Many observers feel that current social policy, and particularly the payment of welfare to the unemployed, needs to be fundamentally rethought. It is notable that advocates of change include both the government-appointed McClure Committee and influential Indigenous spokespersons, most notably Noel Pearson. In their publications Participation Support for a More Equitable Society (McClure 2000) and Our Right to Take Responsibility (Pearson 2000b) both these parties adopt the language of mutual obligation and, on the face of it, appear to agree with the general principle. The central tenet of mutual obligation in the context of current debates is the problem of how to shift individuals from being 'passive' welfare dependents into active engagement with the 'real' economy. The model is predicated on the forging of new partnerships between governments, business, the community, and the individual.
Both the McClure Committee and Pearson recognise that many Indigenous communities face major structural and systemic barriers to full economic participation, particularly in rural and remote regions. Both only make passing reference to the CDEP scheme that was first established in 1977 as Australia's prototype mutual obligation program. While the wages component of the scheme is covered by notional welfare equivalent payments, additional amounts are also provided with which to administer the scheme and purchase capital equipment. At 1 July 2000, there were nearly 31 000 participants in the scheme across Australia.[16] The CDEP scheme, as a model, meets many of the principles of mutual obligation as ennunciated by McClure and Pearson as well as by academics like Yeatman (1999) and Saunders (see Ch. 3, this volume).[17]
In the discussion that follows, I first define the boundaries of remote Australia, noting that about 70 per cent of the 265 CDEPs that existed at the time of the 1996 Census fall within this jurisdiction. On the basis of joint research with Matthew Gray (Altman & Gray 2000), I then provide a very brief assessment of the economic impact of the CDEP scheme in this region. McClure's and Pearson's prescriptions for facilitating Indigenous engagement with the 'real' economy are then examined and subjected to some reality checks; and finally I set out my own views on how the CDEP scheme, with modification, could be used as an institutional framework for Indigenous economic development.
[15] I thank Hilary Bek, Melinda Hinkson, Tim Rowse, and John Taylor for their comments on an earlier draft of this paper.
[16] ATSIC differentiates funded places, participant ceilings, and actual participant numbers. At 1 July 2000 these were 33 188, 33 557 and 30 749 respectively. Allocations for CDEP in 2000–01 is divided into $324 million for wages and $102 million for operational (capital and on-costs), a total of $426 million. The division of operational funding is decided by ATSIC Regional Councils.
[17] In this paper, no real attempt is made to address the issue of what mutual obligation values might mean cross-culturally and what the diverse Indigenous conceptualisations of their relations with the state might be. This is an issue that has been canvassed very briefly elsewhere (Altman 2000).