E&OE....................................................................................................
MITCHELL:
Mr Howard, good morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning, Neil.
MITCHELL:
On the dole - it strikes me there's a bit of a problem here.
If somebody, by the time they're in their teens and on the dole,
is illiterate, they've really got a problem. Now, how can you
force them around that problem?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, the greatest problem is their illiteracy.
MITCHELL:
Yes, but how can you force them to learn?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I think you can. I think what is happening at the moment is
that people who are illiterate and innumerate and who can't get
jobs mainly because of their illiteracy and so forth, those people,
whilst they have the option of taking a remedial course, can opt to
discharge their dole obligation, their dole mutual obligation, by
some other activity. And the problem is not getting addressed. And
what we're doing is tightening that and saying if you are out
of work and if you are assessed as being illiterate or innumerate
as failing a basic test then as a condition of your getting the full
dole you should take a remedial course. In other words, we are making
it a condition of continued public support that the person in question
do something about that person's biggest problem. Now, I think
that is eminently reasonable.
MITCHELL:
I guess that's part of the problem. I assume that people who
are illiterate or innumerate, a lot of them wouldn't be that
way because of laziness or sloppiness, they've got a problem,
they've got a learning problem, how do you address that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, some of them, it is due to that but others it is not.
MITCHELL:
Well, how will you assess whether somebody can, in fact, learn?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, look, they will be reasonably assessed and...all the evidence
indicates that people who fail basic literacy and numeracy tests are
not all, it's not always due to a fundamental incapacity to learn,
it is due to a whole lot of other factors.
MITCHELL:
Who will assess them?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, they'll be assessed by trained people.
MITCHELL:
What, within the, within what, within job...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, there are certain basic tests that are already being applied,
where people accept, where people are unemployed and where they go
through an existing assessment procedure.
MITCHELL:
And what level of literacy are you looking for?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I don't have the technical description of it but it would
obviously be a basic, reasonable level. We're not expecting a
high level, we're just accepting or requiring or wanting something
that gives people a basic capacity. Can I just make the point that
even more now than ever before basic skills in literacy and numeracy
are more important. We don't have as many unskilled jobs. We
don't have as many manual jobs. We keep getting told that this
is a knowledge based society. We keep getting told all of those things
yet there seems to be some resistance in the community, although I
don't know how much, to the basic proposition that if the main
reason why somebody doesn't have a job is that they can't
read and write then something ought to be done about that problem
as a condition to a person getting the dole.
MITCHELL:
I guess compulsion is the problem. I think that might...
PRIME MINISTER:
No, it's not...look, what we're saying to people is,
we're saying to people, look, if you can't get a job, we
are prepared as a society to provide you with a safety net, to provide
you with the unemployment benefit but in return for that unemployment
benefit being provided society says to you it is only reasonable that
you give back something in return. Now, one of the things they're
asking you to give back in return is the willingness, if you can't
read and write, to submit yourself to a remedial course. Now, that
is fair, that is reasonable. It's society going half way and
it's asking the recipient of society's help to go the other
half way.
MITCHELL:
Will it involve a lot of people, do you believe?
PRIME MINISTER:
I can't put a figure on it. I don't think it will involve,
it certainly won't involve hundreds of thousands. I think it
will involve a few thousand people.
MITCHELL:
Will it cost a lot of money?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't think it will cost a lot of money.
MITCHELL:
The ultimate I think is the dole removed for eight weeks if there's
continued refusal to learn or to try to learn. How would you expect
a person, a young person on the dole, they lose their dole for eight
weeks, how do they live?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, if a person is unwilling to undertake the course then I think
they have to assess their situation. I mean, it's their responsibility.
I mean, what we're asking the people to do is to undertake a
course. We're not saying to the person that if at the end of
that course you've still got some fundamental learning problem
well, obviously we're not going to be insensitive to that.
But if a person says to society, I want your unemployment benefit
but I am not prepared to do anything about removing the thing that
more than anything else prevents my getting a job, well, isn't
society entitled to say, well, we'll only help you if you'll
help yourself.
