4f
PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P J KEATING MP
AND THE MINISTER FOR EMPLOYMENT, EDUCATION AND TRAINING, THE HON SIMON
CREAN MP, PRESS CONFERENCE, FRANKSTON CULTURAL CENTRE, FRANKSTON,
29 JANUARY 1996
E& OE PROOF COPY
PM: Thanks very much for coming along. What we have done here today with Young
Australia is, again, another extension of the policies and the commitment we have had
to the unemployed, the long term unemployed and the young unemployed. You may
recall I said at the time of the last election that we wouldn't be leaving the unemployed
behind. You know what happens in societies, that people who are particularly long
term unemployed tend to drift towards the outer edges of the pool of unemployed
persons and as the economy starts producing new jobs, the people who take them are
the new entrants to the Labor force school leavers, migrants et cetera. So, these
people in some countries are just completely sidelined, they are cast aside, they don't
get their training back, they don't get their skills back, of course, they never get their
esteem back, they don't have any experience so they stay unemployed.
In the last 12 months we have had the biggest fall in unemployment on record and as I
made clear and Simon Crean made clear today, we are now seeing unemployment
amongst 15 to 19 year olds drop to 88,000 that is 88,000 of the age group of young
people 15 to 19 which is 1 .3 million.
In our initiative today in Young Australia, what we are doing is looking at the application
of resources and new resources and fine tuning some of the programs we have had
and trying to make some existing ones stronger. And what we are saying is that by the
tumn of the century we should be at a position where every 15 to 19 year old will have
the opportunity of a job or an education or training place. You know that with youth
training initiatives in Working Nation, we have tried to get this focussed now on young
people in years 11 and 12 looking at what they might do in the work force and getting
some vocational training while they are in years 11 and 12. The Jobs Pathway
Guarantee under which year 12 school leavers will have successfully completed
vocational subjects while at school, will get a guaranteed job within three months of
leaving and we will expand that by 12,000 placements per year in 1997/ 98.
Perhaps I might just finish my remarks and invite Simon to open his. That is, that
again this is a further commitment which the Govemnment has been working up now for
months to focus another program of roughly $ 200 million towards this particular
problem of young people and their job opportunities and seeking to get that
unemployment rate down amongst young people 15 to 19 and much better streaming
out of years 11 and 12 into work. Simon and I had the pleasure of launching the Youth
Training Initiative in NSW about a year ago and we are starting to really see now,
employers starting to find young people in years 11 and 12 and getting them vocational
experience so that they can know that there is a career path for them. In fact, a couple
of major companies have come our way actually now with shortages of skills in some
places, looking in years 11 and 12 to get young people interested, give them some
vocational training and get them started.
So, this is part of the general view the Government has had. That for those of the age
of between 15 and 19, there is a period of vocational preparation and you know that
when we took office, only three in ten young Australians completed year 12. This year
it is around eight in ten. We have taken the number of university places from 320,000
to 560,000 and we have now invested $ 1.5 billion into vocational education through the
Australian National Training Authority and through our grouping arrangements with the
States in TAFE. So, building the TAFE system up so that it can sit beside the
universities as an alternative system and at the same time strengthening the
traineeships where on the job training marks out a career path, plus the case
management and all of the other things which have come with Working Nation and
these changes mean that for the group 15 to 19 the transformation is quite profound
compared to a decade ago when I might say, the last Coalition Government was quite
happy to leave only three young people in ten completing secondary school. Any
claims that they thought they might have had to a clever country, how can you have a
clever country when seven out of ten young people didn't even complete secondary
school? This is why all of this has been important, we think, for the transformation of Australian
education and the opportunities for young people in that important age group of
preparation 15 to 19. 1 will invite Simon to add to my remarks.
SC: Thanks very much. I think that one thing that should be said that we have both been
able to do that most countries can't do is to combine labour market programs with
education programs and we have that ability because they are under one portfolio in
this country. The Jobs Pathway guarantee in essence is no more than linking an
existing labour market program with programs being offered through schools. But, by
linking them, we can meet the question that many young people ask, will the training
lead to a job. Many of the initiatives that we have announced tries to address that
question, by a more effective linkage between what they do in schools, getting
employers more committed to giving direction about what schools should provide and
at the same time making a commitment to take them on. We have opened up the
options by which employers can now employ. So, between the ABTS pathway, the
Jobs Pathway guarantee, the part time traineeships and structured traineeships
employers in this country now have the ability to take on someone on a regular basis in
their employment for between one hour or full time a week. It is a huge flexibility that
we are offering employers, so it is not just new options for young people enabling them
to pursue their interests in a number of vocations that they have a passion about, be it
the environment, the arts media entertainment, those sorts of areas. It is also about
offering and encouraging wider choice and opportunity on the part of employers.
The other point that I would make is that I have heard John Howard saying that his
solution is that you free up small business and that creates the employment. Of the
740,000 jobs created under this Government 70 per cent have been created by small
business. Traineeships; now demanded by small business didn't exist before Working
Nation, we set a target for Victoria of 1000 trainees in small business traineeships, it is
now 1500. There have been 200 new traineeships; in this area already this year. So, lI
believe we have got the product right, it is the reason why the demand for traineeships
now is at record levels. We have a commitment in this document, not only to the
34,000 traineeships that businesses will take on this financial year, but to build on that
thereafter. You will see a little table in one of the press releases that indicates where
that extra 17,000 traineeships might come from and they are all industry. They are all
jobs which before Working Nation, simply didn't have a traineeship.
You have heard Cindy today, she is one of many examples. Look at the statistics, 83
per cent of people that go through a traineeship get a job. It is one of the most
successful labour market programs, but it has not been widely enough available. It
hasn't covered the industries in which the job growth has occurred and it hasn't been
integrated back into the school area.
Another salutary point, I think, is that if you look at the participation rates, there has
been a slight drop in the participation rates in secondary school. I think this is a bit of a
problem for us because it would appear that young people are seeking to chance their
armn in the labour market because they see the opportunity has grown. But we know
the chances of being unemployed are twice as high for people who don't have the year
12 equivalent qualifications than for someone who does. That is the reason why we
simply have to make school much more relevant in providing options to young people
to prepare themselves for the work place and these pathways go in that direction.
Again, these initiatives aren't just about encouraging young people to take on vocations
as employees, again, we have a major new initiative called Youth Enterprise Scheme
the YES program which encourages them to set up in small business. I believe, that
if there is a demand for small business skills, then it is clearly in evidence by the
trainesships that we should be using the schools to more effectively prepare people to
start their own business.
I am confident that with the initiatives we have taken to date, the building on those
initiatives that these programs represent, that the guarantees that we are making that
by the turn of the century every 15 to 19 year old will have the opportunity of an offer in
employment, in training or in education. That if we can get these initiatives together,
we will achieve a target of five per cent unemployment for unemployed people seeking
full time work. Again, it is our preparedness to set the targets, to back them with
resources, to show that the programs have been worked and built upon, that
distinguishes us in a very significant way from the Opposition.
J: Prime Minister, you have identified your speech as the most important policy of the
campaign what do you see as the other defining issues of the campaign?
PM: I think the defining issues are the fact that we maintain a cooperative environment in
Australia. That in the labour market where we have seen high productivity growth and
low inflation and high employment growth, that that model of cooperation, of good
spiritedness remains. That means commitments to people by the Government to run
the economy faster than it otherwise would: to produce more employment than it
otherwise would in return for a sensible wage outcomes and commitments to the
unemployed. That is the model that my colleagues have worked on now for over a
decade. It is a model that has given Australia 40 per cent more competitiveness than it
had a decade ago. It has given us three times the rate of employment growth as their
was under the Liberal's and it has given us twice the rate of economic growth. The
commitment today is a commitment to social cohesion, it is a commitment to Australia
moving on together, that one group will not be left out. The last group we want to see
left out is young people.
J: Are you promising with this commitment to create the precondition for negligible youth
unemployment by the turn of the century?
PM: What we are trying to do
J: and if so ( inaudible)..
PM: We are the only people in the business. You don't hear the Liberal Party talking about
targets for unemployment. We are the people who are saying we want to get all those
in the labour market looking for work down to around five per cent by the turn of the
century. That is what we are about and that is why we put Working Nation into play.
You will remember the assault Alexander Downer made on it, he said it was a waste of
money and it was the exact fulfilment of an election commitment, not to leave the
unemployed behind. As a consequence, with the job growth and the targeting of these
programs and the case management, we have now got, I think and Simon may correct
me, but I think we have got now 580,000 people who were this year case managed.
that is 580,000 Australians younger and older Australians who were individually
spoken to and with, who were part of a smaller group who were case managed back
into training and work.
It is that sort of commitment that has come from the Government, from the Labor Party
that believes in the breadth of the Australian family. That is, we move on together, we
take jobs together and if anyone falls off the trolley, we get them back onto it. That is
what Working Nation is about. That is what these policies are about.
