Grants to create new jobs through the new Remote Jobs and Economic Development (RJED) program are available to eligible employers.
Current grant round opening and closing dates are:
- Round 1: 11 December 2024 until 2pm (ACT Local Time) 3 February 2025.
- Round 2: 4 February 2025 until 2pm (ACT Local Time) 31 March 2025.
Visit GrantConnect to apply today.
Am I eligible?
To be an eligible organisation to apply for an RJED program grant, you must be:
- operating or intend to operate in a remote employment service (RES) region(s) – currently known as Community Development Program (CDP) region(s).
- one of the following entity types:
- an Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Corporation registered under the Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Act 2006 (CATSI Act)
- a company incorporated in Australia under the Corporations Act 2001
- an incorporated trustee on behalf of a trust
- an incorporated association or an incorporated cooperative (incorporated under state/territory legislation, commonly have 'Association' or 'Incorporated' or 'Inc' in their legal name)
- a partnership
- a joint venture (consortia) application with a lead organisation that satisfies the entity type
- a registered charity or not-for-profit organisation
- an Australian local government body, including Regional Councils and Local Aboriginal Councils
- a Corporate Commonwealth entity or Commonwealth Company established under the Prime Minister and Cabinet Portfolio which can demonstrate strong alignment with RJED objectives and engages in place-based service delivery in an RES Region(s) (e.g. Outback Stores Pty Ltd and the Northern Territory Land Councils)
- an individual or sole trader seeking to employ another individual (i.e. you may not apply for a job for yourself)
For a full description of eligibility criteria, please refer to the Grant Opportunity Guidelines on GrantConnect.
What a grant can pay for
A grant through the RJED program can fund:
- an employee’s wages, up to the relevant award or minimum wage rate (whichever is applicable), plus relevant conditions, such as superannuation and leave. This is referred to as the ‘Job Creation’ stream.
- equipment, infrastructure, capacity building, on-costs and overheads (e.g. uniforms, a shed, on-the-job training, insurances or operating expenses). This is referred to as the ‘Community Jobs and Business Fund (CJBF)’ stream. Please note: This funding can only be applied for in combination with the Job Creation stream, not on its own.
How to apply
Interested employers can apply for a grant until 31 March 2025.
Visit the GrantConnect website to view the Grant Opportunity Guidelines and other supporting documents and submit your application.
Get help
If you have questions about the RJED Grant Opportunity Guidelines, a helpdesk is available while grants are open.
There is also grant writing support available to support small organisations with their applications.
Call the RJED Grant Opportunity Helpdesk on 1800 939 500 or email REAS@niaa.gov.au
Operating hours are between 9am-5pm AEDT Monday to Friday, with some exceptions.
The helpdesk is open on 9am-5pm AEDT Monday to Friday for the duration of the application period of each grant round, except for:
- The last 3 working days before the application period ends,
- The period from 5pm AEDT on 20 December 2024 to 9am AEDT on 2 January 2025, and
- National public holidays.
Please note, the helpdesk opening hours may be different in your local time zone:
- 9am-5pm AEDT
- 6am- 2pm AWST
- 7:30am-3:30pm ACST
- 8am- 4pm AEST
The helpdesk will respond to emails and phone calls from grant applicants while the grant is open and up to 3 working days before the grant round closes. The helpdesk will:
- Provide a follow-up service for more complex enquires to ensure correct information is provided
- Direct applicants to information that is outside of scope for the helpdesk for example fair work for awards and minimum wage information such as calculators or websites.
- Provide clarifying advice on the Grant Opportunity Guidelines.
The helpdesk will not:
- Review applications
- Calculate budgets
- Advise applicants on what specifically they should write
Assist with grant writing.
The NIAA is collecting the following personal information from you.
- If you call our Helpdesk – your phone number if you are requesting a callback or follow-up phone call and an audio recording of the conversation
- If you email REAS@niaa.gov.au – your email address (this may also include your name, phone number and employer if you use your work email)
The NIAA is collecting this information:
- to assist with your query on the Remote Jobs and Economic Development (RJED) program grant opportunity;
- to maintain call logs that will be used for internal reporting purposes;
- to manage and respond to complaints in relation to the RJED grant opportunity; and
- for record-keeping and auditing purposes.
We do not need your personal information (such as your name) to assist with your query. We also do not need your phone number (unless you are requesting a callback or follow-up phone call) and you may call using a private number. If you choose to provide your personal information, then the NIAA will collect this information from you.
