Mr Shergold is spot on: without skills that translate into work which can boost the dignity of the jobless enormously, no amount of money will help. This is the crux of the problem, and if it can only be translated into government policy, it would be a win/win solution all round. Bravo, Peter!

Problems like this need to be tackled at several levels, including the entrenched and often completely responsible practice of government. For example, much housing for indigenous people is built by state governments, who follow standard practice. They issue tenders, look at quality, experience and price and award contracts to the companies offering the best value. This is what they are required to do and deviation from this practice is very likely to attract scathing criticism from the auditor-general.

Unfortunately, this also means that indigenous people are not given the opportunity to develop skills either in building and/or maintenance. The houses are built, the builders leave and maintenance is carried out another group of contracted fly-in tradies. These practices lie deep in the traditions of the public service. They are difficult to change but change at this level is essential to success for indigenous people.

Peter old mate, you got it all wrong.

As a person who crawled out of the disadvantaged class into the working class, I feel I am qualified to refute your misconceptions.

You seem to be under the illusion that everybody in the disadvantaged class is eager to work. Sorry mate, that just is not true. All of the well intentioned "programs" to get people working is going to fail, because a very high proportion of people have absolutely no intention of working if they can get away with it.

If you wish to reduce our increasingly unsupportable welfare bill, there are only two ways. The first, is to look at immigration, and realise that there are some ethnic and religious minorities who are very disproportionately overly represented in crime and welfare dependency. It is not in Australia's interests to continue to allow people from these groups to continue immigrating here, just to be a burden on the Aussie taxpayer. If that is "racism" well racism looks like great idea to me and my fellow taxpayers, who are footing the bill for misplaced humanitarianism.

The second, is to understand the relationships between unemployment, intelligence, and birth rates. Put simply, Peter, since smart people are upwardly mobile, while the bottom E demographic usually populated by very dumb people. Many of these dumb people do not want to work, breed like flies, and produce a lot more dumb offspring. Dump people do not look after their health, and dumb people clog our hospitals, courts, and jails.

On the other hand, smart people are hardly breeding at all, and this is especially so for smart professional women.

The only solution to long term unemployment, is to pay unproductive dumb people to stop breeding, and to find tax breaks and other incentives to encourage smart, productive people to breed a lot more.

I have seldom, if ever, disagreed with a comment posted on this website more than I disagree with LEGO's comments above.
To categorise some ethnic and religious minorities as being somehow unworthy of what Australia can offer? This is fear of the Other, or racism pure and simple, writ large.
To pay 'dumb people' to stop breeding while paying 'smart people' to have large families? This is eugenics, or racism at its most scary pseudo-scientific edge.
The long-term solution to long-term unemployment is primary education. Then training coupled with job availability.
I keep bringing this up under different guises, but to insist on attendance at primary school is to begin a habit of getting up in the morning to go somewhere to do something. Maybe a lie-in is preferred? Maybe the lessons for the day are too hard or not interesting? No excuse.
This same acquired attitude can later get us to work: Maybe a lie-in is preferred, maybe the work for the day is too hard or not interesting – no excuse.
The future starts with children. So simple and yet seemingly so hard to grasp.

There was a clash of one Productive and Progressive Culture and Traditions and one Non-Productive and Non-Progressive Culture and Traditions.
Our Ancestors existed with absolute minimum possessions.
With no need or desire for anything more.
What's happening today is simply a continuation of this.
This reasoning by “Generation One” that Aboriginal People aspire to the same as Anglo and Other Australians is flawed.
We would certainly desire accept and even expect what they have.
But for us to outlay and to expend the time and effort to obtain them is, "Not Culturally Appropriate".
This is the ongoing issue with Aboriginal employment.
Five to six hundred dollars a fortnight on the Dole is a lot of money to us.
We don't need much more to live on.
With loads of free food everywhere.
Plus Aboriginal specefic accomodation and free support.
It is much easier to just play Jacky-Jacky and act dumb. Aboriginal People have been playing this game for many years !! And it has now progressed to the stage where this is what's expected of us. And it Suits Everyone !!

I agree that my statements are racist, Haldual, but since I am a racist, then don’t see anything wrong with them. If a preference to live amongst my own people , people with whom I share common attitudes, values and behaviour, and with whom I feel safe with is racist, then just about everyone on planet Earth would guilty of that. And if loyalty to my own people, and concern for their welfare is racist, then I am the biggest racist around, and I am proud of it.

I am not sure why you are getting your knickers in a knot about eugenics, just about everyone considering marriage is concerned about the quality of their potential mates. Women especially, are renowned for pursuing successful men, and every women’s magazine regales its female readers with tales of some young floozie who managed to usurp a celebrity husband from an aging wife. Men openly peruse girlie magazines selecting women who are obviously prime breeding material to dream about mating with.

If “Job availability” is the only reason for unemployment, why are there so many people on the dole while petrol companies openly recruit and sponsor staff for their Australian petrol stations form India?

As for education being the great leveler, your opinion is based upon the wrong presumption that everyone has equal intelligence, and so it is a simple matter to educate the E demographic to get jobs. Wrong again. It is a lot easier to educate smart kids than dumb ones. And while education can make people smarter, no amount of education can make a genetically dumb person into a smart one.