Page 2628 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 14 October 1992
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
There will be seminars, workshops, information booths and videos, all providing women with a wealth of information and encouragement. An information handbook will be launched during this event, with an emphasis on employment, education and training issues for women. It complements existing material and will provide information which has not readily been available in the ACT. It will be available through community organisations, libraries and the Commonwealth Employment Service. Both will provide women with invaluable help in seeking and gaining employment. The Business Services Centre runs regular seminars which provide a comprehensive overview of the issues and steps involved in starting a business. They have specifically targeted women for a number of these courses and have run a number for women only.
The Government established the women's employment strategy grants as a formal grants program from 1992-93, as earlier pilots had proved extremely successful. This means that the Government is now able to offer grants of $60,000 per year for work in relation to women's employment, education and training, in addition to the priority given to women under the employment and training grants program. Grants were given in 1991-92. The Tuggeranong Link and the Migrant Resource Centre have been funded to organise business seminars for women. Approximately 25 women in Tuggeranong attended the seminars which ran weekly over nine weeks. The Migrant Resource Centre is providing useful information in their own languages to migrant women wishing to establish their own businesses. A grant was given to the BPW Blundell Club to develop a register of women and a program of activities, both aimed at assisting women who own their own businesses.
In addition, the Government is committed to long-term changes which will benefit women's employment. Business women's seminars, run jointly with Ernst and Young, have been extremely successful. The women attending are benefiting not only from hearing the speakers but also from the opportunity to network together. A full-time coordinator has been appointed to the tradeswomen on the move program, which provides school students with information to enable them to consider the broad range of career options available to them today. (Extension of time granted)
Madam Speaker, let me briefly contrast this Government's achievements with what John Hewson and the Liberals promise for the ACT - a loss of thousands of jobs in the public service in the ACT, with the resulting decimation of the private sector; increased workload and imposts on business as a result of the paperwork required for the GST; no compassion at all for the unemployed, as shown by cutting off unemployment benefits after nine months; industrial relations chaos resulting from the Liberals' Thatcherite view of industrial relations; and increased costs and hence lower profits and employment levels as a result of the GST. Madam Speaker, this Government has a record of which it can be justifiably proud.
MR STEVENSON (4.04): Madam Speaker, the real question is: How many people are unemployed? A number of members have tried to address this matter, but let me give some details that some of us may not have heard about. Professor Judith Sloan of Flinders University said that the figures are misleading. Why are they misleading? She said that, as we know, officially less than one million people are supposedly unemployed; yet 1.7 million people are receiving money
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .