PRESS OFFICE TRANSCRIPT
PRIME MINISTER AT EMAIL LTD. 16 October 1978
signify any personal moves by you to become more involved
perhaps in the youth unemployment problem?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think the Government has been very much involved in the
problems of youth and youth unemployment right throughout.
This isn't by any means the first visit I've made--the first to an
apprenticeship school in Sydney--but in Melbourne to an experimental
programme for unemployed youth which is catering for a different
category of young people. They are people who, if you look at
their family backgrounds, might well have had nobody care for
them in their lives and have just given up
QUESTION: It's one of the major problems confronting the Government.
Are you happy with the progress you have been able to make
Sir? PRIME MINISTER:
Well the training programmes I think are going well. We have
about 110,000 people and many many thousands of those are young
people in training at any one time, and tens of thousands of
others have obviously gone through the various training programmes.
Tony Street introduced a revised apprenticeship programme, which
is called CRAFT as you know, and that has been responsible for a
lift in the number of apprentices. But he is constantly examining
the nature, the basis of the training programmes to see if they
can be improved or extended, to see if they are best meeting the
needs of young people, and also of course of industry, because
the two have to mesh in together, and a greater part of the
training, which is being successful, is training on the spot.
QUESTION: Do you think that private industry is in fact doing enough in
this field?
PRIME MINISTER:
We'd like to be able to see private industry doing more, but
if private industry is going to do more they have got to be
operating in a profitable way. They've got to be getting a
larger share of the domestic market and hopefully getting into
exports. One of the exciting things about Australia is in
recent times I've struck a number of industries that are moving
out into the export area, and because they've got stable costs
we are exporting goods to the United States again.
QUESTION: Would your Government be putting more money into apprenticeship
schemes?
2
PRIME MINISTER:
This is one area of the Budget where, in a sense, there was no
restraint in this year, because the sums going to the different
training programmes under Tony Street's department were
enormously expanded. We had said earlier that we didn't want
an opportunity for young men and women of Australia to be cut
short because of a budgetary restriction. So we've demonstrated
by what has happened that much greater funds have been, and
are, going into the various training areas. This is something
that Tony Street has got constantly under examination and
review to see that the programmes are devised best to meet the
needs of young Australians. Also, obviously, to see that they
are run as economically as possible because it's a question of
getting people trained for jobs and the more economically you
can do it the more people you can train for the same number of
dollars. The programmes are large, and they do cost a great
deal, and I think that looking at the sorts of programmes that
are operating in Europe, as the Government has, the training
programmes we have in Australia I think are better. They are
more productive and they give more people more opportunities.
That doesn't mean to say we are complacent about it. If we
find ways and means, through the training programmes, providing
greater assistance to young Australians who find it difficult
to get work, then we certainly will.