Page 1029 - Week 04 - Thursday, 18 June 1992
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positions with flexible working hours in predominantly the retail, tourism and hospitality sectors which is critical. EPACT suggests that job growth in these sectors and issues such as trading hours, penalty rates and associated award conditions need to be addressed.
The number of youth seeking full-time vocational support and not in further education is relatively small in the ACT. However, it appears that this group is most at risk of moving into long-term unemployment, and hence warrants special attention. Specific recommendations are made in relation to access to jobs in the public sector, in the private sector and of course in relation to vocational training. EPACT also states, however, that there are clearly other groups of an equal or even higher labour market priority. Whilst these other groups are not considered extensively in the report, they include women re-entering the work force, people with a disability, people from a non-English-speaking background, older workers - predominantly males - who have been made redundant, sole parents and Aboriginal people.
In the matter of public importance debate on youth unemployment on 12 May the Chief Minister noted that EPACT was soon to deliver its report and that it was the Chief Minister's intention to release the report for public discussion and to address the recommendations as a matter of priority. Members would be aware that the Chief Minister has publicly released the report this week.
Mr De Domenico: It would have been nice to have had the members of the Assembly given a copy first, Mr Berry.
MR BERRY: Be patient, Mr De Domenico.
Mr Cornwell: Where is it?
Mr De Domenico: Yes, where is it?
MR BERRY: All good things come to those who wait. Notwithstanding the need for public comment, Madam Speaker, there are a number of EPACT's recommendations that can be pursued immediately by the Government. The Chief Minister has requested all Ministers and their agencies to give urgent attention to those matters, which include targeting of funds to areas where there are the highest returns for employment generation as part of our budget strategy, reviewing public sector recruitment policies, ensuring targets for traineeships and apprenticeships are met and that job opportunities exist at the end of their training, and referring the issue of penalty rates and associated award conditions to the Industrial Relations Advisory Committee.
Mr Cornwell: You are finally waking up to those penalty rates, aren't you?
Mr De Domenico: Yes, another Liberal Party policy.
MR BERRY: We have not seen it with the same warm inner glow as the Liberals seem to see deregulation. If you think we are going to do what the Liberals do - take on the labour movement as was unsuccessfully tried in Tasmania in a way which divided the community - then you have another think coming.
Members will recall, Madam Speaker, that the matter of youth unemployment was referred to the Standing Committee on Social Policy. Accordingly, the Chief Minister has referred the report to that committee's presiding member. Madam Speaker, in May last year ACT youth unemployment was at 27.5 per cent
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