MITCHELL:
Yes, I'm a little worried about the...about classing an employment
service who might be deciding whether somebody has a learning difficulty
or whether they're literate or whether they can even learn.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, but look, what happens is, there is a basic assessment made and
they are not all that difficult to make. And when those basic assessments
are made these people are told, well, it's a condition of your
getting the dole that you undertake the remedial course. It's
not a condition, if you're getting the dole, that you pass the
course with flying colours that you undertake the course.
MITCHELL:
Well, if they fail the course what happens?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it would depend upon the circumstances of it. If it's because
there's obviously a fundamental learning difficulty, well, you
can't blame the person, can you? But, I mean, you can blame the
person if the person refuses to try and do something about the problem.
MITCHELL:
So they could sit through the course, get their dole back, and not
pass the course.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I think most of them will.
MITCHELL:
Is this part of the plan to, sort of, extend the mutual obligation
philosophy for welfare recipients?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it is an extension of it.
MITCHELL:
Are there any other areas you'd...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, there could be, yes.
MITCHELL:
Such as...
PRIME MINISTER:
I haven't made any decisions on those yet.
MITCHELL:
No, what sort of areas will be...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, there's never any point in speculating about those things
until you've actually made up your mind what areas, otherwise
you just start hares running for no purpose at all.
MITCHELL:
Yes, but it's fair to say that you are looking at other areas
of welfare for extending the obligations.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I believe in the principle of mutual obligation very strongly
and so does society I suspect. I think society says we should help
people who need help but to the extent that it is reasonable to do
so we should ask them to give something back in return and I think
that's fair.
MITCHELL:
Do you think there's a lot of people bludging on the system,
not just dole but the general welfare system?
PRIME MINISTER:
There are some. There are some people who abuse it, exploit it. There
are some people who exploit any system. But the great bulk of people
don't but some people do.
MITCHELL:
We'll take a couple of calls on this issue. I'm interested
in the reaction. Hello, Peter, go ahead please.
CALLER:
Yes, good morning. Look, the reason I rang I don't think
the Prime Minister's got a grip on what it's like to be
illiterate. As a young person I suffered from health problems at school.
I left school at about 14, 15 years of age, went into manual work.
I could read quite well, do mathematics, I couldn't spell. Basically
it rose because I had a speech impediment that the education didn't
cater for, didn't know how to treat. I was treated like I was
simpleton when I went to school.
MITCHELL:
Are you literate now?
CALLER:
I'm literate now and literate because I married a lady who put
a pointed effort into teaching me how to spell. I went on and got
a law degree. The biggest problem with young people they will
feel down, they'll feel that there's no future for them,
they won't know where to turn and this policy will just turn
them off. It will push them deeper into their self-doubt. I mean,
society should be helping these people in creating jobs. When I left
school...
MITCHELL:
Okay, rather than go back to that, Mr Howard, would you like to react
to that point?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I don't agree with what the gentlemen said about it pushing
them further into self-doubt. I mean, what we are doing, can I repeat,
is that we are asking people as a condition of getting the dole, we're
asking them to, or requiring them to, undertake a remedial course.
That's what we're doing. And that is recognising, in a very
practical way, the problem that they have. Now, I mean, the caller
is...starting to go on about job creation, I mean, that is a separate
argument. We're talking here about remedying a deficiency of
basic skills and what we are saying to people is, yes, we will help
you but you have got to help yourself as well. That's the principle,
it's a very simple principle, it's a very equal principle.
MITCHELL:
Thank you Peter. Mark, go ahead please.
CALLER:
G'day Neil. Good morning Prime Minister, how are you?
PRIME MINISTER:
Very well.
CALLER:
A very quick question for you. I have got....one of my best friends
is actually 22 years old and I believe he has got the literacy and
intelligence of a grade two person. Now, he's a qualified chef.
He's done all his examinations and all his trade work through
the [inaudible] library. How would that affect, just a general question,
how would that affect him if the time comes where he became unemployed,
would that affect him at all?
