The CDEP scheme: Bureaucratic politics, remote community politics and the development of an aboriginal ‘workfare’ program in times of rising unemployment

Abstract

This paper analyses the development of an Aboriginal ‘workfore’ program which operates in remote communities, the Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP) scheme, from its conception back in the mid 1970s through to the present day. It identifies a number of distinct periods in the development of the program; a period of debate surrounding its conception, an initial pilot period of operation beginning in 1977 in which the scheme endured both significant criticism and severe budgetary and administrative problems, a period of review and hesitation from 1980 to 1983 and a period of expansion and success since 1984. These changing fortunes of the CDEP scheme are explained through reference to three underlying forces which have contributed to the development of the program over the years; bureaucratic politics, Aboriginal community politics in remote areas and the the rising levels of unemployment in the Australian community more generally.

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