This report has been prepared by the Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities (CFE), led by Lamia Kamal-Chaoui, Director. This work was conducted as part of the OECD’s Local Economic and Employment Development (LEED) Programme with financial support from the Australia Department of Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business.
The project is co-ordinated by Jonathan Barr, Head of the Employment and Skills Unit within the Local Employment, Skills and Social Innovation (LESI) Division of CFE under the supervision of Karen Maguire, Acting Head of Division. The principal authors are Jonathan Barr and Lindsey Ricker (OECD/CFE). Michela Meghnagi (OECD/CFE) and Alessandro Kandiah (OECD/CFE) also made significant contributions to this report.
Australian Government officials within the Department of Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business played an instrumental role in helping the OECD to co-ordinate this project, while also providing constructive feedback on the development of the report. In particular, the OECD would like to thank Ali Jalayer, Niran Gunawardena, Sean Tam, and Wayne Murray. The OECD would like to thank representatives from the National Indigenous Australians Agency, including Sarah Burr, Sarah Clough, Mele Rome, and Jennifer Badstuebner.
The OECD would also like to thank Phil Loveder and Glenn Varona from the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) for providing information on vocational education and training statistics. Special thanks should also be given to Indigenous stakeholders in Sydney and Perth that participated in meetings and provided documentation and comments critical to the production of the report. In particular, the OECD is grateful to representatives from Olympus Solutions Limited, Replay, the Yarn’n Aboriginal Employment Service, atWork Australia, the Wirrpanda Foundation, the Aboriginal Employment Consultancy Group, and PEEDAC.
Lastly, the OECD would like to thank those individuals who participated in a workshop on designing local employment and skills strategies with Indigenous communities in Australia in Sydney in October 2018, namely Tanya Eldridge and Nick Purdie from Aboriginal Affairs, New South Wales; Rob Beattie and Andrew Yarran from AtWork Australia; Peter Defteros, Jobs Australia; Aunty Beryl, National Centre for Indigenous Excellence (NCIE); Sally Sinclair, National Employment Services Association; Suzie Matthews and Michelle McCallum from New South Wales Department of Industry; Annette Lamb, Olympus Solutions Limited; Rebecca Harcourt, University of New South Wales; Brittany Jack, VERTO; Deb Nelson, Yarn’n Aboriginal Employment Service; Robert Friskin, My Pathway; and Mary Jones, Replay Foundation.