Page 530 - Week 02 - Thursday, 25 February 1993
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UNEMPLOYMENT
Discussion of Matter of Public Importance
MADAM TEMPORARY DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mrs Grassby): The Speaker has received letters from Mrs Carnell, Mr Cornwell, Mr De Domenico, Mr Humphries, Mr Kaine, Mr Stevenson and Mr Westende proposing that matters of public importance be submitted to the Assembly. In accordance with standing order 79, the Speaker has determined that the matter proposed by Mr Cornwell be submitted to the Assembly, namely:
The Labor Government's failure to treat the horrendous level of unemployment as the number one priority.
MR CORNWELL (3.15): Despite the attempts of an increasingly desperate Labor Party to scare people in relation to the goods and services tax which will be introduced in this country following the election on 13 March of a coalition government, the real issue for this election can be summed up in three words - jobs, jobs, jobs.
Mr Berry: That is an old line.
MR CORNWELL: It may be, but it is a line which I would hope could be repeated constantly between now and 13 March because that is what the future of this country and the future of this country's population are all about. So far we have had from Federal Labor one million official unemployed, and I say "official" because we do not know how many hidden unemployed there may be.
Mr Berry: And it will go up under a GST; it will skyrocket.
MR CORNWELL: You have the runs on the board, Mr Berry. Your party has the runs on the board - a million official unemployed. Does anybody really want a repeat performance of another three years of a Keating administration? I would think that anybody in their right mind would certainly not want the risk of yet another million unemployed under Keating. Unfortunately, the fact that there are one million official unemployed should not prevent - - -
Mr Berry: There are not a million in the ACT. We are talking about the ACT Government.
MR CORNWELL: If you read the MPI, Mr Berry, you will see that it states:
The Labor Government's failure to treat the horrendous level of unemployment as the number one priority.
Despite the one million official unemployed, it should not prevent any Labor government from at least attempting to reduce the numbers - somehow, anyhow. We have not seen this in action in this ACT Labor Government.
Mr De Domenico: They have talked about it.
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