Woods Megan: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Woods Megan: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 01 August 2012. Volume:682;Page:4215. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram) 
: 
 I am more than happy to take a call on Vote Employment because we have a major problem in this country: 87000 of our young people are not in any form of education employment or training. We just heard the Minister in the chair the Minister for Economic Development take a call. He spent the whole time telling us the problem with Labour without actually putting out a plan to get people into jobs. We have a dole queue that is growing and we see him sitting there saying that Labour opposes things but we are not seeing any kind of positive plan from the Government about how to arrest this. 
We have 87000 of our young people thrown on the scrap heap. There are 87000 of our young people who do not see hope in this country. They do not see opportunity in this country and what is happening? They are leaving on a jet plane. They are literally stampeding to Australia—61937 young New Zealanders aged 18 to 30 have packed their bags and have given up making a life in New Zealand since 2008. 
We have 19 percent unemployment amongst our youth. There are no jobs there is no hope and there is no opportunity. All we can hear in speeches and chipping across the Chamber from members opposite is that this is because Australia has mining. This seems to be the extent of the analysis that the Government is capable of when it comes to looking at what it takes to grow an economy. What we have here is a Government that has an inability to join the dots. 
We heard a very good speech earlier this evening about the Maori trade training scheme of the 1950s 1960s and 1970s and what a success that was. That was Labour Prime Minister Peter Fraser’s willingness to see a problem that we had with unemployment amongst Maori youth and to see a solution—that we also needed a stock of housing built in this country. He did not sit idly by and wait for it to happen magically. His Government was an active Government that joined the dots and made it happen. 
There is so much similarity with what we are seeing in this country now. We have a housing crisis we need young people with skills we need young people equipped but we have a Government that is failing to even spend the money it has appropriated to train our young people. It is failing to spend the money that it has set aside to train the next generation of carpenters sparkies and plumbers. The Government is failing our young people. It could be setting them up for employment for life. There is a failure to seize these opportunities. 
The Minister told us at the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee that the Government was not about to frogmarch young people into training but it is actually reluctant to even see the connections with the opportunities that exist. We have a Government that is more than willing to frogmarch young people all around the places it has shown us with its welfare reforms but it has an unwillingness to use this opportunity that we have to train a generation of our young people. It has shown time and time again that this commitment is not there. The Government voted against my amendment that would have explicitly named trade training under Skills for Canterbury as one of the options presented to our 87000 young people who are not in work education or training. It voted it down. 
This is a Government that does not even know how many of our 87000 young people are moving off benefits and into training because it is not bothering to collect the data that goes across on this. There is absolutely no commitment. We have a whole lot of rhetoric. We have crocodile tears but we are not seeing an active Government connecting the dots and making sure that young people in this country have a future. 
The Government is willing to lay down the law to those on benefits and suggests training schemes that are not leading to real employment and career opportunities. What the Government lacks is a positive plan to give those on benefits the skills and opportunities to make something of themselves. Canterbury and New Zealand are crying out for skilled workers and yet this Government just cannot make the connection between our unemployed young people and what is needed in this country. There is a lack of jobs for our young people. 
Vote agreed to.