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National Agenda for a Multicultural Australia

Specific achievements include:

  • the dramatic expansion of training places for the long-term unemployed and disadvantaged under Jobtrain;

  • the introduction of new programs - JET and NEWSTART - to increase access to education, training and employment opportunities for sole parents and the long-term unemployed so as to enable them to overcome barriers to employment and provide them with a springboard to more active, satisfying lives;

  • the provision of bridging training places for overseas qualified immigrants under Jobtrain and the national skills component of innovative Training Projects;

  • the introduction of job search training courses for recently-arrived immigrants;

  • the recent introduction of equity provisions for apprenticeships to encourage the employment of disadvantaged young people, on the same basis as equity provisions for traineeships;

  • the negotiation of a textile, clothing and footwear industry assistance package which includes retraining provisions with ESL assistance where necessary for redundant workers. This is of special significance to NESB women workers who form a large proportion of the textile, clothing and footwear workforce;

  • the introduction of the Multicultural and Cross-Cultural Supplementation Program, under the National Policy on Languages, for a three year period concluding in 1990-91 (with the term of grants ending by 30 June 1992), to increase the opportunity for students in professional and para-professional courses to receive practical training in the delivery of effective and equitable services to a culturally mixed clientele;

  • changes to the funding of higher education so that institutions may also include in their calculation of student load the number of disadvantaged NESB students participating in approved bridging courses;

  • changes to the reporting requirements from higher education institutions to include birthplace and language data commencing in 1989;

  • an increase in the Year 12 retention rate from 36% in 1982 to 58% in 1988 with a target of a further increase to 65% by the early 1990s;

  • the total restructuring of income support arrangements for young people from low and middle income families to improve financial incentives for them to continue studying or to opt for further training rather than unemployment. This restructuring has provided major increases in financial assistance to secondary and tertiary students in low to middle income families;

  • provision of additional income to the most needy students under Austudy and Abstudy with the intention of implementing further increases as budget circumstances permit, with the aims of helping students whose family incomes are below average weekly earnings and of progressively extending the new adult rates to all students on Austudy over 21 years;

  • the introduction in 1987 of the Aboriginal Employment Development Policy to stimulate employment, training and economic independence for Aboriginal communities with the long-term objective of achieving equity in employment and income opportunities for Aboriginal Australians with the rest of the population by the year 2000; and

  • development of a package of initiatives designed to assist skill enhancement and improve the quality of training, as announced in the Government's 1989 April Statement, including assistance to industry to conduct skills audits and analyses of training needs, to support the development of new training curricula, and to establish competence assessment machinery in industries of strategic importance.

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