Page 240 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 12 May 1992
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
MR KAINE: I must say that I was somewhat astounded to read in the communique from the conference that youth employment and training is a matter of national priority. It is indeed. But did the conference or Ms Follett deal with the youth unemployment problem? Not on your life; they did not. All they did was talk about it, just as they talked about everything else on the agenda. We have 1,100 young Canberrans who cannot find work. Nearly one in three young Australians is in the same position, and it has taken the Premiers and the Commonwealth this long to identify it as a national issue. We may get some answers next month or next year, according to the communique.
What we had, Madam Speaker, was a lot of talking, a lot of identifying problems, and no solutions. The only solution is, "Come back in June and we will tell you what we are going to do". In the meantime our Chief Minister is left to her own devices to see how much more of the system she can ruin before the June conference. Just as the Commonwealth clearly intends to remain a high spending, high taxing government, so quite obviously does this Follett Labor Government. (Extension of time granted)
I thank the members of the Executive opposite. I have to pose this question, in conclusion, Madam Speaker: Where are the assurances of certainty and capacity for growth that the Chief Minister went yesterday to secure? There are none. Where are the programs for structural change and micro-economic reform that this Special Premiers Conference has been talking about for 18 months? The answer is that there are none. Where are the solutions to the financial problems of the States and the Territories that the Special Premiers Conferences have been talking about for 18 months? The answer is that there are none. Where are the jobs for our unemployed youth? The answer to that question is that there are none. On all of those measures, on all of those criteria, that was a conference that had a zero outcome. The evidence speaks for itself, and I am astounded that Ms Follett can come here and claim that it was successful. It is indeed a strange measure of success, in my view, and, I suggest, anybody else's as well.
MR HUMPHRIES (3.50): I want to indicate that I support the amendment. I believe that in the circumstances it is time that the ACT Assembly took some issue with the very bland statement that has been made by the Chief Minister and indicated that we are not prepared to accept these kinds of dressed up defeats as victories of some kind for the ACT. No matter how you dress it up, no matter how you look at it, no matter how you might put your public relations machine to work to disguise the effect, the fact of life is that this Government failed in the meagre objectives it set for itself when it went to that Premiers Conference yesterday. It failed by any standard or measure of that word.
Madam Speaker, the Opposition Leader has indicated that at the outset the objectives that the Government set for itself in attending that meeting were not particular high and, indeed, having set its sights so low to start with, it accordingly achieved very little when it came to the time to deliver. We have to ask ourselves, of course: What goals did it actually set by attending that Premiers Conference? We are entitled to ask that question, Madam Speaker.
We have here a quite important, quite expensive meeting of the heads of government of the whole nine polities in the Australian context, coming together in the ACT, as it happens, on this occasion, to talk about matters of great importance, and we are entitled to ask ourselves: For the ACT's participation in
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .