Page 277 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 12 May 1992
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(2) the committee shall report by Thursday, 10 September 1992;
(3) the committee shall consist of three members;
(4) the committee shall be provided with the necessary additional staff, facilities and resources; and
(5) the foregoing provisions of this resolution, so far as they are inconsistent with the standing orders, have effect notwithstanding anything contained in the standing orders.
I would like to speak to the motion briefly. I remind members that the current unemployment level among young people in this Territory is 25 per cent. I appreciate that the Follett Government has not been inactive in the area, but I feel that a better result could be achieved if all Assembly members took on this issue as a major task. We have heard from both the Labor Party and the Liberal Party in this debate, and there have been quite a number of sound suggestions as to what could be done in the area of youth unemployment. I will remind members that all 17 of us have a mandate from the ACT community to act on issues of major importance and that a unified response to the problem would be welcomed by the community at large and seen as a positive thing.
I also welcome clarification on the role of EPACT and feel that a select committee would be able to assist and take different directions from it and, in the end, help to address the problem.
MR MOORE (8.36): I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak to this motion, and in doing so it may well be suitable to members of the Assembly that I speak to the motion that was foreshadowed by Mr Berry.
Mr Berry: After I move it.
MR MOORE: I am quite happy to speak another time if that is the wish of the Assembly. Madam Speaker, I think some of the important issues that were raised in the MPI apply to this proposed select committee. One of the issues raised was the notion of Ms Ellis, who said, "Youth unemployment cannot be ignored". That is patently obvious; it is a motherhood statement, and it is very important. When the Social Policy Committee was given the opportunity to not ignore this, it would appear, to those of us who are looking from the outside, that it chose instead to not deal with this but rather to deal with a - - -
MADAM SPEAKER: Excuse me for interrupting you, Mr Moore, but any reference to anything that is discussed by that committee is inappropriate. We do not know what they have and have not spoken about, and we will not know what they have and have not spoken about until their report is published. So, I will just caution you and any other member of the Assembly that there is to be no reference to what that committee may or may not have discussed or may or may not have refused.
MR MOORE: Madam Speaker, just to draw attention to what I was doing, I pointed out that it was my understanding that Ms Szuty was going to take an issue to that committee. Nobody has denied that that was done, and I have simply drawn a conclusion. I have not talked about what was discussed in the committee; I have said that there was an intention to do so and that this matter is not being undertaken as a study of the committee. That is as far as I have gone.
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