Page 2609 - Week 12 - Thursday, 16 November 1989
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encourages the people who are abusing the system - and I do not think anyone can deny that there are some people who can do a lot more to get a job - to get off their backsides and go out there and get a job. I think that is why that suggestion by Mr Peacock was so popular with the Australian public, especially among a lot of traditional Labor voters.
One thing the Federal coalition, which will become the government next year, could consider further in relation to the question of unemployment benefit is starting up a work for the dole scheme. It is very difficult, especially, for young people who have never had jobs, who get onto the treadmill of being unemployed and who after many months of unemployment are perhaps unemployable. Work should be provided, perhaps on a compulsory basis, so that in order to continue getting the dole after a period they have to do, say, 15 or 20 hours work to gain the necessary skills, to do some community service, to get some training to make them employable, to make them a much more viable proposition and also to give them a sense of self-respect and worth, which work does.
Mr Berry made a number of other comments, such as that the effect of these measures proposed by the coalition would be to increase the cost of policing and administration responsibilities for the Department of Social Security. Having worked for some five years with the officers of that department, especially in their prosecution area and with their field officers who are rather lowly paid officers within their structure - the policy workers seem to get a lot more money than they do - I am sure the proposal indicated by Mr Peacock would have overwhelming support from the workers at the coalface of the Department of Social Security. I am sure those field officers with whom I worked for some five years would love it.
This is a very positive step by the coalition, Mr Speaker. Our Federal counterparts have set out what we propose to do to help the average Australian family, to provide incentive, to get back to a sense of reality. We have indicated where the money is coming from. It balances, despite the rather desperate efforts of the Treasurer, Mr Keating, to show that it does not. It has widespread support throughout the Australian community, and indeed will probably be one of the linchpins that will have a coalition government returned federally next year.
MRS GRASSBY (Minister for Housing and Urban Services) (10.56): Mr Speaker, I listened with great interest to the speeches of the three members of the Liberal Party, and I am quite sure that they were on their feet defending their Federal Government - I mean their Federal Opposition.
Mr Humphries: That was a Freudian slip.
MRS GRASSBY: Have no fear, Mr Humphries. I will be winning the bet from you after the election, don't worry about that.
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