The federal government will provide $A400,000 to the Remote and Regional Workforce Connect for the NT to support a coordinator who would help link indigenous workers in the Territory to jobs on resources and infrastructure projects.

“Strengthening workforce participation is one of the seven key areas of the National Resources Sector Workforce Strategy and the coordinator will significantly enhance the opportunities for Indigenous workers to connect to employment on the resources projects now going ahead in the NT,” Federal Skills Minister Chris Evans said.

The project will initially target five indigenous communities as labour sources with the potential to add more communities in the future if successful.

Over recent months, the Territory government has been very vocal about the Territory becoming a resources hub and oil and gas capital of Northern Australia following Inpex’s $US34 billion final investment decision on the giant Ichthys LNG project.

Ichthys is touted to be one of the largest LNG projects in the world and will require 4000 workers at the peak of onshore construction.

This article first appeared in ILN's sister publication MiningNews.net.