Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, I suspected as much. I move Greens amendment (1) on sheet 5822:

(1)    Schedule 3, page 7 (lines 2 to 16), TO BE OPPOSED.

I think I articulated in my speech on the second reading that we are concerned that this is not the right approach to dealing with CDEP. We acknowledge that changes are needed but we think that this is not the right way to go. We do not support moving people onto income support, because in Aboriginal communities the very real sense of having a job is very important. I have spoken to a lot of people who articulate that very clearly. They feel that having a job helps their self-esteem and helps their standing in the community. Putting people onto Work for the Dole, into work experience or onto income support undermines that. We do not think this is the right way to go. We think that there should be greater emphasis on addressing the issue I was talking about earlier: adult education and providing more resources for that. That is particularly important because funding is not available through the TAFE system for basic literacy and numeracy, which is absolutely essential before people can take on other training. This is the consistent message around Australia. We need to address that, and states and territories need to address this as well. I am not trying to let them off the hook. They need to be accrediting those courses, providing funding and making sure that education is accessible to all those who want it and not just through what we see as traditional primary or secondary education. That is not working in many communities. Instead of trying to make Aboriginal communities meet the requirements of that strict approach, we need to be much more flexible and provide those resources, education and training support for communities.

I do not want to speak on behalf of the committee, but I know that that is very strongly felt by the members of our committee. We may disagree a little bit on how to go about it, but it is one of the key issues coming out of communities wherever we go. We need to address issues around better directed skills and training. We do not think the changes to CDEP cut the mustard. They do not meet communities’ needs. That is why we are opposing schedule 3. We are saying to the government: please look at this issue again. We do not think it is going to help. We think it is going to make the situation worse. People are feeling undervalued and undermined by the changing of this scheme.