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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 07 Hansard (Wednesday, 30 June 2004) . . Page.. 3031 ..

such a document should be those of the 17 MLAs saying, “As a community, with complete bipartisan support, we will work together to make the ACT the first no dole jurisdiction in the country.” If any jurisdiction can do it, we can by having students, parents, community, business and government all working together. I suspect that that is the sort of program that Ms Tucker is looking for in her amendment, because it addresses the needs of every student who is at risk of leaving school early, dropping out and not finding a job.

It is easy to speak about the bits that the government has done for business and to say that some of the surveys do not compliment the government on what it has done and business does not like what it has done, but the amendment is not about business in particular. The amendment is about finding jobs for people at risk, particularly those who are disadvantaged in the labour market. The opposition will be supporting the amendment. We think that it is necessary. We believe that it is something that the government should have done by now. I finish on the positive note that if we as an Assembly get together and if we as a jurisdiction, through the leadership that can only be offered by this place, want to work together on making the ACT the first no dole jurisdiction in this country, I will be quite happy to work with the government in a totally bipartisan way to achieve that.

MS TUCKER: I seek leave to make further comments.

Leave granted.

MS TUCKER: I will be brief. I want to respond to the concerns of Mr Hargreaves and Mr Quinlan about my amendment. As Mr Smyth said, significant work has been done through the committee system here on, in particular, the failure of students at risk to complete their education. Obviously, prevention is very desirable in this area to ensure that children manage to finish year 12. As I mentioned, the CIT is very important in that regard.

Mr Hargreaves seemed to be focusing on physically and intellectually incapable people. I am quoting what he said; I wrote that down. I think that he is failing to acknowledge social disadvantage in the labour market. The situation is far more complex than just being about physically and intellectually incapable people. I am not speaking just about those groups. I think that an understanding of the labour market would lead you to recognise that it is not just about physical and intellectual disability; it is about social disadvantage.

That can be through poor education, being a migrant, being older, being Aboriginal or being a child of someone who is unemployed. The cycle of unemployment and disadvantage is clearly understood in the analyses that are presented to decision makers. That is a really simplistic response to make to what I am asking for here. I want to make it quite clear that my understanding is much broader than the one that Mr Hargreaves has mentioned.

Mr Hargreaves advanced a put up or shut up argument, as did Mr Quinlan. I find that a bit extraordinary. We are asked to keep the government accountable and to make comments as a parliament about what the government is doing and to say that we do not have the right to do that unless we have the full plan is quite inappropriate and is to fail

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