RECENTLY

1. Last week I travelled to Alice Springs as part of the Senate inquiry I am chairing into joblessness in remote Aboriginal communities.

The Ngurratjuta team showed us the work they're doing with jobseekers in Papunya. In this very remote community, people talked to us about their desire to receive accredited training and real wages, and shared their ideas about what's needed for their people to thrive. We also visited the worksite of an Aboriginal owned social enterprise. Government needs to start listening to local communities - who have clear ideas about what will and won’t work. You can listen to my discussion with ABC Alice Springs here.

2. On Wednesday I spoke on Triple J’s Hack program about the Senate inquiry I’m leading into how the Government’s postal survey on marriage equality will be conducted.

It's important that all campaigning and advertising remains respectful and truthful. You can listen to my comments here.

OUR TEAM

Last week Brendan O'Connor and Ed Husic highlighted the failures of the Government's PaTH program. The program has only been operating for six months and young workers are already being exploited. Last week it was revealed that that one young worker was requiredto work 58 hours a week for their placement in the program, despite the Government saying no one would work more than 50 hours per week. Labor has raised its concerns in Senate Estimates of worker exploitation and the Government has admitted they have little ability to regulate their program.