Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment Participation) Share this | Hansard source

We know we need to change the employment programs to provide job seekers in this country with appropriate skills. We know we have to change the programs so we can attend to those skills. We have received 250 submissions. That review is being undertaken because we need to change the way in which we seek to assist jobseekers. The problem with the current programs, without prejudicing the review, is they did not attend to the changing demographic of those people not in work. By that I mean those people who were confronting non-vocational and vocational problems were not being addressed by the programs and we will seek to fix that. We know that the previous government failed. The Rudd government will not fail in this regard. We have made a commitment to ensure that there will be 450,000 VET places over the course of the next four years—175,000 of which will be for those people who are seeking to find work or are marginally attached to the workforce, 20,000 of which will be available from April. There is no doubt in the government’s mind that this is a critical matter, a matter that was ignored by the previous government, but the Rudd government are building a modern economy that is confronting the challenges of the 21st century. The opposition on the other hand is stuck in the past, not knowing where it stands on any particular area of public policy.

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