Mr ANDREN (10:33 AM) —I too was squeezed out of the debate on this substantial Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2001-2002 and I just want the committee to bear with me as I include on the record those comments which were pertinent to the particular departments. I begin, in a roundabout way, with small business. I note the comments that consumer savings are not a great problem. The Prime Minister says that increased consumer spending shows that $12 billion worth of tax cuts are still, in his words, `being enjoyed'. I can tell you that in my electorate there are not a lot of people who are enjoying spending.

My electorate, apart from the Lithgow sector, is, according to statistics, one of the most economically buoyant rural electorates in the country, with its mix of education, a booming mining sector, a strong public sector and a farming sector which—after years of being downtrodden and having negative returns—is showing signs of sustained returns. I did a spot survey of small business people after the so-called positive growth figures that came out recently, and businesses described their results over the past 12 months as `patchy at best'. In Lithgow, a major retailer of a clothing store said that their had been no sales to speak of in the key areas of clothing or shoes since July of last year.

The retail story from Orange was not much better. The people in business who I spoke with felt that they were treading water. Savings are down and people are forced to use credit for even their most basic groceries. They have little hope of meeting anything other than the minimum monthly payment, so they are accruing debt which, obviously once it hits their credit limit, is going to cause severe problems. Many of them are feeling that now.

The tax burden on middle to lower income people is the same or worse—not less. In particular, it is worse for lower income workers. There seems to have been a massive shift in taxing from the relatively well off to the lower income groups. A reduction in tax for lower income people does not have the impact it has for those on a higher level of income. Although there have been tax cuts for all, the impact of the GST has been on those least able to pay. Credit seems to be driving consumption and it is unsustainable. In the first three months of the year, total credit card debt reached a record high of $18 billion after an unprecedented boom in card use during the Christmas-New Year period, particularly during the January sales period, with falling interest rates making debt more attractive and, indeed, a necessary option. Total credit card debt has risen 30 per cent since the March quarter last year, and any boost of growth in spending is false growth indeed. Growth in spending figures per se can be very misleading.

Unemployment is again rising, although only gradually, thank heavens, and underemployment is a fact of life. When I look about me in the shopping malls of Orange and Bathurst, I see young people with young families—many of them in the most basic clothing. Both parents rely on part-time or casual work, if they have jobs, or a mix of family support payments, the dole or whatever to get by. I am glad that commentators are now picking up on the underemployment issue, pointing out that one has to work but an hour a week to not appear in the unemployment statistics, and yet, by any judgment, many of these people are as good as unemployed. It amazes me that it has taken so long for that fact to filter through to mainstream commentators.

Underemployment has been the hidden poverty of the deregulated labour market and the downturn in regional areas in recent years. There are people who do not feel by any means comfortable with their way of life. (Extension of time granted) If we continue to throw at these people the fact that interest rates are low, unemployment is looking good and we have created hundreds of thousands of jobs, is it any wonder that they become cynical about that process when they know that things are not warm and comfortable for them?

While a training component for Work for the Dole is long overdue—and I certainly welcome it—the training must be meaningful. Training in information technology has the potential to unlock the lives of the unemployed. I had dinner with a person the other night who is very closely connected with the IT industry—a person of my vintage. She asked me, `Do you know anyone who actually makes anything?' I had to struggle to think of people I know who make things, apart from the people who work at ADI in Lithgow and so on. In terms of close acquaintances, we here in the parliament are moving in areas where information technology is part and parcel of life. We are running into people all the time who live on information creation.

That was the point this woman was making. She said that people—even those who in the past we would have regarded as the least skilled manually—can sit in front of a computer and be very computer literate. They know how to handle the technology and they know how to find their way through it. Her argument was that we do not have the sorts of divisions that I have been talking about. We do not have those divisions now, particularly amongst young people, but we need to tap into and encourage the latent ability that is out there amongst so many who are nominally unemployed and who think they have no hope in the older economy.

In Lithgow, for instance, their expectations rest with the future of heavy industry. I am trying to suggest—with Lithgow now the first learning city in New South Wales; I launched it a few months ago—that people look over the horizon and beyond heavy industry for their future. People who feel there are no jobs in the mines or in the electricity industry and therefore there is no future have the potential, so close to Sydney, to develop these new technologies and to encourage their kids. I really do think we have an enormous well of talent among people we may have written off when thinking in terms of traditional jobs. If we do not help them to develop the expertise—and I think IT may be the secret here—we will have long-term disconnection, cynicism, suicide and all of those accompanying effects.

A few years ago I spoke with Mr Reith about re-badging CDEP—and I have spoken, too, with ATSIC about it—to include the environment. It strikes me that there are any number of training options available in horticulture, irrigation technology, biodiversity and so on that could engage our Koori community in a very positive way. Perhaps they might have some secrets to share with us that we can use to repair our desperately damaged environment. Drawing on their love of the land could probably do a lot for reconciliation. I hope the minister will be able to respond to this.