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Bligh's 'Green Army'

By Jessica Brown - posted Tuesday, 17 March 2009


Now that Keynesian pump-priming is back in vogue the old depression era adage that governments should pay people to dig holes and fill them back up again is also back on the agenda. Better to do something, no matter how ineffective, than to do nothing at all it seems.

Anna Bligh’s new “Green Army” might well have been designed with this in mind.

The army will consist of 3,000 unemployed or school leaving Queenslanders, drafted to work on conservation and environmental projects around the state. While 700 of the places will be traineeships, which include working towards qualifications in areas such as Conservation and Land Management, Horticulture and Waste and Water Treatment, the majority - 2,300 - will be work placements.

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More than 100,000 Queenslanders are already out of work, and this figure is set to rise. While the project is a sure-fire headline generator, it’s certainly not going to make a big dent in the unemployment rate.  There are other reasons to be wary too.

Work placements will last for six months, with local councils, businesses and conservation groups proposing green projects to employ the workers. This means any organisation who was already considering hiring workers to undertake such projects will now have a big incentive to save their cash. Why spend money hiring someone when the government will pay to do it for you?

Long-term “real” jobs could give way to six-month Green Army placements.

This would be bad for participants, and bad for Queensland taxpayers. Time spent working on a Green Army project is time with which participants could be looking for a sustainable and ongoing job. Taxpayers money that could have been spent somewhere else, now won’t be.

The plan also appears to mirror the Federal Government’s “Green Corps”, which sees young people taking on six month placements in environmental projects, suggesting there could be a wasteful duplication of the Queensland and national schemes.

While their effect on long term jobs is doubtful, some “make-work” schemes -such as the tourist friendly bike path proposed for New Zealand perhaps - can have lasting economic or environmental benefits. However the Green Army appears to be untargeted and doesn’t aim to meet a specific need.

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In the rush to get the scheme off the ground, the danger is that funding will be given to pointless or unproductive projects. Undoubtedly many communities will propose worthy conservation projects, but the imperative to create jobs quickly means that projects which are “shovel ready” will inevitably be given priority over those which are more worthwhile.

How will the projects be chosen, and how will their long-term benefit be assessed? Will job creation be given priority over environmental rewards, or vice versa?

Schemes such as this assume that the government is better at choosing which projects get the go-ahead than the market or local community. However, if a project is really worthwhile there is a good chance that someone - a local council or a tourism operator perhaps - is already doing it. If not, why not? Do we want taxpayer dollars pumped into projects which ultimately don’t deliver?

Studies show that while some types of government help - such as job search assistance - are effective in getting unemployed people into permanent and sustainable work, direct job creation is not one of them. According to the OECD, these programs have had “little success in helping unemployed people get jobs in the open labour market”.

Work for the Dole and other programs which keep unemployed people in the habit of work and help them brush up their skills can be successful but these are undertaken in addition to, not instead of, looking for a permanent job.

There’s no doubt that the most pressing problem for all Australian governments - including Queensland’s - is rising unemployment. Anna Bligh is right to make it her priority. However, the Green Army will have a limited effect at best. At worst, it will actually displace other jobs that would have been created. The best thing any government can do to lower unemployment is to facilitate a competitive jobs market, by focusing on lowering any barriers - such as taxes or red tape - that stop businesses from hiring new workers.

The risk in the Green Army project is that in trying to achieve two objectives, neither will be met. Some workers will be “painting rocks” when they could be spending their time looking for a better paid and permanent job, while poor conservation projects may get the go-ahead ahead of more deserving ones.

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About the Author

Jessica Brown is a Policy Analyst at the Centre for Independent Studies.

Other articles by this Author

All articles by Jessica Brown

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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