CANBERRA, Australia, Feb. 21 (UPI) -- The Australian agency that oversees social benefits for Aborigines wants rules changed to make it more difficult for them to refuse work and receive welfare.
The Indigenous Land Corporation, a taxpayer-funded body charged with buying land and businesses to support indigenous entrepreneurs, reported more than 40 percent of the jobs it creates are filled by white migrant workers, as Aborigines preferred either welfare, or lower paying, less physical jobs.
In an article published in The Australian Tuesday, ILC chairwoman Shirley McPherson said the government had made it too easy for Aborigines to avoid work.
"It's time to look outside the square," she wrote. "The board of the ILC believes that if an indigenous person is fit to work and lives within traveling distance of a job vacancy, paid unemployment (benefits) should not be available."
McPherson is scheduled to meet Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough next week to present the plan, which she warns is vital to "breaking the welfare dependence trap" of young Aborigines.
