Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. He legitimately points to the difficulties which have been experienced recently in the Richmond-Tweed, Clarence Valley and Mid North Coast on the back of natural disasters but also, more broadly, on the impact of the global economic recession on the communities which he represents. Therefore, he legitimately raises questions of what can be further done in his area.

I was speaking with the Minister for Employment Participation about the member’s area recently as we looked at unemployment data from across the country. The member represents an area which, from recollection, looking at the data from April, is north of eight per cent—8.3, 8.5 per cent. Therefore, in terms of those priority areas which the government is seeking to address additional efforts to at the moment, it would, from our point of view, qualify for further consideration by way of additional assistance. In my discussions with the Minister for Employment Participation we have agreed that this should be designated as a priority employment area—that is, the area of the Richmond-Tweed, Clarence Valley and North Coast. We would also confirm to the honourable member in response to his question that we will proceed with the appointment of a priority employment coordinator for this area as well.

The particular mechanism that the priority employment coordinators are deploying across the nation is to engage with local communities, their business leadership, their community leadership, their local government leadership and local church and charitable organisations and to work together to come up with practical projects which could form the basis for further investment from the community jobs fund, which is a fund that we provided support for in earlier allocations from this parliament nationwide of some $650 million. In response to the announcement of that fund we also made it clear in statements from the government that in our Jobs and Training Compact with Australia we would be implementing compacts with young Australians, compacts with those Australians who have been retrenched through no fault of their own and compacts also with local communities. This particular program comes off the back of compacts with local communities.

In the seven areas that we currently have designated around the country we have already, together with the Minister for Employment Participation, addressed local community seminars about practical projects which could be supported. Further, in conversations with the minister recently I understand that in response to the first round of seeking applications from the community at large we received more than 3,000 applications—I am looking for a prompt from the minister here—

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