Tag Family Support—Peters

Press, 28 June 1989, Page 8

Tag Family Support —Peters

Wellington reporter The Opposition spokesman on employment, Mr Winston Peters, has called for Government training incentives and for Family Support to be tied to pre-school education as part of a call for “quality intervention.” In Auckland yesterday, Mr Peters endorsed the “fair market” but criticised the “freemarket, short-sighted, manipulative monetarists.”

As evidence for the failure of the free market, he cited the 173,000 people unemployed or on Government job or training schemes, including 66,700 out of work for more than six months. He noted also the decline in new trade apprenticeships, down from 9100 to 5600 since 1986, and claimed Maori education was at crisis point.

Mr Peters urged “quality intervention” in both the short and long term. In the short term he said jobs or training must be offered to all long-term unemployed, and he rejected claims that the cost would be prohibitive by arguing that the social costs of unemployment were greater. Also in the short term the Government had to redress the skills imbalance by directly providing training or by providing tax incentives for training. “In times of economic downturn, it is survival that counts. And apprentices are viewed as a luxury many businesses cannot afford.”

In the longer term, Mr Peters called for an expanded education system, including the withdrawal of Family Support from parents whose children were not enrolled in a

registered, pre-school educational facility, if one was available. “And where they are not available the State has an extensive responsibility to ensure some kind of educational assistance is. “We must no longer reward parents for blighting their children’s lives.” Mr Peters also called for more recognition of pre-school education, including better salaries. In his speech, Mr Peters condemned calls for the removal of all controls from the workplace. “That means creating an industrial law of the jungle, where the big employer can lay down the law to his employees. Ironically, it would also mean big unions doing the same to small employers.”