Govt comes under fire at jobs summit

Press, 11 March 1985, Page 1

Govt comes under fire at jobs summit

By

GLENN HASZARD

industrial reporter Employers and the Government came under strong attack from speakers representing the trade unions, the unemployed, and Maoris at the opening session of the employment promotion conference in Wellington last evening. Mr Ron Burgess, chairman of the Combined State Unions, repeated his recent criticism of the direction the Government is taking in its economic policy. He said he had serious reservations about whether the Government’s economic strategy would lead to the creation of more jobs. “I don’t believe the free market is a reliable mechanism for providing jobs,” he told about 200 delegates and observers at the opening session. On the contrary, jobs could be put at risk by the inflow of imports. The public sector had to be given a positive place in

the role of generating jobs, Mr Burgess said. Ms Jane Stevens, representing unemployed workers, said she felt angry and “let down” because nothing had happened since the Government’s economic summit last year.

“Unemployed and low-in-come people are really hurting,” she said. The Budget had done nothing. Politicians were “spouting platitudes” but were not prepared to do anything about the plight of the unemployed and people on low incomes. Ms Stevens levelled abuse particularly at “you people in flash offices who sit there on your butts.”

The unemployed had worked long and hard to see Labour elected as the Government and had held high hopes that things would change, but hopes had been dashed, said Ms Stevens. The conference should address itself to the fact that some people had “more

than enough” while others were poor. “The Government must make sure the resources of the country go to the people who need them,” Ms Stevens said. She warned delegates that they would hear more from the unemployed over the next two days of the conference, at the working parties and forums. Next on the offensive was the Rev. Maori Marsden, representing Maori groups. He said that the Maori people had not been accorded a proper place in deliberations leading up to the conference. The Maori groups would present alternative solutions to unemployment and would insist that Maori needs be heeded from the Maori perspective.

“I’m angry, like Jane Stevens. We as Maoris have in fact a prior claim on this country and we have a definite role and contribu-

tion to make,” Mr Marsden said.

To deny the Maori of a say would be to compound the problems and widen the rift between Maori and pakeha.

“We believe if we have a say, not the bureaucrats and employers, money could be spent which would produce better and more lasting results.” said Mr Marsden.

At the end of his speech about 60 Maoris and a few pakeha supporters took the floor for a spirited haka. Ms Tari-Ana Turia, representing community groups on the steering committee which organised the conference, said that Maori delegates had already met at Seaview yesterday. They had reached their own consensus that Maori regional employment bodies should be formed, answerable to a national Maori employment body which would be responsible to the Government.

the conference was

opened by the Prime Minister, Mr Lange, who said that it was another step in the process of consultation. The conterence will split into working parties dealing with small enterprise development, job-creation programmes, training, income and income support, and causes and cures.

Mr Lange said that the findings of the income and income support group would have relevance to the Budget 1985 task force on social security benefits and personal income tax.

“It is an area fraught with anomalies. One that the group might consider is why different levels of payment are made to people out of the workforce because of age, sickness, accident, or unemployment,” said Mr Lange.

Improved employment opportunities were linked intimatelj' with improved economic performance. “It is because of the longstanding poor economic per-

formance that we face an unemployment problem today. Let us remember that this conference is an employment promotion conference and our objective must be job growth. “Economic policies pursued by this Government have created the environment for such job growth and we must now find ways to maximise employment opportunites,” said Mr Lange. At the heart of the problem lay training, and the Government had to rethink its approaches to this. “I see no reason why school-leavers should go on the dole. There is every reason for them to enter a training programme if they cannot secure a job or go on to higher education. Equally, there is no logic in the unemployed being denied the opportunity to retrain and enhance their skills for work,” Mr Lange said.

The sole employer repre-

sentative speaker at the opening session was the president of the Manufacturers’ Federation, Mr Earl Richardson, who was greeted with subdued hissing when he said that there should be no dole but rather educational support and training for the young.

He said that business, and manufacturing in particular, was shouldering a greater share of the burden of earning New Zealand’s way in the world while at the same time it faced international competition to an unprecedented extent.

“Yet the depth of knowledge and readiness of each year’s wave of young people leaving school to move into industry appears to be falling further and further behind those of our trading competitors,” said Mr Richardson.

The priority must lie in strengthening private sector job-creation initiatives to provide economically viable jobs.

“All our efforts in job creation must be judged by rigorous market tests and economic viability — they must be productive, profitearning, value-adding, and favourably self-supporting," said Mr Richardson. The Minister of Employment, Mr Burke, who will chair many of the forums today and tomorrow, said that the challenges to be met pointed to a radical shift in the way labour market problems were solved. "A shift away from a welfare approach of paying people to do nothing or keeping them occupied in work of low priority — an approach more appropriate to the days before 1975 when full employment was almost guaranteed — to a more positive approach of training and increasing the skills of individual New Zealanders.” Mr Burke said he was committed to consultation.