Where are we going with Indigenous employment policy?
Where are we going with Indigenous employment policy? Conference Paper
A Future That Works - 6th Path to Full Employment Conference and 11th National Conference on Unemployment
- Author(s): Dockery, Alfred Micheal, Milsom, Nicola
- Secondary Author(s): Carlson, Ellen
- Published: 2004
- Publisher: University of Newcastle, Centre of Full Employment and Equity
Abstract: Indigenous persons continue to be among the most disadvantaged groups in Australian society on a range of socio-economic indicators. In seeking a framework to reconsider programs and policies aimed to improve labour market outcomes for indigenous Australians, this paper reviews the history of engagement between Australian Aborigines and European settlers in the context of international experiences of indigenous populations in the face of the expansion of Western industrial economies in the 1800s and 1900s. A generic model of Indigenous disadvantage in the labour market is proposed as a framework for assessing indigenous policy and for the evaluation of indigenous employment programs.