John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Senator Scullion. Will the minister update the Senate on what the government is doing to get more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people into jobs?

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

I thank Senator Williams for that question. Across the country, we are starting to see a transformation about how we engage our First Australians in employment. For too long, it has been considered a bit hard—across governments, I have to say. Forty-six per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians of working age are in work—only 46 per cent. That is 30 percentage points below the non-Indigenous rate. Unfortunately, the participation rate has widened by almost seven percentage points since 2008, so by 2018 we need to get another 188,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders into jobs, just to reach parity with the remainder of Australia.

What we have done is focus on delivering real jobs for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians—not a job that is endlessly in training and not a job that someone only holds for a couple of weeks. We have reformed employment programs in the bush and we will be making some announcements and bringing some legislation to this place in that regard. I would like to acknowledge the efforts of the member for Blair and the member for Lingiari in assisting in the formulation of that policy. We are partnering with the largest employers to increase their Indigenous workforce, to increase the number of Indigenous workers in the real economy. We are changing the way that government does business to require that Indigenous businesses get access to opportunities. This is already yielding results. Since September 2013, despite significant headwinds in the economy, job programs in my portfolio have resulted in 33,700 employment placements for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. We take this issue very, very seriously, because we recognise that when you get a job you get confidence and independence and then you have access to the opportunities that the rest of Australia take for granted.

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Will the minister advise the Senate why it is important that the government works in partnership with the private sector to deliver better job outcomes for Indigenous Australians?

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

(—) (): This government recognises that, whilst we are showing significant improvement in those trends, we are not really going to put a significant dent in the Indigenous employment task without private partnerships and the private sector. We are leading by example; we have committed to a three per cent employment target across the Commonwealth by 2018. This will increase Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment to over 9,000 people. I was very pleased to launch this strategy with Minister Cash this morning, but we cannot do it without the private sector. We need the private sector to pull its weight. We have introduced the Employment Parity Initiative to get some of the largest employers to support an additional 20,000 Indigenous Australians into real jobs by 2020. We have seven companies already signed up and 4,365 jobs with Accor, Compass Group, ISS Facility Services Group, Spotless, Hutchison, Crown and Sodexo. (Time expired)

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a further supplementary question. Will the minister update the Senate on other reforms that the government has progressed to support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment and business development?

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

It is really important that we place the priority of supporting employment at the heart of any policy. We have a new Indigenous procurement policy and it is doing just that. It not really about procurement; it is about how we lever procurement for the better outcome. We need to harness some $39 billion worth of purchases. We are committing to a target of three per cent by 2020. I think it was $6.2 million in 2012-13. That was in the entire year. I am very pleased to report to the Senate that in our very first quarter, from 1 July this year, we have achieved $34 million worth of contracts. So this is a government that is getting on with the business of delivering jobs and opportunities to our First Australians.

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.