Senator GEORGE CAMPBELL(5.49 p.m.) —I rise to support the motion of Senator Mackay which is before the Senate. This is the most fundamental issue we face as a nation: dealing with the question of unemployment. The fact that unemployment is still at 8.7 per cent and, more importantly, that the participation rate has been declining since this government was elected—it has dropped, in fact, by 1.6 per cent since the March election of 1996—is a clear indictment of the current government and its lack of any strategy or plan to deal with this question.

The reality is that this country needs a plan. It needs a long-term strategy to deal with the issue of unemployment if we are to achieve the goal of getting it down below five per cent, which was a goal that the Labor Party in government was prepared to set itself as an objective. But this government is not prepared to commit itself to that or any other target in terms of the unemployment figures.

The reality also is that the Labor Party did have a plan for dealing with the question of unemployment, and that plan was Working Nation. One of the significant achievements of that plan was what it did in terms of targeting the long-term unemployed. When the plan was initiated, long-term unemployment in this country was around about 300,000; it depends what point you take as the kick-in point, but it was around that figure. Labor got that figure down, in a very short period of time, to 206,000. Under this government, it has already moved back up to near 250,000.

A recent report was prepared by Mr P.J. Junankar and Mr Kapuscinski from the Australian National University. They said a couple of significant things which I think are important and should be put on the record. The report states:

Although Working Nation had a very short life it succeeded in helping the long term unemployed: it was a very useful social experiment which was aborted for political reasons.

It continues:

The coalition government have apparently lost interest in the long term unemployed: there has been a massive cutback in expenditure on labour market programs.

Contrast that with what the Labor Party did in government and Working Nation where we promised to create 500,000 jobs over the period of 1993 to 1996 and, in fact, achieved 680,000 jobs over that period; and contrast it also with the achievement of the Labor government from 1983 to 1996 where, in fact, there were an additional two million-plus Australians employed in this country over that period. That was the extent of the growth in the work force over Labor's term in office.

You have to contrast that of course with the position that was left to Labor—the legacy that Little Johnny Howard left them when he was the Treasurer of this country in 1983—of double digit inflation and double digit unemployment.

Senator Herron —I raise a point of order. Senator—what is his name; Senator Crawford, is it?

Senator Ferguson —Campbell.

Senator Herron —He has not been here long enough to know that when he refers to a member of the other House, and particularly the Prime Minister, he refers to him by his correct name. I would ask him to withdraw that statement about the Prime Minister.

Senator Murphy —On the point of order, I do not know that it is a matter of asking Senator Campbell to withdraw; rather the point of order ought to have been that Senator Campbell address the Prime Minister appropriately. That is more the question and that is the point of order that should have been made.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Jacinta Collins) —Senator Campbell, I ask you to correct your reference to the Prime Minister.

Senator Forshaw —On the point of order, I think you should also draw Senator Herron's attention to the responsibility that he has to refer to senators by their correct names. The sort of cheap, smart alec shot that he tried in his point of order was not only not funny but a little bit insulting. I would have thought it was even beneath his dignity.

Senator Herron —On the point of order, I did not recall the new senator's name.

Senator Forshaw —You're dumber than I thought you were then.

Senator Herron —I acknowledge that interjection and I would ask for that to be withdrawn too as an imputation on me.

Senator Forshaw —On that point of order, if Senator Herron did not recall Senator Campbell's name then I can only ask: how was he able to pay attention to the point where he was able to take a point of order if he was not listening to the debate and did not hear Senator Campbell called?

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Senator Forshaw, there is no point of order. I give Senator Campbell the opportunity to correct his remark and his reference with respect to the Prime Minister.

Senator GEORGE CAMPBELL —I withdraw.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT —No, Senator Campbell, there is no need to withdraw. Just correct your remark with respect to the Prime Minister.

Senator GEORGE CAMPBELL —When the Prime Minister, John Howard, was Treasurer of this country in 1983 he left the nation with double digit inflation and double digit unemployment. That is a record that you cannot run away from. However, it is fair to say that the previous Labor government did have a plan for dealing with the question of unemployment. It did set out to tackle the problem and it did set itself, systematically, targets and goals to achieve it. It set the goal of achieving five per cent or less unemployment by the year 2000—something that this government is not prepared to acknowledge or prepared to set itself.

Fortunately there are others in the community who do have plans about how to deal with the issue of unemployment, and a number of those plans have emerged recently. They have emerged out of the Mortimer report, which raises a number of key issues that we need to address as a community if we are to deal with the issue of unemployment, and those are currently before the government.

You have the Goldsworthy report, which deals with the question of information technology. It recognises the importance of information technology in terms of what it can do to drive the productive capacity of the country and of individual companies and how it can lead to the creation of more competitive enterprises with the capacity to employ greater numbers of Australians. We had the minister who is now responsible for information technology in this chamber the other day, unable to tell us what the size of his department was, what funds had been allocated to that ministry or what the strategy was in terms of addressing the issues that are in the Goldsworthy report.

The MTIA have a plan. They have submitted a plan in which they have put forward seven key steps, among which are the question of tax reform, an investment agency, stronger central coordination of industry policy and engagement with Asia in terms of it being a free trade area. These are among a number of key recommendations from that organisation in terms of how we can address the problem of unemployment in this country.

The common ground between all of those plans is that you will not get job growth without investment in research and development and in infrastructure. This government, in its budgets, has cut the public support for R&D, yet it is acknowledged across the whole of the business community that it is a key issue in terms of our companies being able to compete in the global market. There has recently been a report released by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology called `Made by Hong Kong' in which they reinforce that point. It is innovation that gives companies the edge in the global marketplace.

We as a nation have to understand and accept that, in the global market in which we are operating, we do not have the luxury of looking any more at Australia being a domestic market and an opportunity to compete in the market elsewhere. We are a small part of a global marketplace and we have to compete both for our share of the domestic market with international competitors and for our share of the international market with those domestic competitors in those sections of the international market. That is a challenge that we have to confront and we are only going to be able to do that if we are able to hit the marketplace with innovative ideas, then commercialise those ideas and turn them into innovative products that give us a leading edge in terms of our capacity to compete in that marketplace. That is the central message that comes out of all those reports.

The other area of commonality is the question of sectoral industry plans looking at those key industries of growth, like biotechnology and information technology, particularly in the software area. This country can be at the leading edge of software development in information technology. It is an area where there ought to be a lot of concentration, because we have the skills and the capacity to win a significant share of what will be a very substantial growth area in terms of jobs in the future. An example is what has been occurring in that area in the United States. Forty per cent of the jobs growth and income growth in GDP in the United States over the last 10 years has been caused by computers and computer software. It has been the engine of growth in the American economy. It is an area, as I said, that we have to give much more fundamental support to and support for if we are going to get the benefits that potentially reside in that area for us as a nation.

The reality is that the current coalition government have no plan for job creation. It is a government that has an ideological obsession with discredited economic fundamentalist policies that were implemented by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. They have a wish list to get back to the agenda of the early 1980s and a political mentality that is still somewhere in the 1950s. That is the reason why they are not prepared to commit themselves to an unemployment target.

They have no objectives and there is no criteria against which the government can judge what they are doing in terms of unemployment. They have no idea what the outcomes of their policies are going to be in terms of resolving the unemployment problem. They are counting and relying solely on the market to solve the problem. Their strategy for dealing with unemployment is a wing and a prayer.

They are hoping against hope that something will happen out there that will change the figures before the next election. They are also hoping that it may not be an issue, but it will be an issue. Unemployment will be the central issue upon which the next election is fought. It will be fought on jobs, it will be fought on job security, and it will be fought on the welfare of every Australian.

The results speak for themselves. If you look at the results over the 18 months of this government, you can see that in fact we have had negative employment growth. We have lost 60,000 full-time jobs since the last budget, 38,000 of them in August 1997 alone. Let us look at some of the criticisms that have been made after the last budget. From the Executive Director of the Victorian Council of Social Services:

Jobs is the critical issue and they have not tackled it. I don't know how they will bring unemployment down to 8 percent. There is no central industry reform or employment initiative.

