Response to Brendan Darcy

Jon Altman

Brendan Darcy suggests the 'open labour markets would solve Aboriginal unemployment' and seeks to set me up as the straw policy advocacy for the opposite. I take exception to his piece on a number of factual, historical and ethical grounds:

1. CAEPR is a university-based research centre that I directed 1990-2010. But there is no CAEPR view, my evidence-based opinions are my own.
2. It is unclear to me how CAEPR was 'extremely influential in funding the failed policies of passive welfare and suboptimal service delivery in remote areas' as Mr Darcy suggests. All CAEPR's research is on the public record.
3. Mr Darcy wants to conflate active workfare (Community Development Employment Program) with passive welfare which is his ideological choice, but it is an inaccurate conflation at the heart of calls for the program's abolition since 2005.
4. Mr Darcy highlights my criticisms of the government intervention in the Northern Territory mainly based on lack of outcomes published in Crikey. He implies that he is pro government intervention which is a little at odds with his article's title.
5. Mr Darcy states that 'the Keating government expanded CDEP during the early 90s recession to conceal unemployment'. This is historically fallacious. CDEP initially expanded under the Hawke government's Aboriginal Employment Development Policy that aimed for employment equity by the year 2000. And it expanded in large measure because of its popularity with Indigenous communities that recognised its superiority to passive welfare.
6. Mr Darcy misrepresents my view on mining employment by lazily referring to an independent review of a monograph I co-edited published on New Matilda. He should refer to the original source available at: http://caepr.anu.edu.au/Publications/mono/2009RM30.php.
7. Mr Darcy suggests that the geographic distribution of the Indigenous population with 70 per cent living in urban areas is linked in some way to policy failure in remote Australia. Not only is this assertion wrong, but arguably policy is failing Indigenous Australians everywhere, at least according to official statistics.
8. I am intrigued that Mr Darcy who draws some very similar conclusions about the Rudd government's failure to Close the Employment Gap fails to reference another earlier piece that I co-authored with Dr Nicholas Biddle on Crikey 'Rudd overpromises on Indigenous unemployment' [http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/06/04/closing-the-gap-rudd-overpromised-on-indigenous-unemployment/]. I will leave it to your readers to judge the similarities in our analyses.
9. Ethically, Mr Darcy fails to mention his vested interest in the abolition of CDEP, an ideological war that he was central involved in when a senior adviser to the Hon Kevin Andrews when the Howard government's Minister for Employment..
10. He also fails to mention his work as a consultant for Jobfind Centres Australia, an Australian government initiative, and to reflect on its (and his) effectiveness in placing Indigenous people in sustainable employment as the Indigenous unemployment rate went up from an estimated 13.8% in 2007 to 18.1% in 2009.
11. Finally, to clarify my position, all available ABS statistics show that CDEP participation generates extra work and additional income for participants (see http://caepr.anu.edu.au/Publications/DP/2005DP271.php): CDEP participants sit between the unemployed and the fully employed. This may not be ideal, but in many parts of remote Australia mainstream jobs are limited. CDEP investment remains one effective means to generate enterprises and employment alongside mainstream work where available. Replacing CDEP with some publicly-funded proper jobs and much passive welfare will not Close the Gap nor assist remote development.
12. I concur strongly with Mr Darcy that we can learn a lot from New Zealand, but I am not sure that the lower disparities between Maori and Pakeha can just be sheeted home to open labour market policies, the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, demography and a different electoral system also loom large as explanators.
13. Agitate! states as a core principle that 'individual choice is paramount'. That choice should include working on CDEP, often part-time like millions of other Australians. That choice should also include living on Aboriginal-owned land in remote Australia.