The NIAA may disclose your personal information to the Commonwealth Ombudsman to manage a complaint. The NIAA may also disclose deidentified information to the Australian National Audit Office, the Australian parliament or a parliamentary committee.
If you do not provide:
- your phone number to receive a callback or follow-up phone call; or
- a valid email
the NIAA will be unable to contact you about your query.
All phone calls are recorded for record-keeping and auditing purposes. We are required to retain them (as Commonwealth records) for 7 years to meet our record-keeping obligations.
The NIAA’s Privacy Policy at www.niaa.gov.au/privacy-policy explains how the NIAA handles your personal information, how you can request access to or correct the personal information the NIAA holds about you, who to contact if you have a privacy complaint and how the NIAA handles such complaints.
To find out more about how we manage personal information you can contact:
Post:
The Privacy Officer
National Indigenous Australians Agency
PO Box 2191
CANBERRA ACT 2600
Phone: 02 6152 3080
Email: privacy@niaa.gov.au
Grant writing support has been introduced for the second RJED grant round to support small organisations with their applications.
To access this, you must:
- be an eligible organisation – as defined in the RJED Grant Opportunity Guidelines
- be a “small organisation” – defined by the Fair Work Act as employing less than 15 employees and reporting an aggregated turnover of less than $10 million.
NIAA has engaged three organisations who are available to support eligible applicants to prepare their RJED application:
Blax Capital Pty Ltd
Blax Capital is an Indigenous organisation based in Sydney, which was established in 2019 to provide culturally safe professional services to Indigenous businesses, Indigenous/Aboriginal Corporations, Government organisations, not for profit organisations across Australia. Its directors have 90+ years combined corporate administration, financial services and business development experience.
Mahjae Pty Ltd (trading as Whitney Consulting)
Whitney Consulting was founded in a small regional town in the heart of the WA Wheatbelt and is a leading provider of professional grant writing and support services specialising in working with rural, regional, and remote (RRR) communities. Whitney Consulting has staff located in regional WA, Perth, Adelaide, Sydney and regional QLD, and 90% of their clients are in RRR areas.
Morris & Piper Advisory Pty Ltd (Morris Piper)
Morris Piper is based in Canberra, but operate primarily in regional and remote areas, having worked successfully with many different organisations across Australia to plan and fund important local projects. The team has significant government experience including with Commonwealth employment programs. It has previously led or participated on many grant assessment panels for Commonwealth agencies, including the NIAA.
If you would like to access grant writing support, please complete the EOI form and send to REAS@niaa.gov.au.
To note:
- These organisations have been selected to support eligible RJED applicants with the grant application process but can’t prepare the application on an organisation’s behalf.
- Applicants can nominate a preferred provider, however NIAA will allocate work taking into account a variety of factors, and an applicant’s preference may not always be able to be supported.
- Support is capped at 5 hours, unless agreed in writing by NIAA.
- The NIAA does not provide financial or legal advice to applicants or grantees, including as part of these grant writing support services. Applicants or grantees should seek their own independent professional advice on financial and legal matters, including compliance with any legal obligations.
- Participation in the grant writing support does not automatically guarantee an approved application. All applications will be assessed on merit against all RJED applications for the same region.
For any questions, please call the helpdesk on 1800 939 500.
The NIAA has hosted two Employer Information Sessions for people who registered interest. You can watch the recordings:
FAQs from the sessions are available on GrantConnect.
If you missed these sessions, there will be another one held on Thursday, 13 March 2025. You can register your interest to attend and we’ll send you more details.
FAQs
There will be multiple grant rounds advertised on GrantConnect throughout the life of the RJED program until 2027 for eligible employers to apply for funding to create new jobs.
Grant round opening and closing dates for the 2024-25 financial year are:
- Round 1: 11 December 2024 – 3 February 2025
- Round 2: 4 February 2025 – 31 March 2025
You can apply for both RJED grant round 1 and 2 either with the same application or different applications.
If you applied with the same application in Round 2 as in Round 1 and it was successful in Round 1, your application will not be considered in Round 2.
If you are not successful in Round 1, your application will NOT roll over into Round 2 and would need to be resubmitted if you choose to apply.
This program is about creating new jobs that communities want and need.
For the purposes of the RJED program, a new job is:
- a job which does not already exist within an organisation and does not displace an existing employee or
- a job created under the New Jobs Program Trials or CDP Trials.
