Looking for 'real jobs' on the APY Lands: Intermittent and steady employment in CDEP and other paid work

Abstract

The principal justification for restructuring the Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP) scheme over the last 10 years, and eventually abandoning it, has been an argument that the availability of CDEP work has prevented the take-up of more favourable ‘real jobs’. This chapter draws on evidence from the remote Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands in the far north of South Australia to argue that a binary distinction between CDEP and ‘real jobs’ is a fiction. This has important implications not just as a critique of past policy decisions, but also for designing future strategies to sustainably improve livelihoods for remote-living Aṉangu where recent policy directions are falling short.