I think there were two key things in the Employment Taskforce recommendations. One was the commitment that nobody could be unemployed for longer than six months by the year 2000 without being offered a job. So you try to help yourself for six months, and if you don't get there in that time ... we're not prepared to allow you to go on to long-term unemployment.

I think this was central to the whole package, because it was basically about hope and removing the desperation that we saw was very evident around the country. I think this was really central because it was what everything else was based around. Now this is obviously not a part of the government's job package at all.

The other issue was that the Employment Taskforce made a very major emphasis on local employment initiatives, accepting that if things were going to happen, they would need to take the local initiatives and really work with them. But if you look at what's actually provided for local employment initiatives in the package, its pathetic really.

What the Taskforce process seemed to do was tap into the communities around the country very well, and probably raise their expectations. We were quite serious about what we were putting in there. It was an exciting opportunity that we were handed, and we genuinely wanted to make a difference.

But the final package falls a long way short. There are some components that they have picked up - like the abatement regime that I suspect they were going to do anyway ... and things like childcare, and after school care. But most of these start in July 1996, and I don't know why this has to be this way. I find it incredibly frustrating and I can certainly understand people's cynicism about Taskforce type of exercises.

The local employment co-ordinators seem to be based in government departments, and this is radically different from our idea of Employment Commissioners who are about really stirring and making things happen and, if necessary, making sure government departments do the job. This is very different from having someone based in the Department of Labour.

The new local employment initiatives seem to have about a million dollars a year allocated to them over the whole country. So I suppose, in Christchurch, if we are looking at 10% of that total, then we are only looking at $100,000 for new initiatives. That's incredible ... especially when you see that the Council this year is putting in about $2.5 million in our local employment schemes. A hundred thousand from government is not really a big deal at all.

I think it is a very cynical response, and very harsh on those people who have already suffered from unemployment. We knew that the impact of unemployment was not shared equally and that it was really important that the money that went into the repair process actually got to those who had paid far too high a price already.

There were very specific recommendations, like ensuring people who had been out of work for, say six months, had access to fully funded community work whether that would be full-time or part-time. What's actually come out is that there is funding for a hundred positions for those who have been out of work for four years or longer. And its a pilot. Well .... whoopie. We're not exactly ecstatic... it would mean that we probably get ten positions in Christchurch.

I actually felt that things would happen with the multi-party accord and the general acceptance of the report. I expected something to come out of it... or else I wouldn't have spent a year of my life doing it. Obviously I was somewhat naive in my belief in the political process even when three parties were involved. We had hoped, here in Christchurch, that when finally there was a government response, there would be things that we could plug into and make more things happen locally. I've read through the government's response fully a couple of times ... thinking I must have missed all the stuff on the first time through ... but there's really nothing. There's really very little in there that will make a difference.

Source - Interview with Vivian Hutchinson 3 November 1995

Britain, Germany and France have free education: Why not New Zealand ? Education is recognised as a key ingredient to a successful employment policy. Having to pay for education is likely to further the gap between haves and have-nots. The current gap in New Zealand is one of the biggest in the industrialised world.....to what end ?

Compelling students to stay much longer at school without addressing the very reasons many students dislike secondary school isn't likely to help these students. Far too many students leave secondary schools without sufficient ability to simply read and write. Client-centered delivery styles need to be implemented in schools. Schools need to be accountable as to what happens to their students once they leave school.

Very few young people or job-seekers receive vocational guidance, and Vocational Guidance needs to be re-established in schools and at NZES.

A culture of education and learning needs to be fostered especially in Maori and Pacific Island people. The Pacific Island school liaison programme is a step in the right direction. Much more is needed.

Far more young people need to be in apprenticeships. Despite the recent increase in apprenticeship numbers, we are well below the 1989 numbers.

Training will need to be funded via a training levy for ITO's.

TOPS entry criteria need to include all who are unemployed for six month and have no School Certificate, or all who are unemployed for longer than one year irrespective of educational achievements of the distant past.

I think that you can throw as much money as you like at short-term job schemes, but the important task is getting structural things like the Reserve Bank Act changed so that employment is a priority in those areas.

It is great having good job statistics and less unemployed people, but the next thing we need to look at is the quality of the jobs out there ... because the Employment Contracts Act has pushed down wages and increased the casualisation of people, and increased part-time work.