J: ( inaudible) is it simply an election pledge and if it is an election pledge, why are
departmental staff being used and taxpayers funds..
PM: This is something we have been developing for a long time and if the election had
been called next weekend it would be a policy statement of the Government's like the
environment statement was last week.
J: So you see nothing wrong?
PM: Well, the Parliament isn't prorogued until 6: 00pm this evening and no doubt you have
had the Liberal's whispering that in your ear. Let me just say here we are trying to look
after young Australians when Peter Costello is saying he will put criminal prosecutions
against the Secretary of the Department of Employment, Education and Training for
daring to facilitate the development of such a policy. It would be a lovely little
government Mr Howard's government with his Shadow Treasurer threatening criminal
prosecutions on the Secretary of department introducing the youth program,
threatening artists yesterday in the Sunday Age, threatening the Australia Council.
This is the nice, cuddly, warm, sweet government we would see.
J: $ 171 million mentioned here is to be redirected from existing resources can you tell
us what sort of existing programs might the Government..
SC: $ 171 million is the combination of Working Nation programs for the next two years
because it has only got two more financial years to run after this. Labor market
programs in the forward estimates for the years thereafter and they ANTA funding in
relation to the ASTF. So, this is money that is in the system. The ANTA funding, by
the way, from an index growth which we allocate to national programs of
significance. This is where we have highlighted it. It does not detract from the other
growth funds that we are committed to provide to States provided they maintain their
effort. So that is where the $ 171 million comes from.
J: Sorry, there was one acronym there I missed.
SC: ASTF, the Australian Student Traineeship Foundation, which is the body that has
responsibility for the 15,000 places which was three times what the Working Nation
target is. VECCI and the MTIA have committed themselves in New South Wales and
Victoria to helping secure something like 5,000 of those. So this is a body which we
have directly funded because we have tried to put pressure on the States to lift their
game in terms of delivering vocational subjects on a broader scale in schools.
We still expect them to do that and this statement clearly puts the pressure on them.
But one of the leverages that we have had is this extra funding through the ASTF. The
additional funding that we are committing today will enable workplace coordinators to
be attached through schools to find the placements that business is looking for on the
basis of delivering the training that business wants.
J: Mr Keating, you have set your 5 per cent target for youth unemployment, which seems
like quite an ambitious target. Are you saying there is no inherent difference between
the youth labour market and the adult labour market which can contribute to youth
unemployment being naturally somewhat higher?
PM: I think there may be. The obvious one is lack of any work experience. People 15 to 19
are joining the labour market for the first time and I might add just bear in mind that 3/ 4
million of them, in that group, face a new employer every year in the group 15 to 24
3/ 4 million and, of course, under the Coalition, even under their stated policy, they
would have no award protections whatsoever. They would have to go out and
negotiate with an employer all by their lonesome and take what comes.
J: Also, they sometimes want to change jobs more.
PM: That is right.
J: And that will remain surely?
PM: That is right. They will want to change jobs more. It is what is called frictional
unemployment people between jobs. But the main thing is to try and deal with the
group and in the most substantial way what we have sought to do is to increase
dramatically the completion rates in secondary school which, as I have said, has gone
from three in ten to just under eight in ten today. And in that way we have set young
people up better than they would have been set up in days gone by.
J: Mr Keating, who are these big profitable companies who aren't pulling their weight in
terms of youth traineeships?
PM: Well there are stacks of companies who, if they did what some other companies have
done, we would be making very large inroads into unemployment amongst this group
of young people and not only that providing, you know, a group to source employment
from for meeting the needs of these companies. And, of course, under the
government's policies we help them as well.
So it is just really a matter of trying to get companies interested in the traineeships.
We have got many already interested and we have made substantial inroads already.
But we need more. If we could double it, we would make a very big difference.
J: Are you prepared to name the ones who you think are not doing their bit?
PM: Oh well what is the point in that. I mean go and get me the Business Council list and
do you want me to tick them off for you? I might meet you on the footpath later and go
through that.
J: Prime Minister, this Labor campaign is built around leadership your leadership in
particular that makes you pretty important. Can you now give us a guarantee, in that
context, that you will stay on for a full term if you are re-elected?
PM: Look, Glenn, I have been in public life for 26 years. I am in my 27th year. I have been
asked this question by journalists all the way through. In 1980, will you be staying after
we lost the 1980 election and at other times. My commitment is to another term of
office and beyond.
But I do want to see a continuing change of personnel in the government and I said the
other day, it is worth repeating, in 1983 the average age of the Labor Ministry was 47.
13 years later it is still 47. It is 47 because there has been such a turnover of people
and a lot of younger Ministers joining the Ministry. And so it is had the energy that that
displacement brings you and it has had, I think, also the long straight lines of logic and
policy directions coming from the leadership myself included and the experience
which has come from senior Ministers who have been involved.
I mean Simon joined the Ministry as formerly President of the ACTU and not long
thereafter the Cabinet. So we have always added to the stock of our common
knowledge and our experience and that is why the government is so focussed and has
been so effective. I mean this government has changed Australia from an industrial
backwater essentially going nowhere, industrial archaeology, rust-belt industries, no
linkages to Asia, falling employment, double digit unemployment and double digit
inflation. That is where we were. Look at it today. It is a transformation, a massive
transformation that has come by one thing leadership.
J: Another personal term in office, are you saying, Mr Keating?
PM: Well I don't have a shadow, Michelle. There is no one else there. I am not Dorian
Gray with a picture. I mean who jumps out of the frame and does it for me.
J: Mr Keating, the Coalition often charges that the whole youth training and the numbers
that you put forward of those training that smoke and mirrors, it is about hiding the
unemployed. Youth groups too say that they are not trying instant training without the
guarantee of a job. I mean if you are talking about offering companies access to
schemes that will allow up to one hour training week. I mean what use is that to young
people and what is your guarantee to young people in terms of full time training leading
to full time work?
SC: In terms of offering the one hour a week to an employer, we wouldn't expect that that is
the limit of the commitment to the young person. You will see in this set of initiatives
that we have expanded funding for group training companies. I happen to believe
group training companies have a major ongoing role to play. They are already
interested in contracting for the eight pilots under the Jobs Pathway Guarantee.
But, essentially, what you do through a group training company is the company
becomes the employer. So a small business looking for flexibility to suit seasonable
patterns or, you know, weekly requirements doesn't actually do the employing, it
contracts from the group training -company. The group training company's
responsibility is to pay the award base rate of pay, to access the subsidies where they
are available and to deliver training. So what we are trying to do is to match up again
that structure that is group training to deliver the linkages. So that whilst we are
offering employers the ability to employ someone for as little as one hour a week, the
person who would be employed through the group training company would be
employed full time through a traineeship.
J: Prime Minister, there was a young unemployed person quoted in The Age this morning,
I think, prior to this launch saying that they had never experienced a Liberal
government, so they might give them a go. Does that loss of political memory worry
you and how do you counter it?
PM: Well they will give them a go by junking Working Nation for a start because Mr Costello
said that he would cut the commitments under Working Nation. They will give them a
go by, as Mr Howard said in 1992, one of the reasons why over 30 per cent of our
young people are out of work is because youth wages in this country are too high.
They will give them a go by 3/ 4 million of them every year facing an employer for the
first time and having to fend for themselves without the protections of the award
system or the Arbitration Commission. That is the sort of go they will get.
They would very quickly find out what a harsh little world Mr Howard has in store for
them and that is why, I think, when these issues have come under focus at very
elections people always think twice. The thing about the Liberals is they have opposed
this style of Australia for years a cooperative model where people are brought in, an
inclusive model.
They have taken the view that it is basically a survival of the fittest operation is the best
one. And the commitments like we are making in Working Nation to training, to case
management, to traineeships, they regard as so much dross along the way, which can
be cut away for a neater budgetary outcome. They simply don't have the
compassionate commitment to those who are unemployed and particularly the young
people and we have seen that right through the period.
J: Do you accept that the young people are being attracted to some of the minor parties,
to the Green parties, those kind of special interest parties that are appealing to the
young?
PM: Well some are I think. But, again, as I said the other day on the big issues. Just take
those two big issues of last week. The environment. It is only a party of government
that is going to change the environment. You know before Christmas we put away six
million hectares of forest in Deferred Forest Areas. It must be the biggest policy
undertaking of its kind in any country of the world. Last week, we announced
commitments to a National Reserve System, even buying back those bits of private
land which are important to those Reserve Systems. Putting further commitments into
the Murray-Darling system. Dealing with degradation of the landscape and salinity.
These things can not be done by Independents and the only party in Australia
interested and committed to that course of action is the Labor Party. It has been the
only one.
7
Take nuclear weapons. Alexander Downer said it was a stunt when I announced the
Canberra Commission for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. There are 50,000
nuclear warheads lying around those arsenals in the world rotting. We say that nuclear
weapons are no longer a viable military option and that they don't serve a viable
strategic purpose and we are better without them, that the world is safer without them.
