During 2007, the Cattle & Country Project undertook three complementary pieces of research looking at how Aboriginal people are engaged in the Northern Pastoral Industry. These individual projects were:

1. An evaluation of the Northern Territory Indigenous Pastoral Program (IPP) for the Indigenous Land Corporation (ILC)

2. An evaluation of the Kimberley Indigenous Management Support Program (KIMSS) for the Department of Food and Agriculture Western Australia

3. The Indigenous Pastoral Employment Review (IPER) jointly funded by Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) and ILC.

The Evaluations of the IPP and KIMSS provided recommendations to each of the programs on improvements that could build on the current successes. The IPER outlined the historical involvement of Aboriginal people in the Northern Pastoral Industry, current initiatives for increasing Aboriginal involvement, what has worked, what has not worked and why. The abstract for the IPER is provided below, and the full report is available through this link from the MLA website.

Abstract

The Northern Pastoral Industry (NPI) is currently experiencing difficulty attracting and retaining skilled workers, to the extent that the production capacity and profitability of businesses are affected. These staff recruitment and retention difficulties are occurring despite the fact that the NPI operates in a region where there are large Aboriginal populations experiencing very high unemployment rates and where there is a strong history and association with the pastoral industry. There are reputably reported low participation rates of Aboriginal people in the NPI where the Aboriginal population is high and strong anecdotal evidence supporting this, but there is in fact no specific employment data or correlation of data to help the industry establish a clear strategic approach to improving Aboriginal participation.

This Review outlines the history of Aboriginal involvement in the NPI and analyses past and current initiatives to improve Aboriginal employment and engagement in the industry. The Review also draws on the experiences of the mining industry to recommend a strategic framework and decision-making tool that can be used by the NPI to develop the organisational maturity of pastoral businesses and thereby improve their ability to achieve and sustain Aboriginal employment, and to create a positive flow-on effect for smaller pastoral operators. Importantly, the Review describes what action pastoralists can take to improve recruitment outcomes, including the establishment of their own labour market research capacity.

The predicted key benefits to the industry of this Review include a better understanding of what the barriers to Aboriginal employment are and how to overcome them, and a detailed understanding of what works in relation to sustainable Aboriginal employment. Through the recommendations the review also provides a practical way forward for pastoralists to improve their capacity to employ and retain Aboriginal pastoral workers by using best practice methods, developing a pastoral employment and skill needs database and accessing existing support services. The Review also supports the formulation of an industry-wide strategy to facilitate the dissemination of research results and information about how to access knowledge and support services that will improve industry performance.

This Review has been conducted in parallel with research for the Cattle and Country Evaluation Project that specifically evaluates the Indigenous Pastoral Program (IPP) and Kimberley Indigenous Management Support Service (KIMSS). It is recommended that this research be read in conjunction with this Review.