Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party, Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the senator for the question. We know that our policies are helping get more people off the misery of welfare and into the dignity of employment. Data from the census shows that our strong jobs market is particularly benefitting Indigenous Australians. We know that the economy created over 400,000 jobs last year, and since the last census the number of Indigenous Australians with a job has increased by 23.3 per cent. A lot of that is down to our small-business policies like the IPP, because we know that if we get more Indigenous businesses in the economy we're likely to get more Indigenous workers into work.

The average Indigenous workforce in our IPP firms is around 41 per cent Indigenous employment compared to the Indigenous workforce in the mainstream, which is 0.7 per cent. It means that, by supporting more Indigenous businesses, we get more Indigenous jobseekers into work by a factor of 60. These are fantastic results. (Time expired)