Page 1267 - Week 05 - Thursday, 25 June 1992
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
SOCIAL POLICY - STANDING COMMITTEE
Report on Proposed Select Committee on Youth Unemployment
Debate resumed from 18 June 1992, on motion by Ms Ellis:
That the report be noted.
MR MOORE (11.08): Madam Speaker, I suppose that the Chief Minister and the Leader of the Opposition must be incredibly embarrassed.
Mr Humphries: He is leaving, he is so embarrassed.
MR MOORE: Mr Humphries interjects that he is so embarrassed that he is leaving the house, and indeed he has. It may well be that there is another reason, but there we are. At least the Chief Minister is here, ready to take her medicine.
The point that is most important is that both major parties, in fact, almost everybody who competed at the last election for a seat in this house, considered that one of the major issues for the election was youth unemployment - unemployment, of course, but specifically youth unemployment. The matter was raised by Ms Szuty in the committee, and it is quite clear now that, had either Labor or Liberal supported her, we would have had an inquiry into youth unemployment.
It must be of great embarrassment for people who in the election campaign said, "We will do something about youth unemployment", to be in this position. The Chief Minister has made a statement about all the things she is doing at the moment to try to assist in resolving this problem, and many of those substantial initiatives are laudable. There is no question about that. She also spoke about the EPACT report, which looks at TAFE, tourism, casinos and a series of other issues that may assist in resolving the youth unemployment problems as well; and they too are laudable. But are we not committed to doing absolutely everything we can to reduce youth unemployment? We should leave no stone unturned.
The embarrassing position here is that a new idea might come out of such an inquiry. If there is the chance that a new idea will come out of such an inquiry, we must pursue it, because of the price our young people are paying through being unemployed. Nothing could be more important in this era than for a social policy committee to look at youth unemployment. There is no reason why looking at it would slow down some of the initiatives of the Government. Perhaps that was one of the fears, but it does not have to operate that way. It can run in parallel. Every single thing we can do as a group on youth unemployment we should be doing, with a bipartisan approach as far as possible. Every initiative that can be explored ought to be explored. That is not happening under the recommendation we have before us of the Standing Committee on Social Policy.
Madam Speaker, I think it is appropriate for members to reconsider this motion, perhaps over the six-week recess, and try to keep in mind that an Assembly committee, initiatives by the Government and questions by the Opposition do not have to be mutually exclusive. We can run in parallel. We can look for ideas, and we should all be looking for ideas to assist in resolving this problem. I note that
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .