You couldn't imagine anyone happier to be driving a dump truck on a mine site than 18-year-old Sarah Parker.

Ms Parker is one of more than 30 Indigenous employees at the CopperChem copper mine on the outskirts of Cloncurry.

"I started in the crystal plant doing copper sulphate and then after that they moved me to sampling with the [geologists] and then now they pushed me into a truck," she said, with a smile, after taking the new Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister, Nigel Scullion, for a spin in her truck.

Senator Scullion congratulated Ms Parker on winning a $75,000-a-year job at the mine just six months after completing a training course for Indigenous trainees at a purpose-built facility, near Camooweal, on the Northern Territory border.

Sorry, this video has expired Mines choose local Aboriginal workers over FIFOs

The Minister toured the Mt Isa region late last week to meet service providers awarded tenders to operate the Remote Community Jobs Program (RJCP), established in the dying days of the previous Labor government.

Senator Scullion has been critical of the way the RJCP was implemented, but he was impressed by the success stories he saw on his visit to north-west Queensland.

"It was just fantastic to see an 18-year-old Aboriginal woman having a job that's so responsible and [in] such a short period of time. It's terrific you can take advantage of opportunities that are right on your doorstep," Senator Scullion told Ms Parker.

"It's a great signal to other miners and other corporates that ... we can have these sort of outcomes."

Scott Seymour, 30, thought he could never aspire to a job in a mine, but he is now running the store at the Cloncurry mine site.

"It's changed my life, you know, in a big way because I never thought I wanted to work in the mines," Mr Seymour said.

He is proud of winning a job at the mine and said it makes a difference to have other local Indigenous employees working alongside him.

"This is probably the first time I've seen a lot of local Aboriginals being employed by any mines in Cloncurry with what we have. It's good and they're giving everyone a go - doesn't matter what colour you are, everybody's treated equal."

Mr Seymour is now planning to earn tickets to work on other areas at the mine site and he is saving up to buy a house.

"I think I'll probably end up dying here," he said.

"It just feels like home."

Local Indigenous workers 'more sustainable employees'

Leon Gertz, the Indigenous Liaison Officer at the mine, said the managers of the Great Australian mine at Cloncurry made a decision in February to replace their fly-in fly-out (FIFO) workers with local recruits.

The mine has shifted from a FIFO workforce of around 80 per cent to 20 per cent by employing local Indigenous workers.

Mr Gertz says the locals are "more sustainable employees".

"They have a connection here. They're probably already established in terms of housing, understanding the area, less liable to move on over a period of time, so we think there's more stability."

Many of the Indigenous recruits have come to the mine through an agreement with the Dugalunji Training Camp, near Camooweal.

Sorry, this video has expired Scullion puts heat on corporate Australia for indigenous jobs

The training facility, run by the Aboriginal-owned corporation Myuma has struck agreements with local employers, including the Cloncurry mine, to put Indigenous recruits through a 10-week "ready-for-work" training course.

The difference between the training program offered at Dugalunji and other Indigenous training services is that most of the trainees have guaranteed jobs if they graduate.

The General Manager of Myuma, Colin Saltmere, has helped to establish links with local industry over the past decade.

"We've been able to negotiate a contractual agreement where they invest in those trainees and the investment is paying for part of the program and then employing them at the end of it," he said.

After his visit to the training camp, Senator Scullion said it was "nothing short of exceptional".

"We saw that people were not only getting trained but they knew where they were going to work," he said.

"[I'm] very, very impressed and these are the sort of programs we should replicate."

Cloncurry an 'exception to the rule'

Professor Jon Altman from the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Research at Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra believes the Cloncurry example is the exception rather than the rule.

He says the new Government will find it difficult to meet the Council of Australian Governments' (COAG) target to halve the gap on Indigenous employment by 2018.

"The challenges are extraordinary. The 2006-11 changes according to the census have seen a widening of the gap in employment, not a narrowing," he said.

There is a steady supply of mining jobs in the Mt Isa region, but when asked how to replicate the Cloncurry example in areas where there are not the same opportunities, Senator Scullion said: "I don't think there's anywhere that doesn't have opportunities; there are some challenges with mobility, there's no doubt about that."

But Senator Scullion is confident his government can achieve the COAG target.

Mining boss Andrew Forrest is expected to deliver an interim report as part of his review of Indigenous employment to the Government next month.

Senator Scullion has indicated Mr Forrest is likely to recommend a more significant input from private enterprise to help channel more Aboriginal people into meaningful work.

Professor Altman does not think there will be enough support to achieve the COAG target.

"I think that the target - and we've got to remember this target's only to half close the gap, even though the terminology's close the gap - is far too ambitious," he said.

"I don't think 75,000 new jobs will be created in the next five years."

But Senator Scullion is much more optimistic.

"I do think it's achievable, certainly if corporate Australia behave in the same way that individuals and some organisations in the sector of corporate Australia have, we'll be well on the way."