Mr BEAZLEY (Leader of the Opposition)(12.39 p.m.) —When your motives are evil, you have to cloud your initiatives with deceit. When your motives are evil, you have to cloud your argument with deceit. We have just heard—and this is the last thing I will say about him—from one of the minor spear carriers of the government, the member for Macquarie (Mr Bartlett), as he exits this place. He is playing a small role in blowing out that smokescreen, that cloud of deceit, which has accompanied this particular proposition.

I said the motive was evil. I do not necessarily go to the proposition itself and describe it so, I describe the motive, as opposed to the proposition, as evil. We are going to do one or two things about that proposition when this hits the Senate and it will make it a very different proposition.

The motive was evil. The motive was twofold. Firstly, in the short term it was to conceal a problem that the Prime Minister (Mr Howard) had developed in relation to his inability to tell the truth to Ray Martin, which was a lot more difficult than telling the truth or otherwise in this parliament.

Mr Abbott —Madam Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order, which relates to standing order 75. The Leader of the Opposition has attributed evil motivation and the inability to tell the truth to the Prime Minister. This is highly offensive and it should be withdrawn.

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER (Hon. J.A. Crosio) —There is no point of order.

Mr BEAZLEY —I was talking about one of the minor spear carriers. We have one of the Savannah Rollers whose task it is here to have their own particular version about the way in which they deal with propaganda. Let me go back to the subject of evil in the motivation associated with this because I am not going to get off this point. We in politics need to restrain ourselves somewhat. When governments are in a situation where they do not restrain themselves in their treatment of sections of the Australian polity, they have to have that fact drawn to the public's attention.

The first motive was to conceal a problem which he had created entirely himself because of his maladministration. That is one thing. So he has dragged the kids of this country in to shelter him, to provide him with a political shield in his own individual difficulty, but he has a wider one than that—that is, the poll driven nature of this government.

The Prime Minister made great play on a couple of interviews that he once conducted that he saw himself as the most admirable political figure that he wanted to emulate in his life, Edmund Burke. It is not a dishonourable ambition of the Prime Minister to be like Edmund Burke, not a dishonourable ambition on his part at all. With this particular proposition, and since he has been in office, he has shifted himself as far from Edmund Burke as he has ever been in his life.

It is a memory cast back to the 1980s when he liked to think of himself as standing at the forefront of the Liberal Party, at the forefront of conservative opinion, out there leading public opinion. He liked to think of himself as a man who thought through the issues carefully and came to conclusions which may be different from the conclusions that were out there in the public and that he would seek to engage the Australian public in a dialogue about the needs of the nation about which he had a contribution to make. He was there to lead public opinion, like his mentor, his idol or his role model, whichever way you want to describe Edmund Burke.

Edmund Burke was the man who rattled his papers in front of his constituents and said, `If you don't like what I stand for, don't elect me. If you don't like what my views are, don't elect me, but when I get into that place, when I get into the House of Commons, the people will hear an argument from an informed opinion, the people will see a person representing you who actually tries to take some view of the national interest and to ride that view'—these are not the ways he would have put it in those days, but this is what he meant—`to its conclusion.' That was Burke. That was the Prime Minister's mentor.

If Burke had that hotline from here to his grave, he would be spinning in it when he saw a proposition like this. What the Prime Minister has done with this is take a poll, and the poll says we do not like paying taxes for people who are unemployed. The poll says that, despite the fact there are more than 800,000 people unemployed and rising under this benighted government—there are 160,000 jobs or thereabouts being created a year and there are 160,000 joining the work force every year—and despite the obvious mathematics, there is a cool tactic available here: attach blame to the unemployed and victimise them.

If they were not kids, you could almost forgive him. If they were not kids, you could say it is part of the argy-bargy of normal politics in this country. If they were not the people that we as fathers and mothers in this place are supposed to protect, you could almost forgive him. But what he does is take an understandable community attitude out there—the community hates having to pay out taxes because as they pay out taxes they deprive themselves of resources to deal with their own children—a reasonable attitude on their part out there against wasteful public expenditure, and say, `I will manipulate that attitude and turn you on the people in your society who are your future. I will turn you on them.' That is why I say—and I do not say it in the policy at all; I go to the motivation here—that motivation is evil.

Mr Abbott —Madam Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Under standing order 76, there can be no imputation of improper motives to members. The Leader of the Opposition has deliberately imputed a highly improper motive to the government and to the Prime Minister.

