Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Rice, I will give you the best answer I can as the repping minister, and provide you with further information regarding your questions. This government accepts and believes in the principle of mutual obligation, and that is something that Labor has supported for some time—not just in this government. But the way we go about doing that is by providing people who are unemployed with opportunities to enter the workforce, including by providing skills.

I've heard Minister Burke talk about the fact that, under this program which your question is about, we are not simply going to be requiring people to apply for jobs endlessly. We are going to be providing people with opportunities to gain licences and other skills in order to help them into work. It is an alternative way of assisting people to get into work while requiring people who are in receipt of public funds to take up those opportunities to help find work. That is probably even more important at a time in Australia when we have such low unemployment—we need to encourage everyone who's available to take up work for themselves, for their families and for the country. We stand by this program, I stand by what Minister Burke said and I'm happy to provide you with further detailed answers to your questions.