Lets see, is this a Labor lie?
Rudd overpromised on indigenous unemployment
by Professor Jon Altman and Dr Nicholas Biddle from the Australian National University
Yesterday, employment data for 2008 and 2009, the first two years of the Rudd government, were released. And the figures suggest that rather than delivering on their ‘closing the gap’ pledge, the Australian government might have exacerbated the expansion of the indigenous unemployment gap it has committed to halve.
In early 2008 the incoming Rudd government made its national apology to indigenous Australians and with rhetorical flourish the prime minister launched the Closing the Gap policy framework. This admirable document includes six statistical targets to either reduce or eliminate life expectancy, mortality rate, educational and employment gaps between indigenous and other Australians.
Quickly the Council of Australian Governments was coaxed to adopt this framework later incorporated into the National Indigenous Reform Agreement (Closing the Gap).
A key target is to halve the gap in employment outcomes between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians within a decade. This will require an estimated reduction in the gap in the employment rate (the employment/population ratio) from 24% to 12% through the creation of an estimated additional 100,000 jobs in 10 years, or 10,000 jobs each year. A neat indicative trajectory provided at Schedule G ‘Progress towards the Closing the Gap targets’ illustrates how this statistical outcome is to be achieved.
An early warning was provided to the government in April 2008 that trends from 1971 to 2006 showed that this goal was unrealistic and possibly unachievable; the warning was ignored.
The annual ABS publication, Labour Force Characteristics of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians: Estimates from the Labour Force Survey is the key instrument available to track the employment situation of indigenous people. Data is available annually going back to 2002, although the release for 2008 was delayed due to issues with benchmarking.
For a government that has committed to a managerial evidence-based approach to policy making the data released yesterday provides an early opportunity to use official statistics to gauge progress in closing the employment gap at the national level. The ABS is careful to warn that all labour force survey estimates are subject to sampling errors that require some caution in interpretation, hence our national focus.
Some headline information provides a damning indictment of the COAG strategy. Consider the following:
The unemployment rate rose substantially from 13.8% of the indigenous working-age population in 2007 to 18.1% in 2009
The employment/population ratio (the employment rate) fell from 50.4% in 2007 to 47.6% in 2009
The estimated number of indigenous people employed decreased from 163,200 in 2008 to 161,200 in 2009, a decline of 2,000
The gap in employment percentages between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians of 23 percentage points in 2007 increased to 24.4 percentage points in 2009
The increase in the gap in unemployment rates was even greater, growing from 9.6% in 2007 to 12.6% in 2009.
The indigenous sample in the labour force survey is relatively small. Apart from the rapid rise in the unemployment rate, it is difficult to tell with complete certainty whether the other differences are statistically significant. Indeed, due to cuts to the ABS’s budget ensuring statistical certainty has become more difficult, precisely when government accountability for indigenous outcomes is supposed to improve. What we can say with certainty is that the government is a long way short of the 10,000 additional jobs needed to be on track to halve the employment gap by 2018.
One might charitably blame the deterioration in indigenous employment on the global financial crisis, but such an explanation would at best be partial. In fact owing to the nation building and jobs plan of early 2009, non-indigenous employment levels have hardly deteriorated. Yet despite warnings that recently recruited indigenous people might warrant special assistance and be the first dismissed, the Australian government did nothing special for those arguably most vulnerable to the GFC.
Indeed, it is likely that through two of its own policy interventions the Australian government might have exacerbated the expansion of the employment gap.
http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/06/04/closing-the-gap-rudd-overpromised-on-indigenous-unemployment/
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So, it's not only non-indigenous Australian youth missing out on Jobs, it's some of our more vulnerable and disadvantaged members of the community also.
No wonder he was blubbering, just how embarrassing is this? ...
This Labor party has made fools out of us all, and itself, ......climategate affair, closing the gap, and project burn down the house with their failed insulation program.....then theres the education and health systems they have failed to reform, rather have made them worse.
Do they think we are simpletons or something?
That we cant tell our quality of life has deteriorated, for the majority of Australians.
And lets not even begin discussing utility, rent and housing prices....
...cuts to bulk-billing GP's and after hours services..
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