Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Housing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Rudd Labor government has made a commitment to enhancing the lives of Indigenous Australians. We have a closing-the-gap strategy. This commitment began with an apology to the stolen generations on 13 February 2008. Of course, part of the solution in eliminating Indigenous disadvantage is increasing access to long-term, sustainable and fulfilling employment and training. Today I want to highlight some of the services in my electorate that are dedicated to improving employment prospects for Indigenous Australians.

First is the Aboriginal Employment Service, which is based in Glebe but provides services across New South Wales, expanding into Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia. This is a not-for-profit organisation that specialises in placing and mentoring Aboriginal people into employment. It is an excellent vehicle for corporate Australia—the business community—to partner with an Indigenous employment service. It can include local businesses, huge companies and small businesses and help them engage with the Aboriginal people in their areas and offer jobs to them. In my electorate some of the partnerships include partnerships with government departments, major banks and others.

There is also Yarn’n, which is based in Redfern. It has developed the ‘Feeln Good Lookn Deadly’ pre-employment training program for Aboriginal single mums and is working with its first groups of single mums. The Yaama Dhiyaan training centre is a fantastic hospitality training centre established with the Redfern-Waterloo Authority. It has a commercial cafe and function centre. The Les Tobler Construction Training Centre works with the CFMEU and construction companies to place and support apprentices and trainees. Both the Yaama Dhiyaan training centre and the Les Tobler Construction Training Centre provide recognised training qualifications in a supportive environment, ensuring trade experience and mentoring. Each of these fantastic organisations works to recognise the endless potential of Indigenous Australians to develop and increase their employment and career options and fulfil their life goals.

All of these organisations have Aboriginal people mentoring and training other Aboriginal people, and each of the organisations has recognised that some of their clients and students face particular issues with self-confidence, with intergenerational and employment issues, with limited education and, potentially, with addictions. Many Job Ready courses and Job Network approaches have not worked with this client group, and these organisations have. Organisations like these have succeeded because of the fantastic work of people like Norma Ingram from Yarn’n, Rohan Tobler from the Les Tobler centre, Aunty Beryl Van-Oploo and Mathew Cribb from Yaama Dhiyaan and Danny Lester from the AES, because they are training and mentoring Aboriginal people in partnership with business, and that is the way forward to make sure that we benefit from the skills and diversity of our entire community.