The Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) is committed to the Australian Government’s goal of reducing Indigenous disadvantage including halving the employment gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians within a decade.

The reformed Indigenous Employment Program will make employment and training services more responsive to the specific needs of Indigenous job seekers, Indigenous businesses and employers.

The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) National Partnership Agreement for Indigenous Economic Participation was signed in February 2009.  This National Partnership will contribute towards halving the gap in employment outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

The National Partnership involves complementary investment and effort by the Commonwealth, states and territory governments to significantly improve opportunities for Indigenous people to engage in private and public sector jobs through:

• creating jobs in areas of government service delivery that have previously relied on subsidies through the Community Development Employment Projects program
• increasing public sector employment to reflect Indigenous working age population share by 2015
• building Indigenous workforce strategies into implementation plans for all COAG reforms contributing to the closing the gap targets
• strengthening government procurement policies to maximise Indigenous employment.