Feedback from consultations in remote communities show people want local jobs that could be part-time, full-time or casual and be flexible around personal, family and community obligations.
Jobs could be to care for the environment, work in a shop, care for others, grow a small business or they may have other ideas.
There is no minimum contract length for any jobs, they simply need to be appropriate to what an employer and employee can agree will achieve the objectives of the position, noting RJED jobs are limited to a maximum of 3 years. If a position is seasonal, it is important to describe the nature of the role in detail as this will be considered in the assessment of an application.
Applicants should apply for one job per person they intend to employ. RJED jobs can be full-time, part-time or casual. This means, for example, you could apply for:
- 2 part-time jobs at an average of 20 hours per week to perform what could otherwise be 1 full-time role, or
- 4 casual jobs at an average of 10 hours per week to perform what may otherwise be 1 full-time role.
To ensure you receive adequate funding for award wages and associated on costs for each employee, each job must be outlined and counted separately in the budget template as part of your application.
Given RJED positions must be paid jobs with award conditions, traineeships may only be eligible for funding if the traineeship is a fully paid position operating under employment law.
It is important to be clear in your application about the nature of the position.
There is a projected regional allocation of jobs for the first two RJED grant rounds of 630 jobs to ensure all RES regions have the opportunity to benefit from funding and the creation of new jobs. This takes into account the size of the CDP caseload in each NIAA region (based on April 2024 data). The allocation is an estimate only and is subject to change based on application uptake and the outcome of the grant selection process.
Further details are in the Grant Opportunity Guidelines available on GrantConnect.
As an employer, you need to talk to your local community to find out what jobs and projects they want before you start the grant application process.
Then when you apply for a grant to pay for wages and equipment, you will need to demonstrate evidence of community support for the jobs you want to create.
The evidence you choose to provide is a decision for you to make based on your community.
A common form of evidence is a letter of support from your community. Evidence could also include minutes from community/board meetings that demonstrates community engagement and support for the project/positions.
We recommend including as much information/evidence as possible, so it is clear for the assessors.
For more information, read section 6 of the RJED Grant Opportunity Guidelines.
Grants will be assessed against the selection criteria outlined in the Grant Opportunity Guidelines. It is important for applicants to ensure they understand and fully respond to all questions and provide any additional information as requested. If applicants are unsure or have any questions, please contact the helpdesk on 1800 939 500 or REAS@niaa.gov.au.
Assessment will begin as soon as each grant round closes. The Grant Opportunity Guidelines provide an estimated timeline of application outcomes being released 6-8 weeks after the grant round closes. However, timeframes will be strongly impacted by the number of applications that are received.
This is because the grant round is a competitive process which means applications will be assessed on their merits and will be compared to other applications. There are several stages to the assessment process leading up to approval by the delegate before applicants can be notified of outcomes. Approval or partial approval of an application is at the discretion of the delegate. provides an estimated timeline.
Yes, everyone including unsuccessful applicants will be notified on the outcome of their application and have an opportunity to receive feedback.
The draft Grant Opportunity Guidelines (GOGs) for the RJED program were released for public consultation in July 2024 and set out proposed elements of the new program like eligibility criteria, assessment and the overall grant selection process.
Feedback from the First Nations Reference Group (FNRG), community consultations and findings from existing evidence on remote employment, including job trials, also informed elements of the draft GOGs.
Yes, the second stage of this remote employment reform is the design and delivery of a new remote employment service to replace CDP.
This will support people who are currently looking for work or may need help to become job-ready, with the skills and resources they need.
Current CDP services will continue to support remote job seekers and we will work to ensure a smooth transition between programs.
Read more on the new remote employment service.
Resources
You can download these resources to learn more about the Remote Jobs and Economic Development program and share with your community.
- Factsheet: What is the Remote Jobs and Economic Development program?
- Factsheet: A new remote employment service
- Factsheet: Bringing back the best parts of the Community Development Employment Projects
- Poster: What is the Remote Jobs and Economic Development program?
- Poster: Apply for a grant under the Remote Jobs and Economic Development program
- Social media tiles: Promote the Remote Jobs and Economic Development program on your social media
- Conversation guide: A conversation about creating jobs in your community
- Infographic: New jobs program in remote communities
Find out more
- Visit www.niaa.gov.au/remote-jobs
- E-mail remote.jobs@niaa.gov.au
- Call your local NIAA regional office on 1800 079 098
- Subscribe to our remote employment e-newsletter