Souths reap $2m to find work for Aborigines

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.

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