Unemployment bill defeated

Press, 20 August 1983, Page 8

Unemployment bill defeated

Parliamentary reporter A bill setting up household surveys to find “true” levels of unemployment was narrowly defeated in the House yesterday. The Statistics (Unemployment and Household Labour Force Survey) Amendment Bill failed to be introduced by 36 votes to 37. The Social Credit members voted' with the Opposition in favour of the bill

The private members’ bill was sponsored by the Opposition spokeswoman on statistics, Mrs Margaret Shields (Kapiti), a former sociologist and statistician. Mrs Shields said that a quarterly survey of households would give information on the numbers of women, Maoris, and Polynesians, and young people, and on the age groups most affected. The Government would be able to . improve and target planning specially tailored employment policies at these groups, she said. The survey would cost $700,000 a year and would bring New Zealand into line with most other O.E.GS).

countries. Only four O.E.C.D. countries — Turkey, Iceland, Switzerland, and New Zealand — did not run household surveys. The survey would be complementary to other gauges of unemployment, as in most O.E.C.D. countries, she said. The Government did not want to run a household survey because it was “scared it might tell the people of this country something it doesn’t want them to know,” she said. The survey would “keep the Government honest”

The Minister of Labour, Mr Bolger, quoted Australian figures showing that figures of registered unemed in that country were er than those revealed in the Australian household survey, she said. He used this to say that New Zealand’s registered unemployed figures were accurate enough. The high Australian figure of registered unemployed was an aberration caused by a statistical error, and the Minister was selectively using that figure, she said.

Mr Bolger said the Australian Labour Government had recently used the registered unemployed figure, not the household survey figure, to show the Australian people the “true” level of unemployment. The registered figures were 160,000 higher than the household survey showed. The stigma had gone out of registering as an unemployed person, Mr Bolger

The 1981 census had shown that the registered unemployed were 80 per cent of those who said in the census that they were seeking work. The census showed 80,000 were out of work; the number of registered unemployed was 47,500. The Labour Party wanted a household survey because they thought it would yield a bigger figure which it could use politically, he said. The Australian experience showed it would not

Mr Bolger said that 15 LL.O. countries used their registered unemployed figures to measure true levels of'.pnemployment

The Minister of Statistics, Mr Falloon, said that the survey would cost $700,000 a year, create 25 jobs in the Statistics Department, and “tell the Government nothing it does not know already.” ’ A survey of households would not do anything to create more jobs, he said.

The Opposition spokesman on employment, Mr Peter Neilson, said that that was like saying the Consumers’ Price Index did nothing to bring down inflation.

Registered unemployment figures did not show the number of 15 year olds out of work, or the number who had returned to school because they could not get a job, Mr Neilson said.

They did not show the number of married women, because married women did not qualify for the benefit if they were not principal income earners. They did not show people in remote areas who could not easily get to a centre to register. Officialdom also deterred people. People were transferred off the

ment benefit on to other benefits to disguise the true level of unemployment, Mr Neilson said.

Mr Bolger said that people were not deterred from registering just because they did not qualify for the benefit. They registered- to gain help to get work.

Mrs Ann Hercus (Lab., Lyttelton) said that the Statistics Department had spent three years preparing a household survey and had run a pilot study. It was ready to go, and believed in the usefulness of such a survey. But it told the Parliamentary Public Expenditure Committee under questioning last year that the Government had knocked it back.

“Three years of work were killed dead,” Mrs Hercus said.

The member for Rangiora, Mr D. F. Quigley (Nat), said that a household survey was a bit like finding a better thermometer to measure the patient’s temperature. The temperature needed bringing down.