At the end of a boom year in which the foundation club
made the finals for the first time in 18 years, was the subject of an ABC
documentary, and sold more merchandise and more tickets than it has since its
reinstatement to the competition, the Federal Government yesterday jumped
aboard the Rabbitohs juggernaut with a $2 million commitment to Souths’
philanthropic arm, Souths Cares.
The grant will double the current budget of the
one-year-old foundation, which is to be the new home of the retiring Aboriginal
player David Peachey.
In its first year, Souths Cares
has supported a breakaway Anzac Day march in Redfern, sponsored an Inscription
playwriting award for indigenous authors and a sports award at a juvenile boys
home, and assisted in the painting of buses to end rock attacks by young people
in the La Perouse and Maroubra areas. It also sends players to inner-city
schools and remote communities to battle truancy, drug and violence issues.
But yesterday’s partnership with the Department of
Employment and Workplace Relations – the first of its kind in rugby league –
will take the club and its registered charity into the new area of indigenous
employment.
It will pay for a six-month scoping study to find
mentoring, training and employment opportunities for indigenous people in NSW
among Souths’ network of the football club, leagues club, sponsors and
supporters. It will then pay for training and subsidise jobs for those
employed.
The Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Joe Hockey, said he had done similar deals with AFL
clubs and saw indigenous footballers as a key to solving Australia’s
greatest unemployment challenge.
“[Souths players] are heroes to young indigenous
people, men and women, boys and girls – they can provide a role model that no
whitefella ever can. No government program, nothing coming out of Canberra will
ever be a substitute for someone looking at David Peachey and saying, ‘You’re
my hero’ and David responding and saying, ‘You can play rugby league, you can
work as a plumber at Redfern Oval or get a job doing this or that’.”
Training programs of this sort will replace the federal
government’s 30-year-old Community Development Employment Projects program,
which ended in Redfern on June 30 and is now being dismantled in the Northern Territory. The
Government says they will move indigenous workers from “the revolving door
of welfare” to real jobs, even if some local organisations, such as the
Redfern Aboriginal Corporation, believe the new regime will leave the most
disadvantaged behind.
Peachey, who begins full-time with the foundation in
November, will have his work cut out when he hangs up his boots. While the
Government has set Souths a target of 200 jobs in three years, the chief
executive Shane Richardson said they
were aiming for 1000.