Page 767 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 24 March 1993
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There has been a 30 per cent increase in funding for the employment and training grants program to provide employment and training opportunities for the disadvantaged in the labour market, especially those likely to become long-term unemployed, and a 50 per cent increase in funding for the NEIS program to support unemployed people wishing to establish their own self-employed ventures. These additional funds provide training and employment opportunities to nearly 600 people. The women's work force development scheme initiative will provide 20 women with six months' work experience and training within the ACT Government Service, and targets women over 30 years of age who have been out of work for over two years. You are not going to whinge about that are you, Mrs Carnell? No fear. The Government sponsored a major event on women's employment, education and training in November last year which provided practical hands-on advice for women.
Mrs Carnell: Wow!
MR BERRY: You see, doom and gloom. It provided practical hands-on advice for women considering entering or re-entering the work force or changing career direction. There will be seminars, workshops, information booths and videos, all providing women with a wealth of information. The Government established the women's employment strategy grants as a formal grants program from 1992-93.
Mrs Carnell: Whom did it go to?
MR BERRY: Here you are, whingeing and moaning already. You have not even heard about it yet and you are whingeing and moaning. They are not bad. This means that the Government is now able to offer grants totalling $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 programs. Whinge, moan, groan - there is nothing positive in that either. You cannot help yourself. Youth unemployment, of course, continues to be of particular concern to government. We have established the ACT Youth Conservation Corps and arrangements have been made to run the ACT Youth Conservation Corps and the Commonwealth landcare and environment action program as joint programs in the ACT.
This outline, Madam Speaker, is not exhaustive but it provides a small cross-section of the programs and initiatives which the Government has put in place to tackle the problem of unemployment. We are not moaning and groaning; we are doing something. As has been said in outlining the Government's priorities in 1993, the Territory is only a small place in the macro-economic life of the nation but we, Labor, will continue to give our highest priority to tackling unemployment in the ACT. All we need is for the doom and gloom merchants of the other side to be a little more positive about their approach to the people of the ACT, to show that they care, instead of whingeing and moaning about all of the great services which are provided in the ACT by a Labor government.
MADAM SPEAKER: The discussion is concluded.
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