Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 5 Hansard (13 May) . . Page.. 1254 ..

MS REILLY (11.56): Mr Kaine has just suggested that this budget has substance. I suppose whether there is substance or not depends on the way you look at the budget. For those people in the community sector looking for the substance, it is not there. Most of them are waiting for the real budget to be brought down tonight. In most Territories and States - and it is a pity those across the way do not acknowledge it - financing is a mixture of Commonwealth and State or Territory funding. But did we wait to find out what the Commonwealth was going to provide, so that we could be sure of what community services could be provided in this Territory? No, we charged ahead and the budget was brought down early, before the Federal budget came down, before we found out what money was available for community services in the Territory.

What is going to happen if tonight your good friends Costello and Howard do not deliver the community services grants? Who is going to pay? When Mrs Carnell was asked last week, she said that if the Commonwealth cuts the funds these cuts will be passed on to the consumer. The consumer is everyone in the ACT. Those particularly affected are those who have more disadvantage than others. We are not going to take care of them. They will have to bear Commonwealth cuts. There is no consideration in this budget of what happens to the most disadvantaged in our community. One of the previous speakers referred to this being a budget for all of us, but that statement very carefully avoids defining who the "us" are. The "us" always seem to exclude large groups within our community.

One of the gaps in this budget, one of the big holes in this budget, is the fact that there appears to be no strategy for the community, no strategy for community services. In fact, the whole of that part of the budget smacks of adhockery. If you look through the budget papers, it is difficult to realise that this is a community showing stress. It has had a number of outside influences, I suppose you could say, if you could call Mr Howard that, affecting its fabric.

We have had job cuts by the Commonwealth, one of the biggest employers in the ACT. That has led to uncertainty in the whole job market. But there does not seem to be any recognition of the stress and distress being caused to individuals and families within the community through these job cuts. It is easy to say that there is a jobs program coming. Last year it was Jobs for Canberra. This year we have moved back a step. We are only Creating Jobs for Canberra. If we have to expend so much more this year to create jobs, what happened to all the jobs that were created in the 1996-97 budget program? Some of them seem to have vanished into thin air. It is like looking for the ones that were flying out of the Kick Start program.

One of the other major issues within this community at the moment is youth unemployment. A large chunk of the Creating Jobs for Canberra program relates to youth unemployment. This is to be commended. It has been well received within the community. But there is going to be a gap between when you announced these jobs and when the actual jobs, or traineeships as they mostly are, are delivered. What happens to young people during this time while they are waiting to see whether a traineeship comes up or they get a small trip to the country to jump off a cliff in an opportunity to gain more self-confidence in that way?

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .