No New Ideas in Jobs Plan - Old Election Promises Rebadged
4 September 2001
Gary Humphries’ so-called jobs plan is nothing more than a re-run of last election’s failed Youth 500 plan Labor Shadow Employment Minister Wayne Berry said in a statement issued today.
The Skills 500 plan announced today is nothing more than a rerun of the Youth 500 plan. The Youth 500 was plan launched by the Kate Carnell in the lead up to the 1998 Assembly election. The program stopped shortly after the 1998 Assembly election.
Mr Berry’s comment follows the announcement today of the Gary Humphries version of the 1997 plan by Kate Carnell. The announcement follows over 8 months of calls by Labor for the Government to come up with a plan. Just like last time this is an election plan.
"This plan is a straight subsidy to business to fill jobs which would have been filled anyway and it demonstrates that Mr Humphries is so bereft of ideas that he has to resort to copying schemes that were dumped long ago. If this plan was so good why didn’t the Chief Minister release it 8 months ago when it became obvious that unemployment was rising.
"So ridiculous was the Government’s Youth 500 scheme that it paid massive subsidies to itself and Federal Government agencies for taking on young workers.
"On top of that, the Youth 500 scheme subsidies were handed to a company which was convicted twice in the Magistrates Court for occupational health and safety breaches. This company has since been sold and all the jobs have gone to Melbourne.
"Another notable failed Liberal Government policy was the multi-million dollar Impulse deal, where the jobs have not materialised.
"What credibility does the Humphries Government have on jobs after the attacks it has made on thousands of government jobs over the years, most recently in ACT Forests and Totalcare.
"In contrast Labor forced the Government to fill 50 vacancies it had been hiding in the ACT Fire Brigade for over a year.
"The horse has bolted on unemployment because the Government did nothing on jobs when the problem first became known after the 2000 Olympics. A photocopied, failed plan of yesteryear does little to inspire confidence," Mr Berry concluded.