Those initiatives can only be undertaken by a government and that is why, I think
while some young people may look at Independents in the end they will come back to
the party which does care about the issues they care about and that is a better world, a
safer world, a more secure world, a cleaner world, a better environment to live in and a
premium on their own importance through employment etc.
J: It would seem though that the polls aren't going your way. So all these initiatives that
you have announced in the past few months are not washing with the electorate. How
are you going to turn that around?
PM: But are they working?
J: Well they are not being..
PM: But have they got intrinsic worth and value like today's? Of course they do. Of course
they do and I mean we have seen this phenomena after elections have been called in
the past where the poll has shifted against the government. Well that just means we
have got to work in the course of the campaign to tell our story and to get the
differences up closely.
At this stage, I can't even get Mr Howard into a debate. He won't be in the debate next
Sunday. He is saying, " look, I will debate the Prime Minister anywhere". Andrew Robb
says, " I won't make the arrangements." He says, " I will debate the Prime Minister
anywhere". Andrew Robb says, " I won't make the arrangements". They don't want to
debate and basically what they are now saying is I am saying, look, let's have a
debate next Sunday with the national broadcaster as we have had in every election
campaign since one can remember. And they are now making these points of
technical objection about who it might be. Well I don't care who it is as long as it is
nominated by the national broadcaster.
So the fact of the matter is that until the Liberal Party faces up to the fact that it can't
hide all the way, it has tried to run past the media now for a year and that it can't hide,
that it has got to expose its philosophy and that will be exposed best under scrutiny and
in debate and when these things happen I think we will have reasonable opportunities
to not only put our policies but put our arguments too.
J: inaudible].. where do you think you are going to have to work hardest, which
States?
PM: Oh I just think overall, Peter. It is a national media so overall.
J: Yesterday you spoke about economic commentators being a bit cavalier about the
choice because the economy is in good shape. Do you believe that the biggest threat
to the government is a view in the electorate that things are pretty good and that it is a
safe time to make a choice?
PM: Well it will just all fall away. It will just all fall away. The whole cooperative model will
fall away, the inflation rate will get away from us, the competitiveness will get away
from us, the wage market would be chaotic again, the labour market and..
J: Do you acknowledge that attitude and is it the biggest problem for the government?
PM: Well I am saying I think it is more an attitude of mind amongst commentators than it is
in the community. That is, they have always been very careful, the Australian
community, and reasonably so. When it comes to policies of importance that affect
them and who runs the national government of Australia, affects them very closely.
8
So all of the great reformation of the economy, the social policies, the big block
changes like Medicare, or the participation in education, or cooperation in the labour
market, or the leap into Asia, the linkages to the bilateral and multilateral linkages in
Asia, all the things that are going to give us jobs and growth and security in the future,
they are going to think about who manages those.
J: Prime Minister, this morning John Howard has pledged to cap movements at
Kingsford-Smith at 80 movements per hour, to extend the noise proofing program and
also to have an EIS for Badgerys Creek, effectively putting that off further. Isn't that
going to make it harder for you to hold onto seats, like Lowe and also places like
Macarthur as well?
PM: Well he is worried about his seat in Bennelong. He has been worried about it all along.
Here he is, he is leading a national election campaign and what is he worred about, his
own seat of Bennelong. He wants to cut Kingsford-Smith's capacity by 40 per cent, the
gateway to Australia, the principal airport, the airport upon which our tourism industry
depends. He wants to cut it back and he wants to cut it back by opening up traffic on
the east/ west runway and over those electorates of Barton and Watson and
Kingsford-Smith so that he can relieve what he sees to be the traffic coming over his
own electorate.
Bearing in mind, that he was all the time at the government to build the third runway.
Over and over again saying it was an absence of political courage that the government
hadn't decided to build a third runway at Mascot. We built the third runway and who is
the first to run away from it.
He talks about microeconomic change, he talks about the brave new world of
microeconomic change under him. The biggest micro change in air transportation in
Australia is that third runway and the first time he runs into electoral pressure, he
abandons it.
J: Prime Minister, what is in this for people from non-English speaking backgrounds in
your Young Australia policy?
PM: Well, generally, those who are disadvantaged come more obviously under the eye of
case managers. But many young Australians of that period, of course, have been bom
here and they have picked up the language. It is only with young people of that age
group who have come as migrants, or some may have some very obvious language
disabilities, in which case we have all the English language training courses. But, by
and large, it is the case managment, the fact that we have got one person dealing with
a limited number of people, getting to know them and understand them, being the most
important element of the Job Compact we announced with Working Nation and with
these policies too.
ends