Page 546 - Week 02 - Thursday, 25 February 1993
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Importantly, the Commonwealth commitment to the future of the construction industry in Canberra demonstrates active support for the private sector in Canberra. We are trying to talk the economy up, not grizzle about it. Get out there and do something. Make your businesses grow. Get on with it.
Mr Westende: I have.
MR BERRY: Great work. You are to be congratulated. There should be more of it. That is what Kelty and Lindsay Fox are out there doing - putting more confidence into the private sector; not grizzling and whingeing. We have done a lot to enhance the construction industry. Look at the contrast. The Liberals plan to stop work on York Park. Well, well, well! These people say, "Get out there and do more". What a joke!
On public service numbers, the Commonwealth Government announced that public service numbers would increase by 1,798 average staff years in 1992-93. The Canberra share of this increase is expected to be about 240 jobs. What are you going to do? Increased public service levels provide a substantial base support for the Canberra economy and provide much needed expenditure on retail goods and services, greatly assisting many other industries and small businesses, like Mr Westende's. They make it grow. Get out there and get stuck into it.
Madam Speaker, in the Liberals' own words, cutting public servants off at the knees will not create jobs. What about the 5,000 jobs that will go under Hewson? You do not want to talk about that. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Labour market initiatives include $166m provided over two years to create 12,000 places nationally under the Jobskills program, $79m over two years for subsidies under the Jobstart wage subsidy program, and $73m over two years for SkillShare organisations specifically targeting training services for old or long-term unemployed so that they are ready for the private sector to use. As soon as the private sector wants to get on with it, like Lindsay Fox and Bill Kelty want them to do, we will have them ready, and that is what Labor is about.
The national employment and training plan for young Australians, announced by the Prime Minister in July, contained the following initiatives: It offered all long-term unemployed youth a six-month vocational training course with a Jobstart card on completion; the creation of a careers start traineeship to target early school leavers; the expansion of SkillShare and job training, with a link to wage subsidy for a job beyond training; the landcare and environmental action program offering young people employment experience in environment and conservation projects; increased subsidies for traineeships and extra support for apprenticeships - all good for business; a further 12,000 pre-vocational training places for TAFE in 1993; funds for the development of the Australian vocational certificate recommended in the Carmichael report. All this is preparing potential employees for small and large business when you want to get on with it.
Under Fightback, of course, 3,000 jobs will go in the public service, resulting in a loss of a further 1,900 jobs in the ACT, with the resulting decimation of the people you claim to represent, the private sector. The threat to the York Park project alone, and other Commonwealth construction expenditure, will damage irreparably the construction economy in the ACT. It will send it into a nosedive from which it will take years to recover. Lou Westende knows that. He knows that the loss of 5,000 jobs and damage to the construction program will damage small business and large business. Deep trouble from the Liberals.
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