Major General Jeffery is to be congratulated for drawing attention, on his last day as Governor General of Australia, to the achievements of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders in the open society. Unfortunately the implication that only 100,000 Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders remain on welfare considerably underestimates the problem. The 2006 Census employment and housing data suggest that about 270,000, or half of the 540,000 Indigenous Australians, are on welfare.

Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders have been moving into the open, or mainstream, society for generations, but continuing self identification as ‘Indigenous’ expresses their pride in their heritage and culture. They now include truck drivers, miners, construction workers, retail and clerical staff, lawyers, doctors and senior managers and their families. Their occupational distribution is still weighted toward low skills, but they own, are buying or renting their homes from real estate agents. Overall they have the characteristics of other working Australians, but in one respect they behave differently. Like other upwardly mobile groups, they enrol a disproportionately high number of their children in tertiary education.

More than two thirds of the 270,000 Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders that are yet to leave welfare behind live in mainstream labour markets within commuting distance of jobs. The common perception that they live in remote areas where there are no jobs is wrong. The Australian Bureau of Statistics ‘remote’ classification includes thriving towns like Alice Springs, Port Hedland and Nhulunbuy with supermarkets, motels, schools and medical facilities. Jobs are advertised in every shop window despite more than 80% Indigenous unemployment. Top End horticultural areas appealing for guest workers are surrounded by unemployed Aborigines.

Most of the 80,000 Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders in truly remote areas are in the larger settlements of Wadeye, Maningrida, Palm Island and Aurukun. Here communal property rights have prevented development. Dismal shops and public housing are reminiscent of pre-1990 communist Russia. Elsewhere in Australia coastal townships of similar size thrive.

Welfare dependence is clearly not the result of ethnic characteristics but of separatist state/territory and federal policies. At a time when low skilled jobs have been phased out world wide, ‘Aboriginal’ curriculums and poor teaching have denied Indigenous children basic schooling. They leave school unable to read, write or count in any language. So called bilingual education has been an excuse for no education at all. Children have also not learnt punctuality, responsibility and making individual efforts. Aboriginal schooling does not equip children for modern mainstream life anywhere.

Aborigines have been exempted from mutual obligation. Welfare plus CDEP (Community Development Employment Projects) income is often higher than starting wages so that accepting a job would mean an income cut. Non-Indigenous unemployment allowance recipients have to take job offers or lose welfare. But CDEP participation, even of only a few hours a week, counts as work. Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders nominating their own ‘approved’ activity as an alternative to working are also not obliged to accept job offers.

Andrew Forest’s Australian Employment Covenant scheme has correctly concluded that because of schooling failures, employers (who have already paid taxes to fund education) will have to commit to funding remedial literacy, training and extended on the job mentoring if Indigenous youngsters are to come off welfare. In labour short areas it makes economic sense to invest in a local labour force. But even here the Covenant will not work unless CDEP is removed and Indigenous unemployment allowance recipients have to accept job offers like other Australians.

Major General Jeffery has certainly been more percipient than the Steering Committee for the Review of Government Services that traduces and insults Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders in the open society in its annual Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage (published by the Productivity Commission). The achievements of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders in mainstream society are completely ignored. Indigenous disadvantage is ascribed to Indigenousness rather than to the policies for which the Steering Committee is responsible.

The first ‘key’ conclusion of Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage is that there is a 17 year gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous life expectancy. This is simply wrong. Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders in the open society have similar life expectancies to other working Australians and the gap for Indigenous welfare recipients is probably well above 20 years. The poor educational outcomes, shocking health and high criminal participation that follow as Indigenous characteristics in Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage are equally wrong for those in the open society.

To provide an evidence base for policy reform, Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders on welfare should be compared to other welfare recipients. The Steering Committee’s averaging of outcomes for open and welfare societies is like averaging the weight of female divers and pole vaulters in the Australian Olympic team.

Emeritus Professor Hughes is a senior fellow of the Centre for Independent Studies and Mark Hughes is an independent researcher.