Mr MARTIN FERGUSON (4:43 PM) —Yesterday the House resumed the debate on the Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Amendment Bill 2004. During that debate my colleague the member for Capricornia correctly noted that we do not spend enough time in this parliament discussing and debating the level of disadvantage that exists for Indigenous Australians. There is an imperative for us to better understand the scale of, and reasons for, Indigenous Australians' underachievement in the education system. There is an equal imperative for us to address, as a matter of urgency, the low employment participation rate for Indigenous Australians. At a time when Australia faces a severe skills shortage and desperately needs more people participating in the work force, it is an indictment on the government and this parliament that Indigenous employment lags so far behind mainstream levels of employment.

This is a major economic issue because a conservative estimate of the cost of Indigenous unemployment to government is $1 billion per annum. The cost to the Australian economy in lost productive output associated with Indigenous unemployment is another $3 billion, and related social welfare expenditure and forgone tax revenue is a further $3 billion. It is clearly shameful in the 21st century that a country that considers itself to be a modern, developed and wealthy society tolerates the level of Indigenous unemployment and social disadvantage that exists in this country. Economically, it is costing Australia in the order of $7 billion a year. That is about $2.5 billion of taxpayers' dollars being spent and $4.5 billion in lost economic opportunities. It is clearly a major challenge of social and economic importance, and it must be confronted as a matter of urgency.

The picture is probably worse than the figures I have quoted, because in remote regions CDEP jobs, akin to Work for the Dole projects, account for the overwhelming majority of Indigenous jobs. That is because little market based employment exists in some of those regions. Therefore, we have to look to the mining and pastoral industries to work in partnership with us to address some of these challenges. As the shadow minister for resources, I am pleased to note that, while the mining industry has not always been at the forefront of efforts on this front in the past, there are now some shining examples of partnerships between Indigenous communities and mining companies aimed at boosting Indigenous employment.

I refer, for example, to the Pilbara and Kimberley regions in Western Australia, which are particularly notable, with companies like BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Anglo now firmly focused on partnership approaches to lifting Indigenous employment and business participation as a key part of their business responsibility. There are now more Indigenous Australians directly employed by mining companies—a great step forward. Contracts between mining companies and contractors stipulate minimum Indigenous employment targets, and there are a number of successful and rapidly growing Indigenous owned and operated contracting and service companies. But that is not enough. It is good for companies like the 100 per cent Indigenous owned Indigenous Mining Services, known as IMS, and Ngarda Civil and Mining—a joint venture between Indigenous Business Australia, Henry Walker and a range of other companies—to confront this challenge, but more has to be done in the mining and pastoral sectors to make sure that we, as a government, in partnership with those sectors develop the skills and business capacity of local Indigenous people.

We need more companies in the mining sector to take up the challenge, because if there is one thing we should have learnt over the years it is that the most successful employment and training initiatives are those that involve strong Indigenous leadership combined with the support of local industry and are focused on local community and economic strengths. We need local industry and local people working together, forging partnerships, building productive relationships and finding opportunities for wealth creation and less reliance on public welfare. As the new shadow minister for resources, I simply say this evening that this is one issue that I will be focusing on in a big way in how I develop policy in the foreseeable future. It is correct to note that there are also opportunities in tourism, but in remote areas, where we have relied too much in the past on CDEP, we have to do more in the resources sector. (Time expired)