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

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 07 Hansard (Wednesday, 30 June 2004) . . Page.. 3032 ..

to recognise the role of the parliament in keeping the executive accountable and in assisting the executive to deliver better policy. I would be quite happy to go on at length about some of the suggestions that I have made over the years, but I think that this is probably not the time to do it.

I will make just a couple of comments. I did not quite hear what Mr Quinlan was saying, as he was speaking softly, but I think he was saying that people need to understand that there will be employment opportunities if the government is providing incentives and the upper end of the market is being stimulated as there will be a trickle down effect. That is true to a point and the Greens do not have any problem with stimulating the business community and doing the things that the government is doing in that area.

I do not want to be misunderstood; I am not just being critical of the government. I am pointing out what I see to be a deficit in their approach. I support how they are working with the business community, but I am pointing out that there are lots of people in the community that will not benefit, that the trickle down effect will not happen automatically because of the disadvantage that people are starting off with and that they need to be assisted to overcome that disadvantage so that they can compete more equally in the labour market. That is about really understanding the barriers.

Mr Quinlan said, “Tell us how to do it.” Mr Quinlan, you need to be doing work in the community and talking to the community services sector for a start. That would be a very good source of information for you about the issues. Go and talk to the Migrant Resource Centre, go and talk to ACTCOSS, go and talk to people from the Youth Coalition. The expertise exists in our community. I know what they are saying. You should know what they are saying. If you do not, you can find out. It is not that difficult to ask people on the ground what the barriers are and then design an employment strategy that actually deals with those barriers.

As to suggestions, I have to say that in some ways I have seen some inconsistencies coming from the government in their support for the knowledge industry in the ACT. I was really surprised and concerned that there was little public response from the government to how the proposed new CRC at the ANU was cut by the federal government and the general approach to CRCs. I think that it is fundamental to employment and the competitive and comparative advantage we can have in the ACT to have the benefit of the educational institutions that we have here.

Another point that has been made often by me in speeches here is about understanding the employment value of the community sector. I know that the government acknowledges that environmental technology and the environment industry are a source of employment. But, for example, when I put up a proposal about having a particular target for the solarisation of houses in the ACT by 2005, the response from the government was, “We can’t do that. We would not have enough people to do it.” That would be an opportunity to provide intensive training for unskilled workers to achieve this result, which would bring about benefits for the environment as well as the social benefits of the training. We need to be thinking here a bit more laterally. Mr Hargreaves said, “Don’t worry about that; it’s dealt with in the white paper.”

Mr Hargreaves: I didn’t say that.

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