Mr MARTIN FERGUSON —My question is to the Minister for Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs. Has the minister seen reports that South Australian small business operator Mr Lindsay Boyle will be slugged $18,000 by Employment National for a service he previously received free from the CES? Minister, why should employers have to pay a new jobs tax to take on the unemployed? Minister, isn't it wrong that, having abolished a free employment service to help the unemployed, it is now on offer only from your mate John Laws?

Dr KEMP (Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs;Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) —I congratulate the member for Batman on the question; that was largely comprehensible. But I say that the government has not abolished a free job service either to unemployed people or to employers. The question focused on the matter of charging of employers. Let me inform the House that employers can advertise their jobs free of charge through the Australian Job Network touch screen system simply by dialling the teleservice vacancy centre on 131715. Many employers are taking advantage of this free service that is offered to them.

There are also a number of members of the Job Network who are offering employers the free lodgment of vacancies and the free processing of those vacancies. The Salvation Army is one of these, Mission Australia is another, and there are quite a number of other members of the Job Network offering this service. So it is a matter of choice. It is a commercial decision on the part of the Job Network member and the employer in relation to fees.

As a matter of principle, the charging of fees to employers for employment services is not new. In 1989 the previous government introduced fee-for-service arrangements that allowed the CES to charge employers for recruitment services—this service was known as CES Plus—so the principle of charging employers was established by the previous government. It is a principle that we have carried on in the construction of the Job Network but, as I say, it is a matter of commercial decision for Job Network members to decide what fees they charge and, if employers do not like the service they receive for those fees, they can go to a Job Network member that does not charge fees or they can lodge their vacancy free of charge with the teleservice vacancy centre.