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER —I do not believe it is any different from the spurious point of order that the parliamentary secretary brought on before. There is no point of order under standing order 77.

Mr BEAZLEY —I am going to go now to more evidence for these things, more evidence for the proposition that I have put forward. The evidence was provided so superbly yesterday by those who are held responsible by the government for implementing this scheme of theirs and the attitudes that they express to it.

This scheme is supposed to have been well thought out and motivated by something other than what I have had to say so far. The Brotherhood of St Laurence, the Australian Youth Action Coalition, the Australian Catholic Social Welfare Commission, the Salvation Army, the Australian Council of Social Service, the Adelaide City Mission, the Australian Volunteer Association, the Sydney City Mission and Open Family were all invited to judge the particular proposition that had been put before them. What did this well thought out proposition, presented to them by a government motivated by the utmost sincerity, contain? It contained two press releases and a transcript.

These organisations, the most serious social welfare organisations in this country collectively, the people who actually have a mind and a heart and who are used to dealing with some of the most critical problems in this nation affecting some of our least well-off citizens, were all gathered before the government to hear the pearls of wisdom and to receive two press releases and a transcript. Don't think they can't read motives like that. Don't think they might not know a thing or two about what was going on when they were subject to such shabby treatment.

They were invited to take upon themselves the moral burden of this proposition—and it is no small moral burden. They are the ones invited to take people in a situation who are potentially—I do not think it will amount to this at the end of the day—forced into using their services. They take that moral culpability, and there is probably no small legal risk associated—which is something which is not thought out in this legislation at all—with those actually involved in it, and they are supposed to applaud these motives. No wonder they went for the doctor. No wonder they made revelations that, as far as they were concerned, they had been handed a pathetic excuse of a policy with which they could do very little and about which they were quite fearful.

They have their responsibilities. They know they have to cooperate with government in these things, but they were handed this. What they will all ask is, `Government, why don't you make this work and put in place those schemes which you knocked over? Why don't you put in place the propositions that the previous government had that were serious work for the dole schemes'- if you want to look at it in that insulting way—`that actually did work?' Because they actually worked and because they stand in such striking contrast to this proposition, that cloud of deceit which is necessary to surround this proposal has to be clouded with more deceit on these figures.

Let me go through those particular success rates. The new work opportunities scheme was a new thing—the one most often cited, the one which they say was $143,000 per job but which was, in fact, only $10,000 per job. A mere differential of, say, one-fourteenth in the propositions. That was a claimed success rate of four per cent—it was 21 per cent. We are talking about the long-term unemployed who do not get into the work force at all. It is not the difference between 21 per cent and 100 per cent; it is the difference between 21 and nought.

Then there was the claimed 28 per cent success rate for jobstart—the job placement program for people in unsubsidised jobs carrying on after the time of their jobstart application. It was 50 per cent, not 28 per cent. The claimed success rate for job clubs was 12 per cent—in fact, the actual rate is 36 per cent. This government wants to put this in place when the schemes that it is running now are failing so massively—despite the rise in the rate of unemployment—in providing opportunities for people to come into the work force.

We have had the DEETYA national performance report leaked: in January 1997, only one of nine of key job targets matched performance in January 1996; subsidised job placement programs in January 1997 were around one-half of that in October 1996. Remember unemployment is rising. These positions are easier to fill when unemployment is rising. You occasionally have difficulty with it when unemployment is falling—thank God. But they actually have a difficulty with it when unemployment is rising! That is a real achievement in bureaucratic bungling by a minister.

Placement activity for case managed job seekers dropped by an amazing 119 per cent compared with January 1996 levels. CES vacancies are now nine per cent below estimates and 20 per cent less then January 1996. Long-term unemployment placements are in significant decline. Youth unemployment placements against government targets—remember youth unemployment is also rising—are: Tasmania, 20 per cent behind; northern Australia, 30 per cent behind; WA, nearly 20 per cent behind; and western New South Wales, 10 per cent behind.

This is a manifestation of a demoralised department led by two utterly incompetent and ill-motivated ministers. These are the people who are supposed to work this scheme. The person who is supposed to work this scheme takes the most significant welfare organisations in this country and hands them two press releases and a transcript as a result. He then presents himself as person who knows what he is doing, when he has a record of failure in implementing programs which they have pursued and persisted with. Remember these are against programs continuing—despite the slashes—under this government. They have made a judgment that they are actually able to fill them. They have made a judgment that they are capable of administering this program. They have made a judgment that they will continue them to the extent they have in the post August 1996 budget—and they are failing miserably in their administration.

We are supposed to think that this is going to be a success. It is not tailored to be a success. They set themselves very low bars. They have the hide to come into this place and say, `Not everybody who went through your programs got a job.' But we say, `How many are going to get a job out of yours,' and the answer is, `No-one.' If they are not actually going to get a job and if they are not going to get training, what are they undergoing? What they are undergoing is social punishment. This is a chain gang. It is not an operation to get people into the work force and achieving something.

It is important that people work; it is important particularly after you have been out of work for 12 to 18 months that governments do something about it, that you do not just simply receive benefits. You get yourself into a situation, if that is what occurs, where you are demoralised for life and so are your kids. This is not a trifling issue; this is a totally significant issue. It is wrong to have people in a situation where they are in unemployment forever. It is wrong to have people in a situation where they become dependent upon handouts from society.

What people need is a hand up. Where is the hand up in this? We have made suggestions such as, `Let's put a bit of training into it.' After all, you are going to pay them a training wage, a wage that was set by an award which included a proposition that 20 per cent of the time would be spent on training. To try to claim you are paying award rates when there is no training is in breach of the award. This is automatically in breach of the award as a result.

Mr Crean —Dishonest.

Mr BEAZLEY —It is being absolutely dishonest with the Australian people. Why not give them training? Why is it so evil to train people who are unemployed? What is the problem with that? Why can't you do that? What is the problem with giving them decent guaranteed work of a nature that is going to be of some sort of value to the community and in which they are going to advance their skills? What is wrong with that?

These are the sorts of propositions that we are putting in place on this. What is wrong with setting yourself a target? What is wrong with saying to the organisations that do this, `What we want you to do at the end of this—and we want you to commit yourselves to a few targets—is to ensure that you have trained these people, that you have given these people an opportunity that leads on to some real work. What is wrong with that? Why is that so bad? Why can't you do that?

But, no, that is claiming more for this scheme because this scheme is not about the needs of the unemployed; it is about social punishment—and it is poll driven. But there are a few traps in this scheme and they lie in the position that the Prime Minister puts forward. He knows darned well that 10,000 positions take you nowhere. Where they take you is this: it means for the kids who live in Wagga, Penrith or in some of the most depressed regional areas of this country, where kids in particular are producing all the signs of major distress and pressure—I will not go through the most horrible signs of them, but we all know what I am talking about—you are going to add another one. If they want to get benefits they will get no training, they will get no decent employment opportunities; they will get social punishment.

But if you happen to be taking unemployment benefits in Lane Cove you can rock on as you please. That is really cool. `Off you go and do what you want but we will get you when you get to Wagga. Don't you worry about us, when you get to Wagga we will get you.' What do you say to the people who decide to leave Wagga and come to the city and continue to receive unemployment benefits? Do you drive them out of their homes? Is that what the intention is? You drive them out of their relationship with their parents in order to be able to get some sort of succour in their hour of need?

There is none of that in this. There is no thinking behind this as there is no heart. There is no common sense behind this as there is no heart. But do not think for one minute that we are not going to put in place a few things to make this work. You started with a proposition that we had in place and you have destroyed its core. You have manipulated it in terms of its title in order to benefit yourselves politically. But it was there; and it was working; and it gave hope. Right around the country people were picking up those positions and they were finding themselves in the work force. They were levered into the work force because we understand how small business really employs—not the theories you go on with.

That you are theoretically driven is never more evident than when we look at your small business policies. We know that small business people take decisions about employment case by case. If they have somebody presented to them who is trained and skilled, or somebody presented to them with half an orientation to the work force, they will take a decision to employ whereas they may have taken the decision not to employ at all in circumstances where that did not exist. When you are levering people into the work force on a case by case basis with small business you need the Working Nation types of programs—and that is why they work. There is nothing in this that produces that, nothing at all. There is nothing in this that levers people into work.

You ask us what we are going to do with this bill. We had a bit of a success in the Senate the other day; we are going to try for another one. We are going to try to get a bit of heart back into this show. We are going to try to get this darned thing working. We are going to try to get a bit of training into it; we are going to try to get a bit of protection for the people in it and we are going to try to get people into work because we think there is a requirement on government to provide things for the long-term unemployed and we think there is a requirement upon government to keep them related to the work force. So we are going to do our best to take your evil motives and purify them, and make this show work. (Time expired)