PRIME MINISTER:
But is he unemployed at the moment?
MITCHELL:
No, he's not, no he's not.
CALLER:
No, he's not at the moment.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, look, you know it's an academic question, he is not unemployed.
MITCHELL:
But if somebody loses their job having had one and they are illiterate
even if they have held down a job......
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, the principle will still be that if you are assessed as not
meeting the basic standards of literacy and numeracy one of the conditions
of continuing to get the unemployment benefit will be that you have
to undertake a remedial course. I mean, once again, we are saying
to people, if you fix this problem your chance of getting a job in
the future will be that much greater. What is wrong with saying to
those people, as a condition of getting the unemployment benefit you
undertake a remedial course. They are not required to pay for it,
we are providing....it's a condition of them getting the unemployment
benefit. I mean, is that so unreasonable? Is it so unreasonable that
a society that is prepared to say to people, we will not allow you
to starve in the streets, we will provide you with a basic level of
support, we will give you an unemployment benefit but we have identified
that you have a particular problem with literacy and numeracy and
in return for getting the support society wants to give you we want
you to do something about addressing that problem. Now, I cannot for
the life of me understand what is unfair, heartless, insensitive or
lacking in compassion about that.
MITCHELL:
Thanks Mark. We'll take another quick call on this and then move
onto other matters. Jean, go ahead please.
CALLER:
Good morning. As a mother of a person with dyslexia who was not given
any help at school and has striven through his 20s and obtained a
position I think Mr Howard is once again blaming the victim. Put the
money into the schools, have the children taught to read and write
before they leave school. My child can read, he cannot spell properly
because of his condition but he managed to work all this time and
I think Mr Howard is once again blaming the victim.
MITCHELL:
Mr Howard?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I am not blaming the victim. I admire what your son's been
able to achieve. If you are saying that schools shouldn't produce
people who can't read and write I think that's a fair criticism
of the education system. But the Federal Government is not responsible
for the primary and secondary education system of this country. That
is a responsibility of the States. Now, I think by and large the education
system of this country does a terrific job both public and private.
Obviously the number of people who come out of schools without some
of these basic skills does raise some questions about the priorities
of the education system. Perhaps we haven't had enough priority
given to what are called the basics. And I know it's an old argument
about what the emphasis ought to be in education but perhaps we went
through a generation where for whatever combination of reasons we
didn't focus enough on the basics. But whatever it is we have
to do at a practical level with people who are out of work and clearly
one of the reasons why they are out of work is that their literacy
and numeracy skills are down. And once again I go back to the basic
proposition, we are prepared to help them, we want to help them, we
will help them but we are asking in return that they give something
back. Now, that is not blaming the victim, it is exercising abundant
Australian common sense.
MITCHELL:
We'll take a quick break and come back with some other issues
for the Prime Minister.
Mr Howard, is it correct that Treasury has not modelled the employment
effects of a GST on services?
PRIME MINISTER:
Treasury haven't, according to the evidence given yesterday,
they haven't, as part of their modelling, made any prediction,
quantitative prediction. And that's in line with a very, very
conservative nature of the calculations that have been made.
MITCHELL:
But should they not have had a look.....
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no....
MITCHELL:
.....well this is what a GST on services will do to jobs?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, there's certainly the advice....all the advice we have
is that it won't be negative but as far as the quantum of any
positive impact is concerned that wasn't included in the modelling
and that just indicates the conservative nature. But you will notice
that the evidence that they gave yesterday included a general expression
of the view that the employment impact of the package would be positive
but they just haven't put a figure on it.
MITCHELL:
Well, have the Government done any modelling of the effect on employment
of a GST?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it's very, very difficult to do it in a way in....in
a sense of the last, sort of, thousand. You can't do that and
I don't....I mean, I have never represented that we have done
that. What I argued was that it would have, generally speaking, it
would have a very beneficial effect on employment and that remains
the Government's view and there was no evidence given by the
Treasury officials yesterday that in any way contradicted that.
MITCHELL:
Gerry Adams is coming to Australia, why won't you meet him?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, there