A spokesperson for the Salvation Army said that the work for the dole scheme for 10,000 young people was `totally inadequate for the other 800,000 unemployed Australians'. All this government can do is to blame the unemployed for their situation and fiddle with the figures. The only way the Prime Minister, John Howard, and the Minister for Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs, Senator Vanstone, can see to improve unemployment figures is to make sure unemployed Australians are too discouraged to seek jobs.

The work force participation rate is at its lowest for three years. People are just giving up in the search for employment. Look at some of the remedies that the minister offered in this chamber yesterday in question time, when she was questioned substantially upon her address to the CEDA dinner. It is interesting that she keeps saying that she is being quoted out of context but she has consistently refused to provide a copy of her speech. It would be interesting to see what else is in the speech that she may feel would be an embarrassment to her and, probably more importantly, an embarrassment to her government.

She kept saying there were two issues that were important for job creation opportunities to deal with unemployment in this country: one was a freer industrial relations market and the other was the question of unfair dismissals. Despite the fact that your industrial relations legislation dealing with unfair dismissals has been in operation for some considerable time, you are still raising the question of unfair dismissals as a furphy. Those are the two issues the minister keeps saying are central to this government's strategy for dealing with the question of unemployment. They want to blame everybody around them, except themselves, for the lack of result in this area.

But what are people in the real world saying are the barriers to employment creation opportunities? Let us look at the survey that was conducted by the Economic Intelligence Unit for the MTIA report and which I think was reproduced in Tuesday's edition of the Australian Financial Review. They said that the barriers to investment, in order of importance, were: the small size of our market, high local taxes, little incentive from the government—I repeat, little incentive—uncertain outlook for industry policy—in other words, the fact that there is not any industry policy against which they can judge their investment decisions—and the physical distance from markets. The last two issues that were identified as a barrier to employment in this country were high port and shipping costs and industrial relations problems. The last on the list was the industrial relations problem.

Here we have a government that continually talks about micro-economic reform and wants to attack the maritime workers and blame them for a lot of the problems that we confront; yet high port and shipping costs was identified way down the line as being a barrier to investment in this country. We all know that the attack on the waterside workers is not about trying to remove impediments to employment growth; it is ideological in the sense of this government's committed position of trying to destroy the collective organisation of workers in this country, as it is expressed through trade unions and the trade union movement.

The reality is, as I said before, that this government does not have a plan to deal with unemployment, nor does it have a plan about how to grow this economy. It does not have a strategy to put in place that will create the job opportunities that are necessary to reduce unemployment substantially.

There is another plan which has been developed and just released recently. This was a plan produced by my own union, the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, called Rebuilding Australia: industry development for more jobs. I would take this opportunity to acknowledge the work that was done on that report by our national research officer, Nixon Apple. It sets out a strategy for dealing with the question of unemployment. Our union has been producing these reports from 1977.

Senator McGauran —You killed off 11,000.

Senator GEORGE CAMPBELL —We were proved right in 1977, in 1979 and in 1981.

Senator McGauran —Did you go around to their homes after they had lost their jobs?

Senator GEORGE CAMPBELL —We have consistently run that argument in this country for the development of our industries from the early 1980s—all of which you consistently oppose.

Senator McGauran —They will never forgive you for it.

Senator GEORGE CAMPBELL —Don't you sit there, Senator, and say that you are concerned about the battlers. You have never done anything to promote the development of manufacturing and service industries in this country. The only concern you had about trade unionists was taking their money to buy your pub in Melbourne. You were happy then to engage with trade unionists. But we do have a plan. We have a five-point plan for dealing with the question of unemployment. A key element of that plan is innovation—a strategy which says that we should adopt an approach to R&D assistance in this country which encourages companies to expend more of their own dollars as well as the dollars provided out of the public purse; a strategy which, if implemented, would in our view considerably increase the expenditure on R&D that we are seeing in this country in the current environment.

The second part of that strategy concerns venture capital and capital adequacy. We acknowledge what was done in the small business fund. But one of the key issues in that area is the question of patient capital and the necessity to look at the tax act in terms of encouraging longer-term investment over short-term investment. There is a range of other issues. One of the most important is the establishment of a `national development authority' with a possible agenda to replace the Productivity Commission.

There are other issues which I will not get time to address. I seek leave to table that report in the Senate.

Leave granted.