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When did we become the stupid country?

By Naomi Anderson - posted Thursday, 31 May 2012


What exactly have they been doing?

Apart from the apparent incompetence of human resources departments within mining companies and employment service supposed to be finding peoples jobs, one has to wonder at the incompetence of successive governments.

The federal government pays the bill for unemployment, disability and sole parent benefits. One would think that they have an incentive to reduce their burden by assisting such people into work. Alright, so the jobs are in Western Australia and not Kensington, but a person who has been unemployed for long enough will not care so much about that if there is the prospect of a good job, an ongoing salary and the chance to build a career.

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What exactly do we think brings foreign workers here to do these jobs? They are leaving home, they are stepping into the unknown, and they are walking away from family and friends, at least for some time, in order to build a better future. Do we actually think so little of our fellow Australians that we don't believe they would do this in order to build a future for themselves and their families?

What seems closer to the truth is a massive disconnect at a number of levels. Mining companies can not be bothered to invest in developing the skill level of the local workforce because it is easier to lobby the government to bring in qualified employees from overseas. While we have a generation of kids who can't find apprenticeships because businesses won't hire them, mining companies prefer to pick the cream off other the skills base of other countries.

Our kids will be welfare dependant as a result, but the companies don't care, they won't be paying the bill in financial, emotional or social terms.

Then there is the failure of government. Neither the LNP nor ALP has approached this with any business sense at all, and this is indicative of the state of politics in this country. Most of our politicians have done nothing else, although a few have been lawyers. How many have actually run a business?

It does not seem to have occurred to any of them, from any party, that there is work to be done here, and that our economic future depends not only on having successful businesses but successful people. If you leave significant proportions of the population out in the cold, consider them unemployable and then attack them for being a burden on society, bad things happen. If you accept that a certain group is never going to work and we will always have to support them with welfare payments, then you are mismanaging the countries finances. This applies to both sides of politics, neither of which has searched for, not achieved real solutions.

Then there are the unions. They jump up and down at times likes this, chanting the "protection of Australian jobs" as their concern. But the problem is that they represent people who have, or have had, jobs in the first place. They represent a particular skill set, or a particular industry. Who represents the terminally unemployed?

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In theory, the employment agencies tasked with finding them employment. The sheer fact that we have to import labour on this scale suggests they have no idea what they are doing either.

Finally there is the voting public.

The debate about this issue seems to evolve around the union spin of job protection, the xenophobic fear of foreigners, and the liberal desire for business to be able to succeed at all costs.

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About the Author

Naomi Anderson has worked in the human resources field for over fifteen years, and is the parent of a person with a disability. Passionate about creating positive change in areas of human rights and disability, she is the founder of www.disabilitydirectory.net.au.

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