It is no use having full employment and everyone is also being paid a dollar an hour or something like that... the important issue is the quality of the jobs, not just looking at the quantity. These things are being completely ignored in what the government is doing.

The Taskforce was a nice idea, but the ideology hasn't changed, and it is the ideology that is the reason why we have such a problem with jobs at the moment. The ideology of the New Right is where people are a commodity to be used by business and that the goal of the economy is for low inflation ... it's not to give everyone a decent standard of living by providing them with jobs. This is the basic philosophy that needs to change, or else we are never going to get decent jobs for everyone in society.

The Employment Taskforce hasn't changed this philosophy at all, so I think it has failed in what it was supposed to do. I think it was mainly a public relations exercise for the government to try and say they were doing something about employment. The Employment Taskforce said a whole lot about education and training and how this is important, but they haven't really changed their education and training policies. What the government has done is make it harder and harder for people to get into tertiary education by increasing fees.

Source - Interview with Vivian Hutchinson 3 November 1995

In a stunningly contemptuous "you're just not trying" statement to the unemployed, the government has ignored the 1994 Taskforce's advice to adjust benefit abatement rates that, due mainly to no inflation adjustment for some nine years, meant that beneficiaries accepting casual work would effectively lose 98c in every dollar they earned.

They have taken the Taskforce's advice for beneficiaries not looking for full-time work, but in an historic departure, they have discriminated in the case of the unemployed, and have, with the abolishment of their second abatement step, virtually said, "There's plenty of work out there, just stop sitting around."

For thousands, this is simply untrue, and again the perennial insult to self-motivation is offered. For it is just those that are in fact taking responsibility for themselves, and trying to maintain their employability by keeping active in the workplace, that are subjected to abatement rates. They are now about to be kicked for trying to get up by an even harsher abatement regime than they suffered under before.

Source - fax to the Jobs Letter from his letter to the editor of the Nelson Mail 1 November 1995

Overall, if some people get help from the package, then it will be a benefit. But many of these schemes are exploiting the unemployed and have big gains for the people who are employing them. What they need to do is have some safety nets for the unemployed so that they are not being exploited on the schemes. The unemployed need somewhere to go when the schemes have finished, so that they are not just being shoved from scheme to scheme. There should be contract work available at the end of training schemes.

It would be good if we could get a broader look at things instead of trying to reinvent things that are already going on. We need to wipe the slate clean and start with new directions. You need to speak to the young people and get their ideas ...

Source - Interview with Vivian Hutchinson 3 November 1995

I really feel that this package is electioneering, and its not going to do a lot for people. I feel quite strongly about this. The government are doing number-crunching because the election is coming up ... and it all looks very good to the person who is employed, but if you're unemployed, it doesn't very much help. It is cosmetic.

My report card for the whole process is that there weren't very many outcomes. There wasn't any problem with the Taskforce report ... that was fine ... but the government hasn't really responded to it. They say they are targeting the disadvantaged ... but actually they need to be putting a bit more money into it. Because they need to be giving these people a chance. We need more money put into actual jobs ... not necessarily spending it on further education all the time these people need jobs.

Source - Interview with Vivian Hutchinson 3 November 1995

While the Alliance welcomes improvements, the package will be of very little long-term value while government policies result in a permanent level of unemployment of 6% or more.

This means that for the foreseeable future a base line of 109,000 officially unemployed, 174,300 jobless and 160,000 on the unemployment benefits and on subsidised work schemes. That is as good as it gets: 16% Maori and 17% Pacific Island unemployed. In a downturn, that is the level of unemployment we start from, whereas we used to start from zero.

The government's employment policy aims to increase labour supply so as to keep the low wage segment of the labour market highly competitive and to maintain downward pressure on low wages.

We welcome improvements in abatement rates, childcare subsidies, early childhood education and kura kaupapa funding and the evaluation of the TOPs programmes. However the Alliance opposes the introduction of mandatory work tests and career interviews for spouses of unemployment beneficiaries etc. These are coercive measures designed to increase labour supply at the low wage end of the labour market, maintaining a downward pressure on low wage rates and entrenching the inequalities which have been allowed to develop in the labour market.

Source - fax to the Jobs Letter 19 October 1995 (attributed to Leah McBey) "Employment Package fiddles - but some positive measures."