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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 3 Hansard (9 March) . . Page.. 742 ..

MR CORBELL: Indeed. As my colleague Mr Wood points out, it is late, but it is at least the appropriate course of action. It is that, Mr Speaker, because the work for the dole scheme is all about targeting unemployed people as the perpetrators of their own circumstances. That is what the work for the dole scheme is about. It is about targeting them and saying that they are responsible for their own fate; that they are responsible for being unemployed and that they have to work out how to get out of it.

Mr Speaker, there is no doubt that the principles of mutual obligation have been in place around the world for many years now, but where do you draw that line? We all understand that we all have to accept individual responsibility for changing our circumstances if we find ourselves in difficult situations, but there is also a responsibility on ourselves collectively as a community, and that is what work for the dole undermines. Work for the dole says that the individual has to take responsibility and the community will effectively punish individuals because they are out of work. Mr Speaker, I can see no justification for it. It is a cruel, small-minded and small-hearted approach to dealing with the question of unemployment.

Mr Smyth: You started it with CDDP back in the 1970s.

MR CORBELL: Mr Speaker, I hear the taunts and the criticisms from over the way there. They can adopt that small-minded, small-hearted approach. They can adopt that, but, quite frankly, Mr Speaker, I am interested in representing the concerns of people in Canberra, the concerns of the people who vote for Labor candidates here in the ACT, and I have no doubt whatsoever that the people who vote Labor in the ACT, the people who support the Labor Party in the ACT, and people who support these types of issues to do with social justice in the ACT completely oppose work for the dole.

Members interjected.

MR SPEAKER: Order! I am interested in hearing Mr Corbell's comments, not cross-chamber chat.

MR CORBELL: I have no doubt, Mr Speaker, that the people who elected me to this place and the people who elected my Labor colleagues to this place do not want to see work for the dole in the ACT, and that is why we are standing up here today. That is why we are arguing that it is inappropriate.

Mr Speaker, the Government goes on about how it is a useful mechanism for people to get work. Quite frankly, Mr Speaker, they should be focusing more of their attention on why it is that society fails to provide enough jobs for people to get work. The reality is that Australia-wide there are four applicants for every job. That is the reality. Australia-wide there are four more people applying for jobs than there are jobs available. That is the statistic, and that is never raised in these types of debates, Mr Speaker. The level of unemployment and the level of jobs is never raised in this debate because the very sad reality is that there is one job for every four applicants. So even if everyone out there is working hard to find a job, and the great majority are, the overwhelming majority are, the jobs are not there.

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