GenerationOne held a media launch where both the Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott MP, and Tanya Plibersek MP (representing the PM) gave in-principle support to our proposal for Industry Vocational Training and Employment Centres for Indigenous job seekers. This bi-partisan support ensures these IVTECs are now part of the policies of the major parties, regardless of who wins Government.

UPDATE: GenerationOne has now received letters from the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott, and the Leader of the Australian Greens, Bob Brown in response to our proposing industry specific training and employment for Indigenous Australians.

Professor Peter Shergold AC and GenerationOne founder Andrew Forrest gave strong and passionate speeches about the need to make the training system work to deliver jobs that last for Indigenous Australians. You can read Andrew's speech below:

SPEAKING NOTES - ANDREW FORREST
LAUNCH OF GENERATIONONE ELECTION POLICY

(Welcome the guests, Tony Abbott and Tanya Plibersek (representing both the PM and her local area), former ALP National President Warren Mundine and Professor Shergold)

I speak on behalf of my fellow sponsors and leaders of GenerationOne.  James Packer and family who have supported through unstilting generosity my indigenous efforts across Australia over the years; Kerry Stokes and family whose wise and clear eyed view of life and in particular the challenges first Australians face have inspired me, and the Lowy and Fox families who have always responded positively to every request ever made of them, in the penultimate Australian peacetime cause of removing aboriginal disparity.

These are their words as highly concerned Australians even more than they are mine.

Australia’s first people have suffered many indignities in the settlement of Australia.  Perhaps none greater and on such massive scale in recent years as the insidious impact of welfare and the politics of reduced expectations.  

GenerationOne and its sister initiative, the Australian Employment Covenant, has sought to turn these expectations - and prove that our first Australians - are at least as capable as every other Australian.   That their expectations of themselves are rightfully justified in this belief and that the door to freedom from welfare is open to them too. 

The leaden hand of welfare has not moved Australia on from the stolen generation, so poignantly recognized in the 13 February 2008 apology, more, it has highlighted those lost in the generation of low expectations, high welfare and despondent communities of alcohol and drug abuse, rampant unemployment and silent protest to declining civil standards.

We believe it is the responsibility of all Australians to stop the lost generation becoming the lost generations.

There is every reason to share this belief and conviction.  

Across Australia there is success story after success story, great example before greater example of aboriginal people exceeding expectations in their chosen vocations, excelling in their chosen lives and setting standards for all Australian people.  

The difference between those that excel and those who don’t is far beyond genetics.  It comes down to opportunity.  Opportunity to learn, to be trained, mentored and to succeed in one’s chosen vocation is the unilateral major difference between those in the Indigenous community who we hold in high regard, and those in the Indigenous community who we don’t.

The Australian Employment Covenant, in already creating 21,000 unfilled but guaranteed sustainable jobs for Indigenous people, showed the great will of some of Australia’s biggest employers to provide those opportunities to our first Australians. 

The act of filling these and the targeted 50,000 jobs will remove the disparity forever from our nation.  It is employment and the tremendous opportunities that come from choosing one’s vocation that literally “does welfare out of a job”.  

However, with the challenge of the unfilled employment now upon all Australians, pressure is immediately applied to the relevance of existing job training.  

This “demand side pull” of employment to eliminate disparity immediately begs the question of how do we provide the relevant training, so urgently needed, to meet the employment opportunities with Indigenous people who have the skills and are ready for a guaranteed job. 

Many tried policies costing billions of dollars have failed to prepare our first Australians to feel proud of their contribution on their first day at work and be ready to do the job.   Shame, or its corollary pride in oneself, is at least as important to our first Australians as it is to all of us.

After a 61 stop bus tour, consultation with indigenous communities and employers across Australia, and a policy conference in Sydney a fortnight ago involving leading practitioners in the field of Indigenous employment, GenerationOne has developed a policy which is now guaranteed to match training and job preparation to the employment opportunities that are now proven to exist.  

Allow me to read to you two paragraphs from our policy letter addressed to our political leaders.

“Our recommendation is that where an employer or an industry is guaranteeing 1,000 or more sustainable jobs for Indigenous Australians the Australian Government should work to re-direct training funds to establish IVTEC’s.  This would allow employers in a particular industry to develop job-specific training for sustainable jobs that will benefit their organisation and alleviate skills shortages in sectors that are facing workforce capacity constraints.

The Indigenous Vocation Training and Employment Centre’s (IVTEC) should in the first instance focus on long term unemployed Indigenous Australians so training would focus on job-readiness and remove barriers to employment as discussed above. Ideally courses should be intensive and short to improve retention and completion rates, and in some instances may include components such as literacy and numeracy lessons, financial management skills, and driver training.”

We have developed this policy because the experience of many employers is that only they know the training they need for their workforce only they know what is needed to ensure Indigenous employees are job ready, have the skills for their industry and the support they need to make their employment last and blossom into a great career.

The policy of creating within industry, vocational training and employment centres  (IVTECs) for Indigenous Australians and it will work.  It will work for all collective industries and major individual companies which have signed employment covenants that are guaranteeing training for at least 1,000 aboriginal people. This promises to make that training not only relevant but guaranteed to succeed.  Such successful job preparation and employment of our first Australians will immediately highlight other areas of handicap in both health and basic education.  

Now with the hope and the reality of guaranteed employment, there is a serious reason for kids to stay at school, play at sport and feel the serious pride of a promising future.

Only in this way can Australia really meet the training challenge of removing the disparity.  

We recommend adoption of this policy on behalf of the 133 companies.

We recommend adoption of this policy on behalf of the 16 industries across Australia.

We recommend adoption of this policy on behalf of the 42,000 members of GenerationOne.  

We recommend adoption of this policy on behalf of parents.

We recommend adoption of this policy on behalf of the kids.

To last, to make a real difference for decades, the policy must be bipartisan and above any political platform and we, the sponsors of GenerationOne, join with those companies, industries and individuals of the Australian Employment Covenant to recommend this policy both to the opposition and the Government for adoption in their policies ahead of the election on August 21.

Finally we recommend that this policy become the shining light for thousands of aborigines, past and present, who have tried and failed in the attempt to make their own living.  The time has come to end the disparity and build the excitement of the tremendously promise of our first Australians across Australia.