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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 07 Hansard (Wednesday, 30 June 2004) . . Page.. 3021 ..

leaving a core of low-skilled unemployed who have particular problems that will not be resolved by providing incentives to high-end employers in the IT industries.

ACTCOSS’ hypothesis is that the ACT’s unemployed are more likely to be long-term unemployed, as those with desirable work force skills are more likely to move interstate to gain employment. Those left are more likely to suffer some form of workplace disadvantage and need more intensive assistance to find work. My foreshadowed amendment “expresses concern at the lack of a comprehensive and targeted employment strategy which addresses long-term unemployment, under-employment and the needs of groups in our community who are particularly disadvantaged in the labour market.” This includes people with disabilities, early school leavers, migrants, indigenous people, refugees and older people as well—as Mr Smyth said—particularly those over the age of 50.

I was interested that government initiatives to address employment issues for that group were not included in the Future Directions for Disability ACT report. Although the social plan made a general pledge to reduce the number of long-term unemployed by 2013, we need a more detailed and tangible employment policy to support this aim. Another aspect of this discussion is the question of where employment is at physically. Mr Smyth said that there has been concern raised about employment in Tuggeranong, as there has been in Gungahlin. That should also be part of any strategy.

Also related to the question of how we are supporting people who are disadvantaged in the labour market is support for CIT. Obviously CIT is a very important vehicle for less skilled people to improve their employment prospects. I think that should be brought into any strategy as well. The question of underemployment also is always important to address. We know that underemployment can be a very significant factor in poverty in Australia and that employment figures often gloss over this fact.

Once again, there should also be a gender audit and analysis in any credible employment strategy because the issues for men and women are different. When an analysis has been done, it has been found that women are particularly disadvantaged by the casualisation of the work force. I was involved in a workshop on women’s issues recently in the Assembly—Ros Dundas was there; she sponsored it—and was working with the United Nations group for women’s development. It was a good and interesting opportunity to just sit at a table with a group of women workshopping what the issues are for women. Employment was a major factor that came up as a strong concern in all the groups in which I participated—and that includes questions of casualisation and part-time work.

As I said, the table on page 5 of this report we are welcoming shows where the expectations are strong. The strong areas are telecommunications, professional services, construction, property engineering, IT and retail. If we are looking at government social investment where ACT people require services, we find the areas of health, education, tourism, hospitality, transport and manufacturing are at the bottom. That presents us with a picture that we can pick up and work with in any strategic approach to employment in the ACT. As members we would all be well aware of the difficulties that certain groups in our community have in accessing employment. We hear those stories from the individuals concerned—whether it is the highly skilled people that come to our community as refugees, for example, who are basically trapped in poverty and unemployment just because there is no real capacity building there, whether it is talking

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