lays out what Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and girls consider to be their key strengths and concerns and considers what principles they think ought to be enshrined in the design of policies, programs and services and what measures they recommend ought to be taken to effectively promote the enjoyment of their human rights into the future. The chapters on learning and education, on pathways of employment and empowerment and on economic participation are especially relevant and should help shape the government's thinking on how to improve the economic participation of First Nations people.

Now is the time for government to forge genuine partnerships to better support the health, wellbeing and economic aspirations of First Nations people wherever they live. On that note I commend the committee's Report on Indigenous participation in employment and business to the House.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for External Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] It's a pleasure for me to speak in this debate on this report. I acknowledge the traditional owners on whose country I'm speaking, the Larrakia people of the Northern Territory. I acknowledge the contributions already made by the chair, Julian Leeser, the member for Berowra, and the members for Newcastle and Werriwa and thank them for their friendship and collaboration during the time that we've been doing this report along with the other members of the committee. I take this opportunity to also thank the secretariat for their massive contribution. As the member for Werriwa implied, this may well be the last time I get to stand up in this chamber—in my case, sit down!—and make a contribution on the tabling of a report from this committee. I do want to make a couple of observations.

This committee, as long as I've been involved in it, has always worked in a collaborative and bipartisan manner. I want to thank the chair for his friendship and leadership and emphasise to the parliament that it is possible to get an agreement around very contentious issues if you've got a mind to do so. We have in this case done exactly that. This committee's report traverses a whole range of very important areas of public policy, which have been outlined by the member for Berowra, the member for Newcastle and the member for Werriwa, and I don't intend to traverse the content of the report or its recommendations.

It's safe to say that these reports are important, but, sadly, they are not often enough taken up by governments. I say to the government: this report provides you with a pathway; this report provides you with an opportunity to do something different in relation to promoting Indigenous business and employment opportunities, particularly for those people who live in rural and remote parts of this country. As you would know, Mr Speaker, that's a passion of mine and always has been, but we need to understand the difference in diversity that exists across our First Nations peoples across this great nation of ours and appreciate that we might need different responses in different places. That's why the reforms proposed by this report, the recommendations made in relation to CDP, are so dreadfully important.

I don't intend to take up any more of your time, but I do want to again thank all of the members of the committee. I particularly thank the member for Berowra and the member for Werriwa for their kind words about my participation on this committee.