Fed: Govt gets behind indigenous jobs plan

AAP General News (Australia)
08-03-2008
Fed: Govt gets behind indigenous jobs plan

CANBERRA, Aug 3 AAP - The Rudd government says it will throw its support behind a scheme
to create 50,000 jobs for indigenous Australians.

Fortescue Metals boss Andrew Forrest has put forward a plan to create jobs for indigenous
Australians by involving the corporate sector.

Under the plan, participating employers will agree to employ a certain number of indigenous
people qualified to the training-ready level.

The federal government will help out by providing short, intensive, training courses
to get participants in Mr Forrest's scheme ready for on-the-job training with a participating
employer.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd today said Mr Forrest faced a tough task in reaching his
goal, but that the government would support the scheme.

"We'll do so in a practical way by providing the necessary training places to support
those Indigenous Australians to make them training ready to go into those companies which
Andrew Forrest will help us bring about," he told the Nine Network.

"It's a practical program, it's a big plan on his part, it's a big initiative on his
part, very tough goals he's set for himself, but we're prepared to support his enterprise
by assisting with these training places."

Mr Rudd said the scheme was one of a raft of measures aimed at helping indigenous Australians,
adding that a welfare-only response would be the wrong way to go.

"It will be hard, it will tough. We know the degree of entrenched disadvantage which
exists in so many of these communities.

"We've got to get housing right, we've got to get education right, we've got to get
health right, but we've also got to get jobs right and that's where corporate Australia
comes in."

AAP kms/cdh

KEYWORD: INDIGENOUS JOBS RUDD

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