Correction: remote employment and mutual obligations

                                                My thoughts are whirled like a potter’s wheel:

I know not where I am , nor what I do.

1 Henry VI, Act one, Scene five.

 

In my previous post on the ANAO report on remote employment (link here), I wrote about mutual obligations in the following terms:

 

On 1 June, The Australian reported (link here) that the Government was planning to reintroduce ‘mutual obligation’ into the scheme by requiring participants to ‘work for the dole’. These requirements fell by the wayside during Covid lockdowns and are not being strictly enforced.

 

On re-reading the ANAO report, I realized that I had made an error in attributing the shift in policy on mutual obligations to Covid. In particular, paragraphs 2.27 to 2.32 of the ANAO report make clear that the shift in policy can be attributed to a deliberate shift in policy related to the risk that the program might be held by the courts to be either directly or indirectly racially discriminatory.  I recommend interested readers take a close look at those paragraphs for a fuller account than I can spell out here. The following paragraphs have been edited to remove footnotes and to emphasise key points with bold font:

 

2.28 The legal risks associated with the CDP were first advised to government in 2015. The advice stated that the risk of the program being inconsistent with the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Racial Discrimination Act) was medium. From 2015, legal risk was identified by multiple external stakeholders. In December 2016, a complaint about the CDP was brought to the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) by the Shire of Ngaanyajarraku, alleging a breach of the Racial Discrimination Act. A mediation process was initiated but failed, and in July 2019 Dawson and Ors v Commonwealth of Australia (Dawson v Cth) commenced. In December 2021, Dawson v Cth was settled by the Commonwealth for a grant of $2 million (plus GST) to the Shire and Council; the design, implementation and evaluation of the Remote Engagement Program Trial in the Shire of Ngaanyajarraku (see Table 3.1); and legal costs of $278,897.

 

2.29 A commitment to reform the CDP was a component of the NIAA’s negotiations and eventual settlement of Dawson v Cth. The complainants required that the CDP’s (or future programs’) mutual obligation requirements be ‘on par’ with requirements in non-remote areas. In January 2021, the government was presented with a single recommended option to meet settlement requirements and reduce the risk of future legal action: to make most CDP mutual obligation requirements voluntary (referred to as a compliance pause). In May 2021, the government announced that the CDP would be replaced by a new remote jobs program and that, with immediate effect, participation in the work-for-the-dole component of the mutual obligation requirements would be voluntary. After the removal of the requirement to attend activities in May 2021, CDP participation declined by approximately 50 per cent on average. In July 2021, Jobs Australia wrote to the NIAA advising of concerns raised by its members, including that the ‘predictable’ outcomes of the changes to mutual obligation requirement had occurred, including increased domestic violence, lower school attendance, substance abuse and aggression toward frontline CDP staff.

 

To sum up:

 

First, the shift away from voluntary mutual obligations (in relation to community work or other meaningful activities), but not necessarily job search and other requirements such as monthly meetings with the provider) was not due to the Covid epidemic and lockdowns, but was a deliberate policy decision arising from the need to insulate the program and the Commonwealth from the risk of successful litigation based on alleged breaches of the Racial Discrimination Act.

 

Second there is evidence that the policy shift has contributed at least in part to the ongoing and arguably worsening levels of social dysfunction amongst younger members of remote communities.

 

Third, the ANAO documents serious deficiencies in NIAA risk management practices, in the context of widespread acknowledgement in NIAA and in advice to Ministers that CDP was ‘a failed program’. In para 2.27, the ANAO reports:

 

The August 2020 stocktake had noted that ‘[s]ince the implementation

of CDP, the program has received criticism that it is discriminatory, failing remote communities, racist and contributing to hunger and poverty in remote communities and contributing to an increase in crime, violence and suicide rates’. The NIAA advised the Minister for Indigenous Australians that the CDP had not been successful in achieving its objectives.

 

Yet it took until 2024 for the Government to announce (some) details of the replacement program due to be implemented in the second half of this year.

 

 

06 June 2024