CDEP schemes have been operating in Indigenous communities since 1977. However, under the 1987 Aboriginal Economic Development Policy and more particularly since the Spicer Review of CDEP (Spicer 1997), the original emphasis on ‘community development’ has gradually been replaced, at the policy level at least, by a focus on the scheme’s capacity to facilitate enterprise development and to prepare individuals for employment in the mainstream labour market (see Shergold, Ch. 8, this volume).

In practice, the goals of CDEP schemes continue to be rather more diverse. There are many schemes which do have a primarily economic focus, which provide training and work opportunities which enable participants, if they so choose, to move into the mainstream job market, and which in some cases have developed creative strategies for leveraging their competitive advantage for enterprise development. Such outcomes should be applauded, and strongly supported at both policy and resourcing levels. However, as an exclusive policy focus for the CDEP scheme, moving individuals into formal employment and enterprise development is, in my view, misguided for at least three reasons.

First, many Indigenous communities, particularly those in remote and rural regions, are located within regional economies in which such policy objectives are simply not achievable for more than a relatively insignificant minority of individuals. Structural factors such as the current poor health and educational levels of Indigenous people in many regions, together with ‘locational disadvantage’, that is, the lack of business development and employment opportunities in the areas in which many Indigenous people live, mean that it is simply not realistic for policy to be predicated upon moving significant numbers of Indigenous people from dependency on welfare payments to participation in the formal economy. In such circumstances, the challenge both for policy makers and for Indigenous people themselves is to develop creative responses to the objective reality that in many regions there will be continuing medium and long-term Indigenous dependence upon Government transfer payments, rather than simply reproducing the myth of economic development or even independence.

Second, an exclusive policy focus on a narrowly ‘economic’ form of development also denies the objective reality of distinctive Indigenous world-views—cultures—in which, typically, material goods play a different role than they do in non-Indigenous society. This is not to say that Indigenous people are necessarily caught in some time warp where the contemporary world of cash, consumer goods and so forth has no place. The evidence indicates the contrary. However, there is a strong commonality between the so-called ‘traditionally oriented’ Indigenous societies in the more remote regions and those in urban and rural areas, in that the formal economy based on the production, exchange and consumption of things, including cash, is embedded within a ‘social economy’ in which primacy is given to the connections between people rather than to the connections between people and things.

Third, a formally ‘economic’ focus for CDEP ignores the severely disadvantaged and sometimes quite dysfunctional state of many contemporary Indigenous communities, particularly those in rural and remote areas. It assumes that, somehow, meaningful employment, training, and enterprise development activities can take place within situations all too often characterised by chaos, conflict, and family and personal distress. It assumes that the intensity and scale of these personal and social problems, often wrongly attributed solely to welfare dependency, can be addressed through mechanisms which both enable, and ultimately compel, individuals to engage with the formal economy.

The challenge for CDEP is to return to the core concept of ‘community development’, in which economic development is but one factor, although one of central importance. This broader goal is consistent with the thrust of the recommendations of the McClure Report mentioned earlier. While affirming the policy framework of mutual obligation and the centrality of enabling people to find meaningful work, the McClure Report embeds mutual obligation within a wider framework of social obligations, stresses that there are a range of means by which individuals can participate in and demonstrate their obligations to society, and places the enhancement of ‘community capacity’ as a core policy goal. A more broadly based policy goal such as this suggests at the very least a sympathetic re-examination of the potential importance of community development as a core goal of the CDEP scheme, and challenges a narrowly economic or employment-based focus for the welfare system more generally, and particularly for CDEP.

CDEP should not be seen as the Indigenous equivalent of ‘work for the dole’. It should be one of the means by which Indigenous communities are resourced to enhance and develop their social and capital infrastructure. Its goal of community development should not be confined to formal ‘economic’ development, but should include building on existing Indigenous values and capacities, developing the capacity of Indigenous groups and individuals to make strategic choices in their engagement with the wider society and economy, and helping Indigenous individuals and groups enhance their capacity to deal with the often difficult circumstances of their everyday lives.