4.
PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P. J. KEATING MP
INTERVIEW WITH RAY MARTIN, CURRENT AFFAIR", CHANNEL 9,
WEDNESDAY, 4 MAY 1994
E& OE PROOF COPY
PM: we've had nearly a couple of million job _ growth in the 1 980s and we
have held those jobs, but we didn't grow enough jobs to take
everybody up and we have lost some as well. We lost some jobs,
largely we kept the 1980s employment gains, but what happens in
every recovery is that the new entrants to the work force are rarely the
long-term unemployed.
RM: Now, you have got to live with this, of course, you said back in 1983
you said that you inherited the worst recession in 50 years with three
quarters of a million people unemployed. Now we have got almost a
million unemployed.
PM: Yes, but in those days we had a work force of 6 million and now we
have got a work force of 8 million. So we have put 2 million jobs in
during the period, Ray. Now, sure unemployment is too high and the
economy is now growing reasonably strongly and we have seen nearly
a quarter of a million jobs created this year. But, the problem is as in
the 1 980s, the people who go into those jobs are not the long-term
unemployed. Someone who has been out of work a year or eighteen
months starts to lose their self esteem and their confidence and the
employers think that they are not employable. So, this is focussed to
pull them up and give them a chance.
RM: Well, you talk in this paper of half a million out of work by the turn of
the century, is that the figure for the hard core unemployable?
PM: No, we are saying that if we do nothing there will be 300,000 people,
long-term unemployed still out of work by the turn of the century
which is too much.
RM: The figure is half a million.
PM: We are looking at the prospect of getting to 5 per cent unemployment
by the end of the century.
RM: And with the normal rise in the work force that would be about half a
million wouldn't it?
PM: No, it would be much more. It would be well over one million, Ray.
RM: All right, how does that sit then if you accept that more than a million
are, in fact, going to be out of work, how does that sit.
PM: No, sorry, well over one million jobs will be created to get down to
around 5 per cent by the end of the century.
RM: And is that figure about 300,000 out of work by the end of the century
or 500,000?
PM: Well, 5 per cent of the work force then would probably be about
500,000 4 to 500,000.
RM: PM, how does that set then with you claim that in fact every Australian
who wants a job can have one?
PM: Well, it is the time people are in the pool, Ray. Let me give you an
idea about this. By the time we got to the end of the growth phase of
the late 1980s we still had unemployment of about 6.5 per cent, but the
average duration in the pool was only a few weeks. I think three
weeks on average from memory. The problem we have got here is a
long tail of people who have been forgotten. They have lost their
esteem, their skills and their job readiness. This is about picking them
up, intensively case-managing them, training them and placing them in
a job.
RM: All right, but again with respect, to say that every Australian who wants
a job can have one under this program doesn't it sound a bit like Bob
Hawke's ' no child in poverty in 1990'?
PM: No, what we are saying is that the aim should be that if we can grow
the Australian economy quickly enough that we ought to be able to
take up more than just simply new entrants to the work force. We
ought to be able to buy down, wear down, the pool of unemployed.
RM: This is as you say, if this is the best of all possible worlds, if business,
if unions, if the unemployed work with you and if we don't have a
disaster.
PM: Yes, but remember what we are doing here. We will be case
managing, we'll have somebody in the CES or a private case
management business case managing personally over half a million
individual people.
RM: How is that possible without an army of public servants?
PM: Well, there will be a lot of people involved in that, I wouldn't say there
would be an army involved. There will be a lot involved, but unless
you actually take somebody in and talk to them, know about their
personality, about their qualifications, about their work experience,
about their education, it is not really possible You see in a rigid
national system which to some extent is what we've had, somebody
who turns up at a CES counter, say somebody 45 years of age, might
have two or three children, he's just been caught up in a system and it
doesn't really find out their skills and place them properly.
RM: But we accept that and it is a dreadful situation for those men and
women in that situation, but 300,000 people have got to have
individual case management.
PM: 500,000.
RM: 500,000 individual case management.
PM: Next year 504,000.
RM: All right, what about the training wage you talk about. How much is
that going to be?
PM: That will be decided in the next week or so with the ACTU. There are
three principal elements to this Ray. There is a job compact for the
unemployed of 18 months or more. Then we have got two things on
the youth side:-the Youth Training Initiative for young people
unemployed under 18. We-Nil-case mana ge . every young person
unemployed under 18. That is, every young person in this country
who is under 18 years of age and unemployed, we'll pick them up and
speak with them, train them and case manage them. The other
element is Entry Level Training. We are going to start vocational
preparation in Years 11 and 12 at school. That is, away from school
on the job training during school years Years 11 and 12 and the
training wage is an attempt to engage another 50,000 trainees and
also pull kids in from their last school years and skill them.
See, the great change Ray, I think, people need to remember, is when
you and I were teenagers there were many jobs for unskilled people
to 20. That is all done today by computing equipment. The sort of
industries, the clerical jobs, and a lot of the message carriers; all that's
gone. So, now what we have to do is regard 1 5-19 as a period of
vocational preparation. We want 95 per cent of kids completing
secondary school by the Year 2000.
4
RM: All right Prime Minister, let me just get specific for a moment then. We
had last night we spoke to a man in Launceston who heads the
Unemployed Workers Union. He has been on the dole for ten years.
Have a listen to what he said and tell me how the White Paper is going
to effect him. The fact is that the jobs just aren't out there and it is about
time you know, I just get sick of playing the game and
pretending, going along with this fiction that the jobs are out
there if only I knew how to write a better job application letter or
I knew how to apply for a job. I was trained for one of these
jobs that didn't exist.
RM: But would you do any job? Get fair dinkum, would you
do any job if someone rang up tonight?
No, I wouldn't just do any job. No, bugger it. Why should I?
I mean, I'm not going to do a job that pays terrible wages or has
got terrible conditions. I am a human being, I'm not a slave.
RM: Prime Minister, you have said today that you are going to get tough.
Will he have a choice or will he have to take the job you give him?
PM: He will be a job compact person. He would be intensively case
managed, there would be a training course recommended for him and
there would be a job subsidy and if he doesn't take the job, under this
proposal there is a reciprocal obligation on the part of the unemployed
person to take any reasonable job offer.
RM: Or he goes off the dole?
PM: There is a set of penalties then where then he loses so many weeks
for the first time he refuses and a greater number of weeks for the
second time and it goes on in that vein.
RM: It is not up to him to decide whether he accepts the wages or the
conditions. He has to take what he is given finally?
PM: Well, he has got to take what he is given because what he is given will
be, because of the case management something that will suit him and
if he is unskilled, I mean probably his reason for not being able to find
a job is because the economy has changed from an economy that
used to have unskilled jobs and many of them, to an economy now
which has got many more skilled jobs.
RM: He says in fact, he lives in Launceston and he says there are no jobs
in Launceston. If you find a job in Burnie or Hobart would he have to
go there?
PM: No, this would be one that is within reasonable distance of where one
lives.
RM: But, there are hundreds of country towns around Australia like this.
You say that most of the jobs are going to come out of the private
sector. They say these country towns, I'm sorry, there just aren't any
jobs.
PM: There is never going to be an evenness of jobs right throughout the
country Ray, but in every classic recovery particularly where you have
got a high profit share in the economy and wages set right which we
have now we will get employment growth we have already seen it
as a quarter of a million jobs this year as the economy starts to pick
up. Now, there will be a lot of aggregate employment, but will these
people be part of it and the answer is without this no, they won't be.
RM: All right, on behalf of 950,000 unemployed Australians I wish you good
luck.
PM: Thank you very much, Ray.
RM: Thank you Prime Minister, very much.
ends