Basic Income for Remote Indigenous Australians: Prospects for a Livelihoods Approach in Neoliberal Times

In early 2015, the prime minister of Australia delivered the seventh annual Closing the Gap Prime Minister’s report (Australian Government, 2015). In it he reported that the government’s goal to halve the gap in employment outcomes between Indigenous and other Australians by 2018 was not on track, a euphemism for failing, and that there was a decline in employment outcomes since the target was set in 2008. The report notes: It is clear that since 2008, no progress has been made against the target to halve the gap in employment outcomes within a decade (by 2018). The proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples aged 15–64 years who are employed fell from 53.8 per cent in 2008 to 47.5 per cent in 2012–13. In addition to the fall in Indigenous employment, the proportion of non-Indigenous Australians who are employed rose from 75.0 per cent to 75.6 per cent. Consequently, between 2008 and 2012–13 there has been an increase of 6.9 percentage points in the employment gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous working age people (up from 21.2 to 28.1 percentage points). (Australian Government, 2015, p. 18) The report highlights variation in employment outcomes by remoteness declining from an employment/population ratio of nearly 50 percent in major cities to just 30 percent in very remote regions.