Page 541 - Week 02 - Thursday, 25 February 1993
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Madam Speaker, regardless of comparisons with the rest of Australia, we cannot wait for the next move by Federal parliamentarians, nor can we wait for the trickle-down effects of major economic reforms to filter through. Our residents who are not able to find work need the very best of our attention and efforts. I am happy to participate in any forum that is willing to address and find solutions to the very real problem of unemployment, especially youth unemployment here in the ACT.
MRS CARNELL (3.55): Madam Speaker, I think that whenever we enter into a debate of this nature it is very easy to lose sight of what is actually happening in the job market; what is really happening out there. The Chief Minister regularly gets up and makes that same speech that she gave again today for, I think, maybe the fourth time - or maybe it is more than that - about all the courses, the traineeships, the skills courses, and on the list goes. I should say "on the course goes", because it seems to be that way.
Yet she forgets to tell us all that, when you actually look at the figures, what is actually happening in the marketplace in the Jobsearch area is that the number of people on Newstart allowance now almost equals the number of people on Jobsearch. People are on Jobsearch, as I am sure everyone here is aware, for the first twelve months of their unemployment. They then go on to Newstart. If those figures are correct, and I am assured that they are, and if just as many people, or almost as many people, have been unemployed for more than 12 months as are in their first 12 months of unemployment, it does not say much for all of the traineeships, all of the courses, all of the money that we are putting into those areas.
That would tend to indicate to me that we should be having a total relook at how we are spending taxpayers' money in the unemployment area and what we are actually achieving for our money. I think Ms Szuty rightly alluded to the dramatic need to get away from the cliched statements, from the courses that employ 10 people, of whom at the end of the day two or three might actually end up with a job. That is important; two or three people are important. But when out there in Canberra we have thousands and thousands of people without work, two jobs here and two jobs there is not enough.
I think the Chief Minister cannot forever use that wonderful list of 10 jobs here and 10 jobs there as her way out, as her way of totally abrogating her position and her job of doing something about this quite dramatic problem. My understanding is that at the moment over 6,000 Australians every week are coming on to social security benefits because they are out of jobs. My understanding also is that that is made up of round about half Jobsearch and half Newstart. That just shows you that what is happening is that, unless there is a dramatic change in this country, just about all the ones that go on Jobsearch this week will end up on Newstart in 12 months' time. That is a tragedy.
Mr Berry: Under Hewson they end up being chopped out after nine months, with nothing.
MRS CARNELL: That has been changed, Mr Berry.
Ms Follett: It was seen to be wrong, was it?
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