Page 1268 - Week 05 - Thursday, 25 June 1992
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
the Federal Government is talking about running a summit on youth unemployment here; yet look how limited it is in terms of numbers. But at least it is going ahead. Let it go ahead, but let other things go ahead as well. That is the most important message, and I guess that that is the thing that if I were the Chief Minister or the Leader of the Opposition I would be most embarrassed about. Here is an opportunity to search, to look, to try to find whether there is something else, one other thing we can do to resolve this incredible social problem that our young people have to deal with.
One could go ahead in a speech such as this and talk about some of the problems that young people have to deal with as a result of unemployment and as part of the lack of self-concept that unemployment leaves. We could talk about the increasing number of youth suicides, which is part of the same problem. We could talk about education and those other issues that are dealt with in the many statements that have come out about youth. I think that to a certain extent I would waste this Assembly's time by doing that. I want to get the one message across - that we should keep trying everything we possibly can. I urge members to reconsider over the next six weeks the possibility of having a committee of this Assembly look at this issue in the hope that they might find one more idea.
MRS CARNELL (11.15): I would like to speak very briefly in support of the report of the Standing Committee on Social Policy and its chairman, Ms Ellis. Being part of that committee, I know that we looked at the issue very long and very hard, and it was with great anguish that we came up with this decision. Any committee that looks at an issue spends time and money, but particularly money. The issue has already been looked at by EPACT, and having now read its report, I believe that it vindicates my decision as a member of that committee not to go ahead. The money we would have spent on that issue should be spent putting into practice a number of the very good recommendations that are part of that report. That is something this Assembly and the ACT Government could do that would actually produce jobs. The concern of the Social Policy Committee was that we could spend a lot of money and a lot of time and at the end of the day not produce one job. That has been done before; let us not do it again.
MS SZUTY (11.16): Madam Speaker, I seek leave of the Assembly to comment further on this issue.
Leave granted.
MS SZUTY: I remind members that I dissented from the Social Policy Committee's recommendation that a select committee on youth unemployment not be established, and there are few points I would like to make. This issue has been debated at various times in the Assembly following the initial discussion of the Social Policy Committee's recommendation. The Chief Minister said in her speech on youth employment in the ACT in relation to the EPACT report:
The report notes that job generation is a fundamental issue for the Government and for the community as a whole and that cooperation between all sections of the community - notably unions, business and government - is necessary during a period when all areas of the labour market are under pressure.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .