Mr MARTIN FERGUSON(1.12 p.m.) —I want to speak this afternoon on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Work for the Dole) Bill and in doing so to support the second reading amendment moved by the member for Sydney (Mr Peter Baldwin).

I suggest that the bill before the House, as indicated by its own title, is in essence a mean-spirited bill: it has a mean-spirited name and is a bill authored by what I regard as a mean-spirited government. I must say, with respect to the member for Adelaide (Ms Worth), that if she was so vitally concerned with the issue of jobs then she would not be in here discussing this afternoon half-baked ideas about work for the dole, she would be more appropriately in here making speeches about the importance to the state of South Australia of the automotive industry. She should be talking about the need to stand against the government's proposals to further reduce tariffs rather than sneaking around the corridors suggesting that she is opposed to the further reductions in tariffs, but when it comes to a question of standing up and being counted, running for cover.

Much comment has been made in this House, and by a wide range of political commentators, that the driving force for this legislation was a man who has never been elected and who does not sit in this House. That person occupies an office not too far from here in the Liberal Party headquarters, in Robert Menzies House. His name is Andrew Robb, the general secretary of the Liberal Party. I suggest to you that Andrew Robb's fingers—and he is known around the House as `Push Poll Fingers Andrew'—are all over this legislation.

Andrew Robb should look again at the act and warn the government that this law has been put together far too hastily. The work for the dole bill will come back in time and haunt the government. I say that especially if government members do not accept the opposition amendments to make this legislation a comprehensive, complete program for the unemployed, providing real skills and training as well as the work disciplines and social skills needed to get a real job.

I note that the minister in introducing the legislation referred to the fact that this legislation will not lead to any real jobs. This legislation, as we all know, is a desperate political act driven by a desire to force from the front pages the embarrassing headlines about a former senator, Bob Woods. Andrew Robb rang the Prime Minister (Mr Howard) and told him to chuck this piece of legislation at the media so as to distract them from the Bob Woods affair. As the minister said in introducing the legislation, it is not about real jobs, it is a distraction, it is to take political pressure off the government and especially the Prime Minister.

Andrew Robb told the Prime Minister that the market research showed the voters resented giving young people something for nothing—that was the message from the general secretary of the Liberal Party: something for nothing—so `let's give the voters a real trick, a work for the dole scheme'. I wonder how long before Andrew Robb rings the Prime Minister up to warn him that the legislation as it currently stands will now be politically harmful. Just, for example, ask what middle aged unemployed now think about the work for the dole legislation.

I refer in passing to Rehame, the major media monitoring company, which I know Mr Robb frequently relies on to monitor the pulse of so-called mainstream Australia. It has been reporting since last Friday that the community is slowly turning on the government over the work for the dole legislation. The general manager of Rehame, Mr Maher, has been noting that, ever since the Prime Minister and Dr Kemp, the Minister for Schools, Vocational Education and Training, came clean last week and opened the work for the dole scheme to older workers, the talkback callers have started turning against the work for the dole legislation.

The message is also getting through to the world of talkback radio that this is bad law, legislation made on the run, legislation ill thought out. It is no longer just the opposition who are questioning whether or not this legislation is of substance. It is not just a few Canberra based political commentators. It really in essence is the mob—you know the mob the Prime Minister likes to refer to in his more erratic, excitable moments, the people out there in mainstream Australia—who have got the message that this is a thoughtless bill.

I also refer to the scant information that has been publicly available about the operation of the scheme since it was initially announced on the run. Then again I suppose we should not be surprised, because that is the nature of the government—not legislation of substance, but legislation based on push polling, on what they believe is attractive out there in the minds of mainstream Australia, or the mob, as the Prime Minister refers to them in his more excitable moments.

On day one what do we have? When the media sought details from Senator Vanstone, the Minister for Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs, they surprisingly received a mystified response. Some of us are not surprised because that seems to be the method of operation of the minister on a frequent basis. The minister, the person responsible for employment in Australia at a national level, knew nothing about the Prime Minister's announcement.

Ever since the February announcement, Senator Vanstone has looked confused when asked about this bad piece of legislation. But, of course, Senator Vanstone ought not to be surprised, because she knows that behind her is a junior minister, one Dr Kemp, the Minister for Schools, Vocational Education and Training, who has done a real job on her as the senior minister. He has done a real job with the Prime Minister to promote himself at the expense of his senior minister, Senator Vanstone, so as to ensure that he was seen in the public mind as taking responsibility for the headlines and the public carriage as a further opportunity to promote himself in his venture to assume the peak responsibility for employment and education in Australia, the job of senior minister sitting at the cabinet table in the cabinet room. That is why Senator Vanstone has continued to be kept in the dark by the Prime Minister and his assistant, the Minister for Schools, Vocational Education and Training.

But what of this confusion, this mixing of messages? I believe it is starting to have a negative impression in the minds of the general public. Rehame has confirmed that last Friday; the general public is confused. More importantly, it is slowly filtering through to the general public that there is something wrong, something suss, about this work for the dole legislation. Talkback radio listeners are beginning to say that the legislation is suss. They know that it was announced because of the lack of information that is out there for public discussion at the moment and because of the flip-flop changes by the Prime Minister and the minister responsible—flip-flop on the government's part, flip-flop policy stances—with different government spokes persons telling different stories at different times to suit their political circumstances at a given point in time.

It all started, I suggest to the House, with the Prime Minister telling Sunday morning TV—to try and get the news junkies off his back about the Woods affair—about the work for the dole scheme. He called it a pilot scheme then—`20 to 30 schemes for young people only,' he told the media. Go back and have a look at the reports of the time, announced on the run to take political pressure off the Prime Minister and the government.

Then we went to 1½ days a week, he said. About 5,000 are to be involved in the scheme, the Prime Minister said. It will involve community groups and local businesses. Even the Premier of Victoria wants local businesses involved. But the Prime Minister now does not seem to want local businesses involved. After all, that might lead to real jobs and the Prime Minister is not concerned about real jobs. He is just looking as if he might be doing something while he does nothing to reduce unemployment in Australia.

Less than 40 days later, the pilot schemes have more than doubled. We are now up to 70, with $15 million on work for the dole. You know, for those who have got jobs or an education through Green Corps, there is $41 million. So much for concern for the unemployed; here is a government that is more concerned through Green Corps for the employed and for those in education. The majority of people who have taken up Green Corps jobs to date have been in education or employment. It is crocodile tears for the unemployed and a lack of investment in the needs of the unemployed by this government.

They are now starting to come clean, I am pleased to report, and the honest position is coming out, not just for young people, but the old who will also be asked to take part. Some people on work for the dole could be working 2½ days per week or three days per week. The numbers have even doubled to 10,000. Local businesses have been essentially cut out of the schemes. In those 40 days we have seen some amazing antics by the Prime Minister and the minister responsible.

The truth of the matter has also been revealed about the way they behaved in the campaign prior to the election in March of last year. The Prime Minister and Dr Kemp sought to hide the fact that before the March election they firmly denied that they would ever introduce a work for the dole scheme. So much for honesty in government.

The Prime Minister huffed and puffed in this House in response to a question by the member for Hotham (Mr Crean) on 10 February, when he said:

. . . during the course of the election campaign I was asked on several occasions about the work for the dole and I said on those occasions that I had no objection to the concept of work for the dole.

The Prime Minister was emphatic on February 10, and he continued:

I at no stage ruled out introducing a work for the dole scheme.

But the very next day the Prime Minster had to come clean. He waddled into the House still trying to pretend that he was a man of principle. He had forgotten about his ministerial code of conduct—that was long gone—but he was still a man of principle on this matter. And he sought, on indulgence from the Speaker, to explain away an embarrassing truth.

During the election campaign, he reported, in answer to a question from the Herald Sun, Mr Howard was quoted as saying:

. . . we do not support the introduction of a work for the dole scheme.

Let me repeat:

. . . we do not support the introduction of a work for the dole scheme.

Mr Howard tried to explain away that mistake by saying that, though the answer was in his name, he was not prepared to take responsibility for it because it had been prepared by campaign headquarters.

That has now become known as the Colston excuse. That seems to be Senator Colston's approach to life and accountability. The Prime Minister's approach to life is: it was not my fault; it was the fault of the general secretary of the party. The Colston excuse is: it was not my fault; it was my clerical assistant's fault. So, I suppose Senator Colston, who is so much a part of this government, has at least learnt something from the Prime Minister in the last couple of months.

On the same day as the Prime Minister tried to slide out of responsibility for words published in his name, Dr Kemp was also caught out on the same matter. He had told the PM program that the Liberals had never ruled out work for the dole schemes. In August of 1995—and we know that he has got a short memory and likes to doctor figures from time to time—he claimed that the coalition had not considered the issue of work for the dole. In fact, Dr Kemp has been caught three times denying work for the dole schemes were on the agenda in the lead-up to the election. Dr Kemp, the junior minister who aspires to Senator Vanstone's senior ministry position, has enjoyed much of the limelight on the work for the dole scheme.

But for Dr Kemp time is up; it is a question now of producing the goods. It is about time Dr Kemp faced the fact that when he sat down with a number of community groups to try and explain that the government believed that this was a scheme of substance, all he could produce at those discussions were three things as detailed in an article about those discussions, written by Mr Milne, in the Australian last Monday. This program is so much a key to their armoury of activities to reduce unemployment in Australia, and I would have thought that when, as a minister with responsibility, he sat down to consult community groups he would have been able to put some documentation of substance on the table. But what he put on the table about this dramatic opportunity for the unemployed all around Australia was a transcript of the Prime Minister's 9 February appearance on the Sunday program—and we all know that did not contain much substance—and then two media releases from the Prime Minister. If you compare that documentation, you will find that the position of the government varies from the initial announcement on 9 February on the Sunday program—this is so important an issue that you announce it on the run on the Sunday program!—to the two subsequent media releases.

So what did well-respected community groups do, groups such as the Brotherhood of St Laurence, the Australian Catholic Social Welfare Commission, the Adelaide City Mission, the Sydney City Mission, the Australian Youth and Policy Action Coalition? They came away from those so-called consultations underwhelmed, because they came away with the conclusion that it was not really a program of substance—and they are no longer alone.

I refer now to the intervention by the Premier of Victoria, Mr Kennett—that well-known friend of the Treasurer (Mr Costello)—and he is really rather concerned about the issue of unemployment, as I am. He has had an opportunity, as has the Premier of Queensland, Mr Borbidge, to now consider this issue because there is not much substance to consider: just an announcement about work for the dole and now a bill before the parliament. There has been no real endeavour to provide training of substance or to suggest that the scheme means real jobs.

But the Premier of Victoria really knows a dead cat when he sees it on the table, and I report to the House that the Victorian Premier does not think much of John Howard's work for the dole plan—he is on the record describing it basically as plain crazy and irrelevant. They are not the words of Kim Beazley, the Leader of the Opposition, but the words of a leading Liberal Party representative, the Victorian Premier, someone whom the coalition government likes to parade around at the moment as being an example of what it wants to achieve in government.

Surprisingly, the Premier then went on to suggest that we make something of substance out of this badly thought out proposal by the Prime Minister. I think the Premier of Victoria is right. If you are going to do something about the unemployed do it right, invest in it and turn it into a scheme of substance. And that is why the Labor Party put forward a second reading amendment today and is saying that we ought to think about this legislation, amend it, turn it into something of substance, so that we invest in opportunities for young people to ensure that they are given the skills and the discipline of work to get them back to work.

It is about time that the government faced up to the fact that we have got a real problem on the unemployment front. Unemployment in Australia is getting worse. For example, look at the issue of long-term unemployment. We have hit a 17-month high figure of 242,700 people unemployed on a long-term basis in Australia. What is the government's answer? It is work for the dole, and the minister, when introducing the legislation, was forced to acknowledge that it will not lead to any real job opportunities for the long-term unemployed.

On the issue of the long-term unemployed, I also say that in one month from January to February, long-term unemployment in Australia jumped by an incredible 14,200. It is also interesting to note that it is worse in regional Australia. If you go to regions all around Australia—Ballarat, Bendigo, Lismore, Townsville, Cairns, Rockhampton or Perth—you will see the impact of a lack of willingness by this government to invest in regional Australia and to invest in decent labour market programs that create a second opportunity in life. That is what it is about. Those of us who are fortunate enough to have a job say that we believe there is a role for government in creating opportunities for the unemployed. Irrespective of whether people are young, middle aged or old, they all want to work, to have the opportunity in life to make a meaningful contribution to the welfare of Australian society.

For that reason, I say on behalf of the Australian community, in a non-political way, that I think the Prime Minister sincerely wants to do something about the unemployed. He was caught out in a very desperate political situation on the Sunday program. For his own political reasons, he sought to take the heat off by announcing the work for the dole scheme on the run. Step back and think about it. We are 12 months into a three-year term of government and time is up for this government on the unemployment front. That is what it is about: time is up. The Prime Minister said, `Twelve months into this term of office, question me about the issue of unemployment.' Well, time is up! After 12 months, unemployment in Australia is worse. For that reason, the Prime Minister has to seriously consider, in a constructive way, the 11-point plan put together by the Labor Party, which was aimed at trying to make the work for the dole scheme something of substance. We are willing to sit down with the government and talk about that 11-point plan, because that plan contains nothing that any of us in this House ought to be ashamed of: providing training; making sure that workers are protected at work; and trying to ensure that whatever opportunities they pursue are related to job opportunities in the surrounding regions.

I expect to see more and more MPs who represent regional Australia questioning this legislation, because they know it is not going to produce the goods. Time is up for the government. It should invest in decent labour market programs, not half-baked ideas put together for short-term political reasons. The unemployed expect better than the Howard government is offering. (Time expired)