Charting the potential for Indigenous employment in the mining industry

Using database and mapping techniques, this article examines the potential for local and other Indigenous people to work at new mine projects throughout Australia. The account weighs up the possible (micro-level) advantages ofspatial proximity of communities to sites as compared with structural (macro-level) disadvantages which still characterise the job-readiness of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, particularly in remote areas. For the present, it is found that the latter are likely to prevail and proximity alone remains aninsufficient condition for Indigenous employment uptake.