All Australians deserve the opportunity to have a good, steady job and the dignity of work. The Turnbull Government’s Community Development Program (CDP) is depriving tens of thousands of people of that opportunity. It’s punitive, heavy-handed and racially discriminatory and the Union movement is determined to see it removed.
CDP workers are not actuallyclassified as workers. They get well below the minimum wage (the dole pays $11.60/hour or $290/week) for working for 25 hours a week for non-profit and now for-profit businesses.
They are not covered by the Fair Work Act, they don’t have Federal OHS protections or workers compensation and they can’t take annual leave or carer’s leave.
Those under the CDP are fored to work up to three times longer than city-based job seekers to receive welfare payments. Since July 2015, less than 3,500 Indigenous participants found full-time or part-time work lasting six months or more.
CDP workers have 70 times the financial penalties imposed upon them then non-remote dole workers. Fines for missing activities under CDP – which covers a tiny fraction of the poopualtion – account for more than half the total penalties accross the entire welfare system.
We are working with CDP workers and the community to give a voice to there workers who are being exploited.
The First Nations Workers’ Allience is a new organisation which will campaign to end the CDP and replace it with a program that works for Indigenous people rather than oppressing them.
To get involved contact:
Wayne Kurnorth
NT Coordinator FNWA
wayne.kurnorth@unitedvoice.org.au