Whitlam era scheme needed to get SA working
The State Government should recreate a Whitlam era scheme that paid people minimum wage to build community infrastructure, argues Malcolm King.
In an irony straight out of Monty Python, the State Government recently scrapped the Festival of Ideas, while desperately looking for ideas to fix the state’s high unemployment levels.
From a demographic labour force perspective, South Australia faces a top and tail problem. Unemployment and under employment are growing rapidly in the 18-25 cohort and in the 50 plus cohorts – especially among men.
This fraying at the leading edges of the workforce has profound implications as disquiet builds in the northern and western suburbs. For 50 years we were told there were jobs “out there” if you really wanted one.
This is wrong and the ethos behind the statement has been destroyed by changes in the labour market, the rise of short-term contracts and the casualisation of the workforce.
Thousands of men and women from Holden, the AWD project, the mines and manufacturing and construction sectors, have lost or are about to lose their jobs, while the Federal Government brags about the success of its “slave workforce” with the work for the dole project.
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The Weatherill government is focused on holding a Festival of Democracy and changing our clocks to Melbourne time but youth unemployment (15-24) is hitting 30 per cent in Adelaide’s north. This is as bad as it got in the Great Depression of 1929-33. It’s time for action.
The State Government must introduce a Regional Employment Development (RED) scheme in SA. During the Whitlam years, workers on RED schemes were paid the minimum wage to work on local councils to build roads, youth centres, playing fields, swimming pools, senior citizens centres, surf life saving clubs and much more.
RED schemes are the exact opposite of cutting taxes to benefit business under supply side economics. If “trickle down” really worked, Africa would be a middle class paradise by now. In RED schemes, the money goes straight to the worker. The workers get paid for their labour. They don’t give it away.
University graduates worked next to skilled and unskilled labourers. Thousands of jobs were provided for the unemployed for 12 months. I would also include an Urban Employment Development (UED) scheme. Same model. Same idea.
Why do we need a RED/UED scheme? Because of the failure of 30 years of deregulation, privatisation and externalisation of corporate costs back on to the public. Because in the 1980s and 90s, the state government failed to diversity the economy. Because universities, TAFE and private providers keep enrolling students in programs where there are no jobs.
Consider the state of the state. There are 67,000 unemployed and 85,800 under employed people subsisting in SA, with an extraordinary 22 per cent of the adult population welfare dependent. They have to get back to work.
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Even the kids who got smart and graduated from TAFE or university, find themselves saddled with mortgage sized education debts with little chance of finding employment opportunities in their field of study.
Some are “working” as new graduate trainees for extended periods for no pay. Indeed, one Adelaide law firm wanted to charge students $22,000 for work placements. That’s a classic example of supply side economics in action.
Plenty will head to Sydney and Melbourne but many will hang tough and stay in SA. They are going to need work and some of that work will come from GST revenues supporting the RED/UED scheme.
A growing part of SA’s unemployed are older people. Many come from industries on the slide while others have national and international business experience. They have become civil “ghosts” as recruiters and employers exclude them from re-entering the workforce. Any regeneration of the SA economy must exclude recruiters.
In Melbourne some years ago, I started enrolling students in their fifties, sixties and seventies in an undergraduate professional writing program. I was astounded by their mental acuity and depth of knowledge across a raft of professions. Far from being ‘old duffers’, they were bold, engaged and full of good ideas.
You wouldn’t think so if you read the motherhood statements in the SA Government’s ‘Prosperity through Longevity, SA’s Ageing Plan (2014-2019)’. I counted the word ‘vision’ 30 times before I gave up. The state is in strife due to a lack of political vision.
There has been much talk over the last 10 years of the “wisdom of crowds”. Why not go directly to the source and engage those who have lived on the planet for almost three generations? Age is a verb. It’s not a diversity issue. It’s an economic issue. Use older folk’s business experience to drive productivity.
Many of these men and women want to get back in to the game. They would help to administer and supervise the RED/UED scheme.
A RED/UED scheme won’t get the economy back on track but it will reduce the penury and misery of those who want to work and earn a wage.
Malcolm King is an Adelaide writer working in generational change.
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