Page 3333 - Week 11 - Thursday, 22 September 1994
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that the ACT Government is most supportive of the high priority that his Government has given to addressing the issue of unemployment and its impacts on the community. The ACT Government is committed to working cooperatively with the Commonwealth to ensure that the ACT community can take maximum advantage of the benefits of Working Nation.
The ACT Government has also fully supported the development of the national training wage award through the Australian Industrial Relations Commission and is actively facilitating the broad application of the award across the ACT's private sector and in the ACT Government Service. As members may be aware, Working Nation also promised to expand the number of entry-level training places by 50,000 nationally. The implementation of the national training wage award will facilitate the provision of many thousands of other on-the-job training places. It is important that the ACT obtain its share of these positions. The Commonwealth is also introducing client case management for unemployed people, both through a new arm of the CES, to be known as Employment Assistance Australia, and through private sector providers. Under the new arrangements, teenagers 18 and under who have been unemployed for three months will receive individual case management. This will be particularly important to early school leavers who are having difficulty making the school to work transition.
Madam Speaker, as I have clearly demonstrated, there are many developments already under way in both the ACT and Commonwealth governments to help reduce the number of unemployed teenagers. In fact, my major concern is to put in place arrangements that will ensure that the unemployed in the ACT benefit from these changes. I have, therefore, given the ACT Government Service Social Justice Committee, chaired by the Secretary of the Chief Minister's Department and comprising representatives at the most senior levels of all ACT government agencies, the task of ensuring that the implementation of these arrangements by the responsible agencies occurs in a coordinated and timely fashion. Specifically, I have given it the following terms of reference:
(i) coordinate the implementation of training arrangements with the ACT Government which link in with the needs of the private sector and which take maximum advantage of funding made available through the Working Nation package;
(ii) coordinate the implementation of the National Training Wage Award in the ACT and the establishment of traineeships in a wide number of industries throughout the ACT;
(iii) coordinate information dissemination within schools and the wider community, to prepare school leavers and their families better for the school-to-work transition.
(iv) coordinate the examination of means by which the ACT Government can increase its capacity to provide employment opportunities on merit to teenagers; and
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