Page 4365 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 19 November 1991
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MR KAINE: I ask a supplementary question, Mr Speaker. Given the non-answer to the question, perhaps I could remind the Chief Minister of some of her budget initiatives. The works program is at a lower level than it has been in previous years and creates no jobs; in fact, it results in fewer jobs. Some of the initiatives are 60 full-time places in associate diploma courses at the TAFE and the re-establishment of the enrolled nurses training program. Given your comment to Mr Howe recently that creating places in TAFE does not create jobs, how can you now say that your budget is creating jobs? Secondly, how is it that youth unemployment is still rising, despite all the things you claim you are doing?
MS FOLLETT: Mr Speaker, I think I have addressed Mr Kaine's question. There is no doubt in my mind that addressing the issue of youth unemployment involves both employment and training and the way we were able to create some extra positions in the TAFE system. I do not think Mr Kaine should be running that down. At the end of the day, as Mr Kaine in his delightful way is trying to point out, we have to have jobs for those trained young people to go into. It is that end of the employment spectrum that I believe we have addressed through the capital works program and through the other initiatives I have outlined.
I am not saying that we have totally resolved this situation. Unemployment is a very major problem, and it is one that requires a great deal of energy and a great deal of innovation. The steps I have taken are helpful; but I am looking forward to being able to take further steps, and the meeting of heads of government in Adelaide should be significant in advancing that.
Payroll Tax
MR COLLAERY: My question is directed to the Chief Minister. In view of the petition she has just presented in relation to payroll tax, is her Government capable of sufficiently imaginative thought to respond to the many statements from the building and construction industry, the Housing Industry Association and other employers and subcontractors, and accept that her Government should examine the prospect of allowing reform of the payroll tax system commensurate, dollar for dollar, with apprenticeship and youth employment schemes? I have a supplementary question, but I will wait for the Chief Minister's response.
MS FOLLETT: I thank Mr Collaery for the question. It allows me to point out yet again that the amendments to the Payroll Tax Act which are the subject of current debate were in fact amendments made in 1989. Mr Collaery and his colleagues opposite had a full 18 months in government in which to address these problems, and they did not.
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