Welfare laws should be overhauled to force Aborigines to take jobs or face immediate cuts to their dole payments, indigenous leader Warren Mundine says.
The Labor powerbroker told The Australian that the federal government should introduce hardline welfare reforms that force Aborigines to take work all over the country.
Mr Mundine said welfare reforms started with the quarantining of payments in the Northern Territory but must now extend to the reform of labour laws.
"How stupid does Australia look when we are flying people in from overseas to do these jobs," Mr Mundine told The Australian.
"There's not enough encouragement in the system to get people off the dole and into these jobs," he said.
"If you're not prepared to put your hand up for a job, no matter where it is, we shouldn't have to continue paying the dole."
Cape York indigenous leader Noel Pearson joined Mr Mundine in attacking the government's proposal to import 2,500 workers from Tonga, Vanuatu, Kiribati and Papua New Guinea to fill seasonal shortages.
"It would be a tragedy if it had to be farmed out to other nations," Mr Pearson told The Australian.
