Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

It was very interesting to hear from the honourable member, the member for Wentworth, but we did not hear at all a plan about the future and the future of jobs in this country. Indeed, when you look at the budget papers and at the lack of investment in research and development, at the cuts to the CSIRO and scientists, at the way in which the government are increasing fees to deprived skilled kids getting into universities, you can see that not only do they not have a plan to actually provide the skills needed for the emerging areas of growth in the Labor market but indeed they are putting impediments in place to stop these skills being there to anticipate the growth in the labour market. These new areas of growth were outlined by the Leader of the Opposition in the budget reply speech last week and, indeed, go to the areas that matter most for our young people.

It is true to say that, in the end, business creates jobs but the government has the responsibility to create the environment in which those businesses can thrive. The best way for those businesses to not only survive but thrive is to ensure that there is sufficient investment in research and development, and sufficient investment by a government in skills. The Leader of the Opposition's commitment last week was to ensure that we would focus on the emerging areas that are growing fast in our labour market—new technologies, namely, science, technology, engineering and mathematics. These are the areas that we as a government need to focus on. We would have to do that in government and it is certainly the government's role to do such a thing.

But the Minister for Communications did not make any commitments in this regard. It is a lame defence put forward by the Minister for Communications on the lack of a plan by the government for this emerging challenge for the nation.

By contrast, the member for Blaxland clearly outlined how we are falling behind other comparable countries. There is no doubt that, when it comes to points of comparison, we are not keeping up with comparable countries. You only have to look at some of the areas where we are inferior. Our venture capital industry is small and not well developed and, in per capita terms, it is about one third the size of the United States's venture capital industry. It is almost a quarter of the size of Canada's. We should be matching pound for pound our investment and indeed our encouragement of venture capital with these two countries, yet we are falling behind. As an OECD nation, we are falling behind in research and development in relation to these areas.

When you look at the forecast in the government's own budget figures, it is no wonder that you see an increase in unemployment over time. Is it any wonder you are seeing unemployment rise in the next financial year to 6.5 per cent? Is it any wonder that you are seeing 80,000 more people lining the unemployment queues today than was the case at the last election? The government has no plan to deal with these issues. It has no plan to articulate what is needed. But, of course, we do have a plan. We have a plan to ensure we encourage young people, whether it be in primary school, secondary school or higher education, to take up these areas and that skill acquisition at a very early age, like other countries do, to ensure we can compete with countries in our region. But we will not hold our breath when it comes to this government. It has put things in the way of such skill acquisition by increasing fees as it seeks to do at universities, by depriving investment in primary schools and secondary schools, by ripping away the billions of dollars to those schools. We will see a lack of investment and a lack of capacity of this country to ensure that young people acquire such skills in the emerging areas of the economy and labour market.

The government now has a chance and opportunity to attend to this issue. The opposition wants to work with the government on such matters. We have outlined the areas where we would like to go. Indeed, if the government responded positively to the views of the opposition, we could work together on these issues. But we will not hold our breath because, in the end, this government has no regard for people that are looking for jobs and no regard for the future. It only has regard for the Prime Minister's own job.

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