Page 628 - Week 02 - Thursday, 21 February 1991
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take action. Chief Minister Kaine must begin to show that he cares about what is happening to our youth and that he is not prepared to see them consigned to the scrap heap of long-term unemployment.
We do have a youth unemployment problem - a problem which cannot be explained away by our higher than average school retention rates or large tertiary education population. Some 36 per cent of our teenagers were unemployed in January. This is 40 per cent higher than the national rate of 26 per cent. Our current youth unemployment rate is also 40 per cent higher than it was at the same time last year.
While there is seasonality in youth unemployment, there is also no doubt that our rate has been on the rise for the last eight or nine months, that is, over the majority of the period that the Alliance has been in government. It is also indisputable that we are not simply following the national trends on unemployment. In the middle of last year, our youth unemployment rate was almost half that of the national rate. Now, as I said before, our rate is 40 per cent higher than the national rate. While the national youth unemployment rate has increased by 50 per cent, in non-seasonally adjusted terms, since June last year, the ACT youth unemployment rate has increased by a staggering 300 per cent.
Mr Speaker, in the face of this disaster we still hear from the Chief Minister that the ACT's economy is performing better than the rest of Australia's. I do not know what more facts than these are necessary for Mr Kaine and his Alliance Government to accept that there is a problem. The problem may be, in part, related to the developing national recession. This does not mean, however, that the Chief Minister can simply dismiss it as solely a national issue which he can do nothing about. In this Territory, the Chief Minister has given himself the ministerial responsibility for employment and economic development. He cannot shirk that responsibility. This means that he cannot turn his back on our young unemployed. The simple facts of the matter are that, if it does nothing on the unemployment front, then the ACT Government will be forced to pick up the pieces on the welfare services front. This Government will have to face up to its responsibilities at some stage, and surely treating the cause is better than treating the symptoms.
There are many reasons why the Labor Party believes that action must be taken to address our skyrocketing youth unemployment. Paramount amongst them is our commitment to social justice and equality of opportunity. Whether we accept the current recession as a necessary evil or not, why is it that the young must suffer the greatest pain? Surely, in a just society, the burden of economic adjustment would be spread fairly across that society.
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