Facebook lights up over suggestion Tasmanians should leave to find work
NICK CLARK
Mercury
May 24, 2014
TASMANIANS have reacted swiftly and strongly to Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s suggestion that young unemployed people should move if they can’t find a job in Tasmania.
The Mercury’s Facebook site and website were inundated with comments opposed to Mr Abbott’s statement in Hobart this week, that moving out of the state would not be the “worst outcome in the world’’.
“People came to Tasmania in order to better their lives. So, I don’t think we should be necessarily heartbroken just because some people choose to move,” he said.
The story on Facebook attracted almost 100,000 views.
State Growth Minister Matthew Groom denied Mr Abbott’s comments were at odds with the State Government’s policy to expand the population to 650,000 by 2050.
He said part of the policy to expand the economy was to attract people to the State.
“We think it’s important to have ambition to grow the Tasmanian economy and growing our population is a big part of that,” he said.
Youth Network of Tasmania chief executive Joanna Seijka said Mr Abbott’s comments failed to recognise the reality of the plight faced by many young Tasmanians.
“Our young people need support, not to be forced to move from the State,” Ms Seijka said.
“There is a very real risk that if things don’t go well – if there isn’t a job for them at the other end or if that job isn’t sustainable – then young people will be on the downward spiral to poverty and homelessness.”
A member of the Mercury and Sunday Tasmanian’s Our Kids: Our Future campaign, Scott Cullen, 24, said he was not considering moving interstate to find work.
“There are moving costs and trying to find somewhere to live,” he said. “If you can’t get a job you can’t live anywhere.”
Mr Cullen, of Claremont, said he had done two courses – in traffic control and construction – but had not worked since last year.
University of Tasmania School of Social Sciences lecturer Brendan Churchill said Mr Abbott’s comments were a distraction from the issue of what the Government was going to do to create employment.
“The Government needs to do more than say ‘just move somewhere else’,” he said.
Brotherhood of St Laurence senior manager of Youth Programs Sally James said many young people did not have employment skills and would be wasting time if they relocated.
Labor Senator Carol Brown said Mr Abbott should apologise to young Tasmanian jobseekers for suggesting they should leave to find a job.
“Tasmania has some of the highest youth unemployment in Australia and the solution isn’t shipping our best and brightest young people off the island,” she said.
Employment Minister Eric Abetz said Tasmanians could not expect their fellow Australians to pay them to stay at home when there were suitable job opportunities for them elsewhere in Australia.
“As we know, there have been many harvesting jobs go begging in Tasmania, which have been taken up by people that have travelled from the other side of the world,” he said.
“More recently a delegation has gone to New Zealand to find farm workers at a time when we have the highest rate of unemployment.”
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