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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 11 Hansard (26 September) . . Page.. 3476 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

about full-time equivalent jobs, permanently or for a year, we would know what you are talking about. But, no; you just talk about jobs. Mr Speaker, I could create 30 or 40 jobs in my office. I would just employ different people for a short period over the next year. I could say, "Yes, I employed 30 or 40 people". That is the sort of picture that has been built here.

Then, Mr Speaker, we come to the issue that Mr Whitecross raised, but, in fact, I had a question ready for Mr Stefaniak about the 50 teachers. Are these new teaching positions? It is an excellent question. I am glad I have the opportunity to answer that, since Mr Stefaniak did not get the chance. These will clearly give us smaller classes. An extra 50 teaching positions across the system give us a great opportunity to have smaller classes. I look forward to my children's classes going down in size or extra teaching staff being employed in a whole series of ways. There are to be 50 new teaching positions. I will be absolutely tickled pink to see those. Are these new teaching positions or do they fit in with where redundancies have been granted, where old teachers have retired? Are they replacing existing jobs or are they brand-new jobs? That is the question. I simply do not believe that we have 50 brand new jobs. I would love to find out that I am wrong, but I believe that this is another case of gilding the lily.

There are to be 60 very part-time jobs for graffiti cleaners. For how long? Mr De Domenico did not know the answer to that yesterday. He tried to deal with it again today. We would love him to put in full-time equivalent jobs. Perhaps the Chief Minister could come back in and be really open with us and tell us how many full-time equivalent jobs are going to be created. I dare say she will not want to do that because we would find that the number, if she is lucky, would be halved, which I think is a very sad thing.

There will be five trainee rangers who will have one year's work and then no guarantee of a real job. The budget papers say that they will be well suited to look for work, so we are not actually creating jobs for them.

Mrs Carnell: We train them.

MR MOORE: Yes, they will have those jobs for a year. Do not mistake me. I think that wherever we can find some jobs for some people we ought to do it. There are to be 26 graduates to the agencies, sure; four members of an ambulance crew, real jobs; 36 students and 12 women for work experience or a six months' contract, I am not quite sure. It was very hard to read this part of the budget paper. Just how they fit into those and how many jobs are tied up in that is impossible to tell at this stage. Then there are six indigenous recruitments, which I understand are full-time full jobs. In proper terms, less than half those that I have gone through, less than half those quoted, are long-term jobs. Of the 270, the best we will be able to manage is 130 or 135 jobs.

What about the other claim of new jobs, Mr Speaker, the 2,700? It is interesting that we got those figures. I have gone through those and said you will be lucky to argue that 130 are full-time jobs. Of course, 130 is much better than none. Of the 2,700, how many will we be able to deal with there? It is said that there will be 1,000 jobs in Unisys. It is a pipedream. They are pipedream jobs. We do not see them. What is more, they are not in the budget papers, apart from Mrs Carnell's speech. This is not a budget matter.

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