Antinuclear

Contrary to industry propaganda – mining is NOT an ideal job for Aboriginal people

Aboriginal people would prefer to have jobs that “heal the land”, not dig it up.

To say that he [Andrew Forrest] will get more jobs in mining is the answer, is really only the answer for the mining sector – not Aboriginal people.”

Indigenous mining jobs push misguided, spokesman says, Australian Mining, 4 December, 2012 Cole Latimer The mining industry’s drive to increase the number of Indigenous Australian in resources work is ‘misguided’ according to Indigenous spokesperson David Collard.

His comments came yesterday at an Indigenous Business, Enterprise and Corporations Conference at UWA, where Collard singled out Fortescue’s Andrew Forrest’s Aboriginal employment drive, according to The West.

It comes only days after the chair of Australian Indigenous studies at the University of Melbourne, Marcia Langton, stated that the mining industry is helping to pull many Indigenous people out of poverty……

“The emergence of an Aboriginal middle class in Australia in the last
two to three decades has gone largely unnoticed,” Langton said in an
ABC Boyer lecture recently.

“While the numbers remain small, this change heralds an economic
future for Aboriginal people unimaginable 50 years ago.”

However Collard has disagreed with this drive, stating that many
Aboriginal people don’t want mining jobs as digging up the ground
offends their culture.

Collard, who works on Indigenous employment for the National Resource
Management program, targeted Forrest, explaining that Aboriginal people would prefer to have jobs that “heal the land”, not dig it up.
http://www.nrm.wa.gov.au/

“[Forrest] doesn’t understand the traditional peoples’ needs,” Collard said.

“He doesn’t understand their aspirations. To say that he will get more jobs in mining is the answer, is really only the answer for the mining sector – not Aboriginal people.”

December 5, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | aboriginal issues, AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL