12. JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) Link to this
to the Prime Minister
Does he stand by his statement in relation to job creation and young unemployed people that “the most important thing is to not necessarily link the two because they’re quite different things”?
Rt Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister) Link to this
I do, because I think the statement was actually in relation to job creation vis-à-vis welfare reform for young people, which we were talking about in the weekend. They are in one sense different. But I stand by my full statement, which said: “We need to create jobs, and that’s all parts of the economic reforms for which we have a plan, everything from the tax system right through to investment infrastructure, but the most important thing here is not necessarily to link the two because they’re quite different things.”
What part of his announcement on Sunday included investment in “sustainable jobs”, as stated by his Minister for Social Development and Employment in the House today?
One of the things is ensuring that young people—and we are talking about the 8,500 to 13,500 people who leave school between 16 and 17, are not in education, work, or training, and not engaged in any of those activities—have a wraparound provider and get those skills. That is the clearest way to make sure they can actually go into work, because if we do not do that, as we know, 90 percent of them will go on a benefit. The member is now part of an Opposition that supports keeping those people in that way and putting them on a benefit; this side of the House does not.
I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Minister for Social Development and Employment said today that the Prime Minister’s announcement on Sunday included investment in sustainable jobs. I sought clarification from the Prime Minister about what part of his announcement included sustainable jobs; he did not make any reference to my question.
Mr SPEAKERThe difficulty in my trying to intervene with a question like that is that I cannot be expected to adjudicate whether that is a fair reflection of what the Minister for Social Development and Employment said, so the Prime Minister picked up on the part of the question he could make sense of. My dilemma is that I cannot adjudicate on that.
What is the time line for Cabinet’s consideration of a youth wage rate, which he indicated on Firstline this morning would occur?
What advice has he received on how many of the 27.6 percent of unemployed young people will move into work as a result of his announcements on Sunday?
I am not sure of the answer to that at this point because I have not seen any analysis, but I think it is worth doing a couple of things—that is, to make sure we fully understand what we are talking about here. If one looks at those on an unemployment benefit in New Zealand, one sees that that number for young people aged 18 to 24 has actually dropped from 23,545 in January 2010 to 16,363. The member actually quotes the household labour force survey, which relates to people who are indicating they are looking for a job. The member nods, and I appreciate her agreeing with this point. Sixty percent of unemployed people listed in the household labour force survey aged 15 to 19 are at school or university.
The member heard me calling order because I wanted to identify for the House the source of the document from which this table comes.
Statistics New Zealand has regular publications, and if it is a publication that is readily available to the House we do not table it. I am just trying to make sure that the member is not trying to get around a convention we have established. Is the member assuring me that this is not part of the regular Statistics New Zealand releases?
The thing is: how can we seek leave for a document if we do not know the source of the document? When the member says it might be an earlier publication, either the member knows what document this table is from, or she does not.
Just for clarification, it came via the Parliamentary Library. I cannot be sure whether it has been published publicly as yet via Statistics New Zealand.