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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 10 Hansard (Wednesday, 25 August 2004) . . Page.. 4200 ..

We discussed this earlier. I think we are looking at it from two different perspectives, which is healthy for the debate—and Ms Gallagher alluded to some of those things as well. It is interesting to see all perspectives here. That is why I support the government’s amendment, given that it is an investigation. We need to do an analysis on what we have at the moment and where we need to be going. I commend Ms Dundas for putting it on the notice paper.

Part (a) states that children from jobless households are more likely to become unemployed than children from households with one or more working parents. I do not have the statistics in front of me but I think it is fair to say that we are talking now about second and third generations of people being unemployed, and children following in that cycle. We need to find a way of breaking that cycle.

Perhaps the first thing is that the parents also need support, encouragement and assistance to enter—or, in some cases, re-enter—the work force and the job market, to break the dole cycle for their children and themselves. My suggestion is that a parents’ and students’ class could be considered in the government’s investigations here—obviously bringing parents and children together, just as a side interest.

I will make some general comments. In this particular age group, students often have a sizeable amount of homework to contend with after a long day at school. Further work after school could possibly interrupt normal schoolwork and add to the overall learning burden. I feel that further work in a schoolroom would not be an option for some of these children. Therefore the question is: how high would the participation level in such job training programs be?

Most high schools have business studies or equivalent courses. Looking at many of the excellent models throughout our public school system at the high school level, some of these could be tailored and geared to catering for some of the students Ms Dundas alludes to here. I believe it is important to note that a school leaver with an established employment record is less likely to become unemployed, as Ms Dundas says, but, more importantly, as employers always used to tell me when I was the school-to-industry liaison officer, a person needs the skills to be able to handle the work situation. So I think there is a lot of merit in what Ms Dundas has raised.

There are other things we need to look at—how students with things that perhaps pull them back in life are able to hone their job application skills, for example. Utilising a standard school day might be the way to go, rather than working after hours. Ms Gallagher has pointed out that a lot of high schools have innovative programs to which their students are attached.

They also have innovative career guidance counsellors who are happy to direct students towards vocational education training and other areas of learning to develop job-seeking skills. There are grave concerns over the possible stigma that students attending a special job training class such as this would endure. I hope it would not become known as a students at risk participation-type program. I have flagged that with the Democrats—with Ms Dundas’s office. That is something we need to be cognisant of.

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