Better links on Horizon

Regional energy retailer Horizon Power has set up an Aboriginal Community Advisory Council, its latest bid to improve Aboriginal engagement at a customer and employee level.

Led by prominent Aboriginal leader Peter Yu, the council has three members representing the Kimberley, Esperance/Goldfields and Gascoyne regions.

Horizon is seeking to appoint two more council members to represent the east and west Kimberley and the Pilbara region.

The council has been set up to provide advice to Horizon on indigenous engagement and to better connect it to its indigenous customers, who total about 40 per cent.

The ACAC also serves to create two-way advocacy and help Horizon generate opportunities through employment and joint ventures, as well as promote its programs.

In addition, the council was designed to make Horizon’s efforts on Aboriginal engagement and employment accountable, including reporting and monitoring.

Horizon Power managing director Frank Tudor said the development of the council and the organisation’s current levels of Aboriginal employment, 10 per cent, were tangible demonstrations of the organisation’s commitment to improving its Aboriginal engagement.

“Through the last 12 months the board and executive decided we wanted to up the ante and increase significantly, within Horizon, the number of people we employ from Aboriginal background,” Mr Tudor said.

“We looked for more opportunities to engage with Aboriginal communities and service providers we can use in the delivery of some of our work programs because it makes a whole lot of sense from an economic perspective and all of the social benefits are there as well.

“We do some things well but we can certainly learn and, having a group at a high level advising how we go about various things and our engagement with Aboriginal people, helps a lot and makes us more empathetic and sensitive.”

It is expected the council will operate for between two and three years, by which point Mr Tudor was hopeful the organisation would have developed stronger skills.

“If we achieve our aspirations and we get to the point where we are a preferred employer for aboriginal people and we can work seamlessly with Aboriginal people and white people and there is very little differentiation between the two, then there is no need for a council,” he said.

“At this point it is recognition that we can certainly do things better, it has been put in place to help us to that end.”