Lazy leader without genuine job plan

Date: 21 April 2010

The Coalition's plan to scrap the dole for under-30s has been widely panned as a stupid idea - based on lazy policy development.

 “ Tony Abbott should spend less time on his bike; he should spend more time in the office and come up with credible alternative job creation plans,” Paul Howes, AWU National Secretary, said today.

Mine bosses leaked this stupid idea to embarrass Tony Abbott

The Coalition leader wants to push young people into taking jobs at isolated West Australian desert mines – by cutting them off the dole.

“ It is little wonder mine bosses who attended a secret Perth briefing with Tony Abbott leaked this stupid idea.

“ They gave media details of the secret meeting to show their displeasure. Our industry knows this is a disaster of a work idea; so the bosses cooked up a plan to embarrass Tony into backing,” Paul Howes said.

Miners don't want to send untrained young people into a mine with all its inherent dangers

“ Mine owners don’t want to be party to any idea of sending young people down a mine without proper training and support,” Paul Howes said.

“ They know the community will react angrily if an untrained, unskilled young person is killed, or maimed, in a mine accident – they don’t want the blood on their hands. They don’t want the ensuing bad publicity.

“ We all know this is a policy which shows up a Coalition leader who has little or no respect for young people.

Genuine alternative PM should not stoop to crass Hanson-style politics at its worse

“ Here we have here a good example of a lazy political leader not prepared to put the hard yards into developing genuine policy for the upcoming Federal election,” Paul Howes said.

"It’s crass politics at its worst. It's the type of thing we heard from Pauline Hanson. But then Pauline Hanson, we know, was never ever going to be Prime Minister.

" Tony Abbott can’t genuinely think Australia will solve an economically crippling skills shortage by punishing young welfare recipients.

Plucking people out of unemployment to work with expensive equipment won't solve skills crisis

"I think it's one of Tony Abbott's Sarah Palin moments,” Paul Howes said.

"You can't just pluck any old Joe out of an area of chronic unemployment, dump them in a mine and think that that somehow is going to solve the skills shortage, because the shortage is about skills."

"To take people and say 'right, you can go and work with expensive equipment in an open cut or underground mine without training and no regard to skills is totally disastrous – no one in our industry would come out in favour of this idea.

Unions and employers pushing workplace plans in the opposite direction

" Unions and employers are actually pushing workplace policy in the opposite direction – we know we need skilled, trained, and competent workers in this important industry sector. No one thinks overnight an unemployed young person with little or no skills can start working in the resources sector.

“ I don’t believe anyone in Tony Abbott’s office with an ounce of common sense would have suggested this as a realistic policy – this was a silly thought bubble which popped into his head and out it came without any support.”

For further information

Contact:	Paul Howes, National Secretary
Union:	AWU
WWW:	http://www.awu.net.au/

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