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- 13 November 2003
Employment Statistics
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Page: 4948
The Hon. IAN WEST [6.05 p.m.]: I will raise some issues related to employment levels and conditions for workers in New South Wales. Figures recently released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics [ABS] in the month of October reveal that the national unemployment rate is 5.7 per cent. The rate in New South Wales is slightly better at 5.6 per cent. Those figures seem positive, but they must be considered in the context that the employment participation rate of the Australian population is only 63.5 per cent. That means that more than one-third of the population is not looking for work, not to mention all those who are underemployed. Although that rate is slightly higher than it was 10 years ago, it does not take into account the fact that the ABS now considers a person to be employed if he or she has done one hour's work or more per week in the preceding 12 weeks. That includes people working on the family farm, one hour here and there over three months.
An Australian Council of Social Services [ACOSS] September 2002 study reveals that the real extent of enforced joblessness in Australia is 12.9 per cent rather than the official figure of 5.6 per cent. ACOSS believes that the ABS figures exclude about 716,000 hidden unemployed who worked for only a few hours a week, those who have been discouraged from seeking work, and those who wanted to work but could not start a job immediately. Extensive evidence demonstrates that those findings are relevant to today's rates.
It is important to include those hidden unemployed people because they experience all the economic and social disadvantages experienced by the unemployed but they are not counted in the official statistics. In many cases the official statistics demonstrate quantity without quality. Another example of the detail that is left out of these sobering figures is the fact that almost 2 million Australian workers earn the minimum wage of $11.80 an hour. The Australian Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union will use its low-pay project to stimulate debate on ensuring that such workers are given proper recompense, recognition, and respect for their efforts.
The New South Wales Branch Secretary, Annie Owens, has said that child-care workers, security industry guards, cleaners, and hotel employees are surviving rather than living on the minimum full-time pre-tax wage of $448.40 a week or about $300 net. Many of these jobs are becoming part-time, casual or fixed term contracts, which means that award wage rates fall behind. How much one-way, downward, so-called flexibility can we accept? This is something that hardworking people on the minimum wage need like a hole in the head. Supporting a family and even moving out to live independently of parents is going beyond difficult—it is becoming a luxury or dream.
The Federal Government has done little to indicate that it cares about the welfare of the unemployed or people earning the minimum wage. Today's media reveals that John Howard is pushing his anti-worker and anti-union agenda through public agencies again. This time the so-called Office of the Employment Advocate is doing the dirty work under the deceitful guise of flexibility. The Employment Advocate, Jonathon Hamberger, sent a letter to every high school in New South Wales spruiking Howard's Australian workplace agreements for students leaving school. The web site set up by the Office of the Employment Advocate is designed to inform students about the so-called virtues of Australian workplace agreements. However, the site does not appear to contain any information about alternative employment conditions or arrangements. In fact, the single case study available of the 19-year-old on an Australian workplace agreement is a blatant advertisement for individual contracts.
Clearly, the Labor Government in New South Wales opposes that approach. Indeed, the Minister for Education, the Hon. Andrew Refshauge, has made it clear that it was completely inappropriate for the Employment Advocate to write directly to school principals. A teacher at Nimbin Central School said the Employment Advocate's letter was a blatant example of the Howard Government's work agenda permeating into schools. It is being suggested that more of these grubby tactics will be employed. [Time expired.]
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