SERIOUS concerns over the future of an entire community have been raised at a meeting seven months after the closure of the Toomelah Community Development and Employment Project (CDEP).

Toomelah Cooperative Limited manager and Toomelah Community Working Party spokesperson Rene Adams said the meeting held last month and attended by Toomelah residents, ex-CDEP participants, and Federal Member for Parkes Mark Coulton- was called to address the state of the community since the closure.

Ms Adams said the lack of a CDEP in Toomelah had led to increased incidences of alcoholism, violent crime, serious depression, suicide, and attempts at suicide in the indigenous community, especially among the 88 ex-CDEP participants.

“It’s all about the underlying issue that we need an employment program out there,” Ms Adams said.

“There’s not much more we can do, the community is really dying.”

The CDEP, which provided community-based employment and training for participants, was closed by the State Government on July 1, 2009, with many of the programs replaced by the Indigenous Employment Program (IEP).

Ms Adams claimed the closure, and subsequent channelling of CDEP funds into Job Services Australia agencies under the IEP, had hamstrung the local residents as they were now forced to seek employment in the nearest major centre- Goondiwindi- with little success, or apply for Centrelink benefits.

Many did not possess regular transport to make the journey, she said.

She said the lack of community-based employment opportunities was creating a downward spiral in Toomelah, which could only get worse.

“CDEP made sure the whole community was maintained,” she said.

The claim by the Australian Government that they were working to ‘Close the Gap’ in indigenous communities was nowhere in sight in Toomelah, she said, and a “major step backwards” had instead been taken.

Mr Coulton said the government needed to step up and offer some much needed assistance to the people of Toomelah. “The Toomelah community saw the CDEP not as a welfare benefit, but rather a morale boosting employment program that gave the employees a purpose and a reason to get out of bed in the morning,” he said.