The Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP) was an initiative by the

Australian Government The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government, is the national government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Like other Westminster-style systems of government, the Australian Government ...

for the employment of

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation The British Empire was composed of the dominions, coloni ...

It provided a flexible basic income support. One way in which the CDEP funds, along with those of another federal government program, the Community Housing and Infrastructure Program (CHIP), were deployed was via the

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) (1990–2005) was the Australian Government body through which Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders were formally involved in the processes of government affecting ...

(ATSIC) to outstations (tiny, remote communities, also known as homelands) across the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory shares its borders with Western Au ...

, until ATSIC was dismantled by the Howard government in 2004. Then CDEP was transferred to the

Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (2001–2007) The Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (also called DEWR) was an Australian government department that existed between November 2001 and December 2007. Scope Information about the department's functions and/or government ...

, which made it much harder to access by outstation residents. On 23 July 2007, during the

Northern Territory National Emergency Response The Northern Territory National Emergency Response, also known as "The Intervention" or the Northern Territory Intervention, and sometimes the abbreviation "NTER" (for Northern Territory Emergency Response) was a package of measures enforced by ...

("the Intervention"), the Howard government announced the abolition of the CDEP scheme in the

. The scheme had an estimated 7,500 participants. The Government planned to progressively abolish projects in urban areas of Australia by July 2009, and in remote areas by July 2011. In July 2009, CDEP was replaced with

Job Services Australia Workforce Australia is an Australian Government-funded network of organisations (private and community, and originally also government) that are contracted by the Australian Government, through the Department of Employment and Workplace Relati ...

in regions with “established economies”. In remote areas, new participants were redirected to income support direct from

Centrelink The Centrelink Master Program, or more commonly known as Centrelink, is a Services Australia master program of the Australian Government. It delivers a range of government payments and services for retirees, the Unemployment, unemployed, f ...

. In the homelands, it was replaced with the Community Development Program, a work-for-the-dole scheme, requiring unemployed people to work five hours a day, five days a week in supervised work or training.

References

{{Authority control Welfare in Australia Public policy in Australia Employment in Australia Indigenous Australian society