Last month Australia’s richest businessman, Fortescue Metals executive director Andrew 'Twiggy' Forrest, announced that he would be providing 50,000 jobs for Indigenous Australians. 

According to Mr. Forrest by combining the forces of the private and public sector his initiative, the Australian Employment Covenant, is a step toward closing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia.

Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd has praised the covenant, and vowed to fund the training aspect of the scheme, which has been reported by The Australian to cost tens of millions of dollars. 

At a press conference in Coolum in Queensland, Mr. Forrest and Mr. Rudd provided an overview of the tasks the private and public sectors would undertake in implementing the plan.

Mr. Rudd said the Government’s role is to provide “training programs to make Indigenous Australians training ready”, while the corporate sector would then “…tak[e] on those young Indigenous Australians into…paid work — where they would be mentored. And over time, absorbed into the long term workforce…” into industries such as mining, agriculture and finance.

Mr. Forrest has outlined that the training program will consist of “a three to fourth month short course, which is crammed with industry details, specific to that Aboriginal’s future job…”. However, precise details of the types of training that will be made available have not been publicised. 

Others have voiced their support for Mr. Forrest’s revolutionary goal, including government adviser on infrastructure Sir Rod Eddington, and former ALP President Warren Mundine, who will be joining the mining magnate on the Australian Employment Covenant committee.

Lawyer and Indigenous rights campaigner, Noel Pearson, is also on the committee and is passionate about the scheme, which he believes is a solution for getting “our young people off welfare and participating and taking their share of the country”. 

“I’ve hung around corporate Australia for a number of years. I’ve heard a lot of good will from people. But I’ve never been actually sure about whether those doors are open-able from the outside and whether when you tested the door, Aboriginal people could enter…[but] Andrew is taking the leadership to open the door for Aboriginal Australia to enter the staircase of opportunity…”, said Mr. Pearson.

Mr. Mundine also supports the initiative because he believes that breaking the welfare dependency cycle will only be achieved through jobs for Indigenous Australians.

“You can educate people as much as you like, but if they’ve got no jobs to go into, as a young Aboriginal ten year old kid told me, ‘why do we need to be educated if there is nothing for us and there is no future?’”, said Mr. Mundine.

Mr. Forrest and his colleagues on the committee are aiming to implement the scheme in two years time and have set an ambitious task to transform the spiel into a detailed plan within 100 days.

Image Courtesty of Robstephaustralia

Licensed Under Creative Commons