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 four key initiatives:

1. Creating jobs in areas of government service delivery that have previously relied on subsidies through the Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP) program;
   


2. Strengthening government procurement policies to maximise Indigenous employment;
   
   
3. Incorporating Indigenous workforce strategies into implementation plans for all COAG reforms contributing to the closing the gap targets;
   
   
4. Increasing public sector employment to reflect Indigenous working age population share by 2015.

A copy of the National Partnership Agreement for Indigenous Economic Participation can be viewed under Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) on Federal Financial Relations- National Partnerships on the COAG website.

For information on the new Indigenous Opportunities Policy.

For further information on the Agreement, please email IEPNP@deewr.gov.au