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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 3 Hansard (7 March) . . Page.. 756 ..

MR KAINE (continuing):

When I said that it is up to the government to assist these people, I think it needs more than just broad policy statements. The real issue is how the individual is dealt with at a one-to-one level. The minister says there is a package. There are redundancy provisions and if they choose not to accept those there is money available for training. There is money available-I think he said something in excess of $4,000-perhaps to buy a computer or something. That indicates to me that the level of thinking for the people that we are talking about is a bit bureaucratic.

I would like to emphasise that assisting people at that level to qualify and seek employment elsewhere requires more than just the broad provision of money. These people have to be dealt with at a one to one level. Some of them probably have not even thought about other employment opportunities. They have been perfectly happy doing what they are doing. Now they are confronted with the necessity to change. Somebody needs to talk to them on a one to one basis and find out what jobs they might be interested in and what jobs they might need training for. It is not good enough to say there is money available for training if the person does not know, first of all, how to access it, and, secondly, how to use it to the best advantage for himself or herself.

We are dealing not just with the number of people who are confronted with the problem in ACT Forests. The same thing is happening in a sense with organisations like CityScape, and we know that it is going to happen with TotalCare because of events of recent days. So these people, if you like, are the models on which the treatment of other people in the near future is going to be based. Simply to have a broad policy statement saying, "Well, we will provide money and we will assist them," without being specific about how that is to happen, will be small comfort for some people at the bottom end of the employment scale who have only one skill and do not necessarily know how to go about acquiring another one. Mr Hargreaves gave us a case in point. It is not easy for some of these people to even know how to put the money to best use. They need one to one treatment by people who are qualified to advise them on how to go about changing their careers.

Several people have spoken about the relationship of poverty to the people that we are talking about. Some of them may well be living in poverty now. Governments talk in broad policy terms. The solution to poverty, we are told, is education and job creation. Well, they are lofty ideas but they do not mean much to the husband and wife and three kids living out in Holt in poverty. It is no good saying we are having programs to create jobs and to educate you. They are concepts that are far away from the reality of how those people live. They need to be translated for them into terms that they can understand and how they can go about acquiring this education and a job at the end of it. If somebody does not help them they will go no further than where they are today.

It is fine to have the policy statements, and I think the government has expressed a willingness to help these people in certain ways, but they need not just bureaucrats who are following a formula in getting one person from one job to another. They need people with some sensitivity to the issues and to those involved who can assist them to translate what the government is offering into terms that they can understand and can exploit in their own interest, and that is a one to one thing.

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