Page 765 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 24 March 1993
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market is depressed, people who are unemployed often feel that there is no point in looking for work and lose their feelings of self-worth and self-value. How must this affect their relationships, and can we afford the cost of counselling and repairing the damage caused by long-term levels of high unemployment?
Mr Deputy Speaker, the community wants more action. There is a perception that the training and educational opportunities which are being offered by government are not enough and that more long-term sustainable jobs must be created. There are sectors of our society constantly under threat of being unable to provide services to members of the community; yet we have an unemployment problem. Mr Deputy Speaker, I feel that the current high level of unemployment is an issue which we cannot, on economic, humane or any other grounds, allow to continue.
MR BERRY (Minister for Health, Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Sport) (4.02): Mr Deputy Speaker, I do not know whether Mr Humphries noticed, but the payroll tax solution that he proposed has just been dumped by the Australian community. Mr Humphries sees that as the panacea, but what about the employers who would just stick the money in their pocket? They do not employ people for the fun of it. Essentially, what would happen in many cases is that the payroll tax would go into the employer's pocket. On the other hand, government would then have to find a huge amount of money to continue to provide the services that it does provide to the community. Where would that come from? Whom do you suggest that we would tax, Mr Humphries, or do you just say, "No; drop the payroll tax and forget it"? Still on his own little agenda is the GST. They are still supporters of the old goods and services tax. You try to bury it, but you are not fooling anybody.
Mr Deputy Speaker, Mr Westende also raised the issue of tourism and was critical of the Government - to use words that were roughly along the lines that he used - for allowing the tourism industry to just run its own race and develop at a rate which suited itself. The Government has established a tourism development unit at a cost of $380,000. That has been developed to attract and develop new events and to identify gaps within existing tourism infrastructure. The end result will be increased visitor numbers, better targeted services to those tourists, and, of course, increased employment; so the Government is clearly doing something in that regard.
The Government has also been successful in attracting new businesses to the ACT. The casino was mentioned earlier and it has been acknowledged as a major employer and as a feather in the cap of the Labor Government. There is no question about that. I will run through a list of other employers who have now established in Canberra. Maestro is one; Optus is another; Azimuth is another; the Centre for Plant Science; the Centre for Robust and Adaptive Systems; the Centre for Advanced Computational Systems; the ACT Wool Topping Facility; and Total Peripherals. That is a list of employers. We are getting on with the job. Do not be so cynical about what the Government is doing. Why not be positive? You just cannot get out of this mood that we have had in the lead-up to the Federal election campaign. You have to bag everything. Be positive and get private industry out there doing something. The Government just cannot go out and give them handouts. We have to build confidence. It has to be a bipartisan approach.
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