Setting up a seat at the table

Fact file Topaz McAuliffe Founder and CEO of 15 Times Better, which encourages and supports organisations to set up Indigenous affairs programs. Born in the mining town of Wickham, in Western Australia's Pilbara, in 1980 and later moved to Cairns. First job was at a local sports store; started a university teaching course, but realised that wasn't her calling. Discovering barriers to Indigenous employment changed her outlook; is concerned about the disparity in superannuation for First Nations people. She believes in living for today because you may die tomorrow - "we had a lot of death being a large Islander family". Her philosophy is to say yes to everything and worry about it later; enjoys travelling, food and wine.

- ALAN DEANS

Growing up in regional Queensland, Topaz Mc Auliffe recalls feeling lucky. "Being a Torres Strait Islander - grandfather from Moa Island and grandmother from Yorke Island - and growing up in Cairns, we were always told that we needed to get a job," she recalls.

After starting a career at St.George Bank, working in lending, finance and insurance, she volunteered for a project to address local unemployment. "That opened my eyes as to why there were high rates of First Nations people out of work in places like Cairns and Shepparton," she explains. I spent 12 months understanding what the barriers were. There were a lot of jobs and a lot of people looking for work, but the system just wasn't delivering. It was broken." A pilot work program was started, and Coles offered her a job. She spent a decade setting up a new employment system for the retail group, which has now spread to many parts of Australia. That led her to starting her own business so that she could become more broadly involved.

McAuliffe describes employment initiatives as having two major benefits for employees. One is to ensure that people hear about job vacancies. "It wasn't until I started at Coles that I realised there were opportunities to earn six figures if you worked hard. But there wasn't the awareness about career paths.

"There was a need for employers to find better ways to employ First Nations people. They had to refine their processes, similar to other diversity programs, and consider ways to increase opportunities. We found a lot of barriers, so we needed to identify where breakdowns were occurring and work out solutions.

"People take the attitude that they have employment, they've got commitment, let's just get moving. But it takes about a decade to develop a sustainable employment process."

What makes her system work? McAuliffe cites two factors.