Page 1012 - Week 04 - Thursday, 18 June 1992
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MADAM SPEAKER: I take your point, Mr Kaine; but Ms Szuty is allowed to speak to her report.
MS SZUTY: Mr Kaine may be interested to hear that at the end of the dissenting report there will be more. I feel that I need to say to members that I have no difficulty with an inquiry into aged accommodation and support services. In fact, I welcome it as an important inquiry for the Social Policy Committee to undertake and I have had considerable input into the process of the inquiry to date.
However, the most crucial social issue concerning the ACT community at present is youth unemployment. Even though many inquiries are worthy of the Social Policy Committee's consideration, the one issue which I consider we have been almost obligated to address is the issue of youth unemployment. It was for this reason, then, that on 12 May 1992, following discussion of the issue as a matter of public importance, I proposed that a select committee of the Assembly be established to specifically examine the issue of youth unemployment, bearing in mind the decision of the Social Policy Committee not to adopt this issue as a specific inquiry.
My support for a select committee on youth unemployment was not approached from the viewpoint of setting an undesirable precedent, but simply from the viewpoint of wishing to address the issue in the most comprehensive way possible, with Labor, Liberal and Independent members working cooperatively together to reach recommendations which could be readily implemented to alleviate the suffering and distress of Canberra's all too many unemployed young people. A select committee of three members would have enabled a Labor member and a Liberal member interested in the issue of youth unemployment to participate in the select committee, as my fellow members of the Social Policy Committee had already expressed their concerns about their workloads.
Ms Ellis refers in her report to the Standing Committee on Tourism and ACT Promotion and the terms of reference of its inquiry which include the words "tourism related employment". As a member of the Standing Committee on Tourism and ACT Promotion, I welcome the suggestion that youth unemployment levels in the ACT can be examined in this context. However, this is one aspect of the Tourism Committee's terms of reference for its inquiry, and I believe that the issue of youth unemployment cannot be fully explored by this committee alone.
I believe that this ACT Legislative Assembly needs to fully address the issue of youth unemployment in the ACT, and I believe that it has the opportunity to do so through the establishment of a select committee for this purpose. I am disappointed with the Social Policy Committee's response to what is undoubtedly the major social issue of the moment in the ACT. I believe also that it is a major role of this Assembly to address the issues identified as being of greatest concern to the community. At the "Lighten the Load" forum held on the 2nd of this month at the National Press Club, which I attended, the Prime Minister, Mr Keating, committed the Federal Government to a national summit to address the problem of youth unemployment. During his speech to the "Lighten the Load" forum our Prime Minister placed on the record his commitment to a modern economy with a social ethic and stated categorically that more could be done to help young unemployed people now and that there was no one solution to the problem.
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