ALICE SPRINGS—Remote Aboriginal communities are excited by the prospect of huge jobs growth - as long as it doesn't come at the expense of family and cultural life.
Indigenous workers say a plan to create 50,000 jobs within two years for indigenous Australians will bring a welcome boost to remote communities.
But they say the contracts must include flexible leave conditions to accommodate cultural and family obligations.
News of the Government-backed plan is beginning to filter through to communities in the Northern Territory, like Wallace Rock, in the dusty red desert of central Australia.
Carita Coulthard, of the Aranda people, is eager for her four children, aged between nine and 24, to have job options in the future.
But Ms Coulthard, who, along with her eldest daughter, works in Wallace Rock, is torn between encouraging the children to stay at home under her supervision, or leave the community of 100 people to look for work.
"Young people have got to find a job, that's what they need," Ms Coulthard, told AAP in the scorching midday desert heat.
"We really need our kids to look for work wherever they can fit and if there's no job in the community then they need to work contract work outside."
But she said current contracts did not adequately consider indigenous cultural obligations and family commitments such as weddings, funerals and ceremonies.
Indigenous clans place great emphasis and weight on participating in important life rituals and ceremonies which can go on for days.
"It's the main thing for a family to get close to each other," Ms Coulthard said.
"My people, they need their culture, they need to be there."
Under the Australian Employment Covenant endorsed by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, participating employers will be urged to employ a certain number of indigenous people who have undergone intensive three or four month government-provided courses to training-ready level.
The Government will provide training courses to prepare the participants for on-the-job training.
The instigator of the scheme, Australia's richest man mining magnate Andrew "Twiggy" Forrest, is yet to outline details of how contracts would operate, especially in communities where cultural, family and kinship ties run deep.
Critics say that with fewer than 20,000 Aborigines currently working in the private sector the idea is unrealistic and lacks substance.
A newly-established steering committee has three months to thrash out the finer points of the scheme, including formulating workable contracts for both businesses and indigenous workers.
Indigenous leaders Noel Pearson and Warren Mundine will join Professor Marcia Langton, businessman Rod Eddington, indigenous West Australian Magistrate Sue Gordon and Mr Forrest on the committee to "finalise details of the initiative".
They will also "expand on the many localised initiatives that have successfully provided entry level training and resultant full-time employment to Aboriginal people", a statement issued by Mr Forrest said.
But for young people growing up in Wallace Rock, where the Aranda language is spoken widely and cultural traditions are upheld, the prospect of commuting 240km to work at Alice Springs is expensive and time consuming.
The idea of working thousands of kilometres away from home on a mine site or at a tourism hotspot is even more daunting.
"When they travel too far and the family needs them at home, if the family rings them up to come back then they really need to come back," Ms Coulthard said.
Under the covenant, Aboriginal people will be mentored on the job by a participating employer.
Father-of-two Neil Reid previously worked at Newmont granite mine, hundreds of kilometres from his community.
But with two sons aged under six, he now chooses to commute 120km per day from his home at the indigenous community of Harry Creek to work in Alice Springs.
Newmont mine has a policy of employing a quota of indigenous workers and providing work counselling, but Mr Reid said employment counselling should also be offered within communities.
"It would be great if the 50,000 jobs came through, it'd be really good," he said.
Mr Reid often stays in Alice Springs for his job, maintaining a government vehicle fleet.
He said retaining staff would still be difficult.
"At some places (mines) you've got a one-off chance and if you bugger that up then you've blown your chance," he said.
There were several valid reasons why workers could take extended breaks from work, including weddings, funerals, sickness and family commitments, he said.
"You have two different cultures and how do you make it work both ways?"
Flying to mine sites in severe thunderstorms during the wet season was enough to put some people off applying for work on the mines, he added.
Mr Rudd recently used a community cabinet meeting in Arnhem Land to urge locals to embrace the "three-way partnership" between government, communities and companies.
He said he would like to see each community in remote and regional Australia team up with a major Australian company in helping provide employment, microfinance and community building.
Mr Rudd also said miner Rio Tinto and National Australia Bank already engaged in such partnerships.
Rio Tinto, Australia's second biggest miner, is tipped to back the new plan which would deliver badly-needed workers to a sector struggling to keep up with demand.
In the top end of the country, which is experiencing huge growth in resources and tourism, Kakadu National Park ranger Anthony Sullivan said there was great potential for tourism in remote communities.
"Tourism is a good way to get people in communities into jobs but you have to go out to these communities to see what they are doing," Mr Sullivan, who belongs to the Binninj people, told AAP.
He lives at Jim Jim, a dramatic gorge in the remote area of Kakadu that is close to his work as a tour guide on boats in the crocodile-infested waters.
He said there were plenty of training courses available for indigenous people to become rangers and guides, "but there is not always a job at the end of it".
Mr Sullivan wants to see cultural tourism centres set up near remote communities so tourists could learn about basket weaving, bush tucker, animals and oral history.
"It'd be great to have tourists visit them at a place, like a hut, near the community so it's close for them and it doesn't intrude on their everyday life."
He agreed that retaining staff was always tough, mostly due to family and cultural reasons.
"You're always going to get that with some Binninj people," he said.
He said creating 50,000 jobs would be a great way to break the cycle of long-term unemployment in some communities.
"You get people who don't work, you know all those who haven't been working for years and they adapt to not working."
Mr Forrest, the chief executive of Fortescue Metals, is in Beijing until next week.
He is expected to renew his appeal for businesses to join the scheme on his return to Australia.