Warren Mundine wants national rollout of jobs scheme for Indigenous offenders
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Version 0 of 1. Warren Mundine hopes to make a Western Australian scheme to move Indigenous juvenile offenders into work or training a national program in the next two years. The prime minister’s Indigenous Advisory Council, which Mundine heads, had its first meeting of the year on Thursday, lasting more than six hours. The proposal to move Indigenous teens out of detention and into jobs or training was discussed at length, as was mining billionaire Andrew Forrest’s interim employment report, which suggested denying Indigenous high school dropouts welfare if they were not going straight into a job. Mundine refused to say whether he supported the recommendation. “We gave feedback and it will be going back to the review committee; it was one of the many things discussed,” he said. “I do have a strong personal opinion and it was aired during the council meeting but I am not prepared to give a public view.” Also discussed at the meeting were school attendance programs and a diversity program for juvenile detention centres. Mundine said the council largely approved the proposal to move teenage offenders out of detention and into jobs or training and he hoped to roll it out nationally within two years. “We’re now doing preparation and putting everything in place [for Western Australia] and I want to get it started by the end of this year,” he said. “We’re putting the meat on the bone of the proposal, then from there we’ll get an agreement with the prime minister.” He said he hoped to get the program up and running in WA this year and then once the “kinks were ironed out” he would help put together a national proposal. Mundine said Tony Abbott was present for more than two hours of the meeting and heard many of the proposals. “We have never felt unloved,” he said. Another five meetings are planned for the year and the prime minister will be present at three of them. |