Page 3336 - Week 11 - Thursday, 22 September 1994
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So, Madam Speaker, a select committee on youth unemployment was not appointed, and the Standing Committee on Social Policy elected not to take on the issue as a self-reference. On the same day as the Standing Committee on Social Policy reported to the Assembly, Mr Berry, on behalf of the Chief Minister, made a ministerial statement on youth unemployment and tabled the paper, "ACT Youth Labour Market - Paper No. 1 - prepared by the Economic Priorities Advisory Committee, dated 19 May 1992".
My concern about teenage unemployment has remained, and I have kept a close watch on the statistics from the Australian Bureau of Statistics in this area. I noted particularly that in October 1992, following representations from the Chief Minister to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the regular qualification to the teenage unemployment figures - namely, that they were "subject to sampling variability too high for most practical purposes" - disappeared, due to an increase in the sample size used by the bureau. I acknowledge that the Chief Minister indicated at that time that she would make representations to the ABS.
Madam Speaker, what was most disturbing about the teenage unemployment figures in the latter part of 1992 and early 1993 was that they were all 39 per cent or higher. My concern about this continuing high level of teenage unemployment led me, on 30 March 1993, to give notice of a motion calling on the Government to establish a task force to inquire into and report on teenage unemployment in the ACT. This notice of motion remains on the notice paper. Since giving notice of this motion, I have continued to monitor teenage unemployment. I was briefed on the issue by members of the Chief Minister's Department on 24 June 1993. I continued to monitor the teenage unemployment statistics and noted that, while they had decreased below 40 per cent, they were still, in the main, well above 30 per cent.
I took note of the Commonwealth's green paper on unemployment. I took note of the initiatives contained in the Commonwealth's Working Nation statement. I tracked the initiatives in the ACT budgets for 1993-94 and 1994-95. I sought further statistics in the teenage unemployment area from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, for which I must thank the ACT Statistician, Ms Dalma Jacobs. I was briefed again by officers of the Chief Minister's Department on 27 July this year, and I was briefed on relevant training programs on 5 September this year.
I then undertook an analysis of all this information that I had gathered on teenage unemployment. This analysis showed cause for concern in a number of areas. While there has been a reduction in the very high teenage unemployment levels, of well over 40 per cent in late 1992 and early 1993, there were more unemployed young people in the ACT in July 1994, when there were about 1,700, than there were in July 1993, when there were about 1,500. The trend appears to reflect a gradual increase in the number and percentage of young people looking for full-time work. The ACT teenage unemployment figures and trends appear to be worse than those for Australia as a whole.
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