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Citizens Electoral Council of Australia

Media Release  Friday, 3 October 2014

Craig Isherwood‚ National Secretary
PO Box 376‚ COBURG‚ VIC 3058
Phone: 1800 636 432
Email: cec@cecaust.com.au
Website: http://cec.cecaust.com.au
 

Give youth a future with nation-building jobs

On ABC’s Q&A program on Monday night, Education Minister Christopher Pyne showed how removed from reality the government is to the plight of young Australians and their future. That Pyne stated there is no crisis with youth unemployment and in the education system is extraordinary when we see the shutdown of the Australian economy and rising youth unemployment. CEC leader Craig Isherwood asked, “Do we have to wait until our youth unemployment rivals that of Greece and Spain?”

Actor Tony Barry on the Q&A panel asked the audience if they thought there was a crisis and the answer was a resounding “yes!” “No surprise really,” said Isherwood,“when Australia is fast losing its manufacturing base, and university graduates look forward to flipping burgers or stacking supermarket shelves. No surprise either, considering the Abbott government’s plan for university fee deregulation, where students will be stung with $100,000 degrees and look forward to drowning in debt for decades.”

Even the government’s own figures as reported in the 4 June 2014 Sydney Morning Herald indicate that 30 per cent of university graduates will be jobless four months after completing their studies. And though a government committee has found cutting unemployment benefits for under-30s will breach Australia’s human rights obligations, the government still plans to continue with the welfare cuts.

Isherwood contrasted Australia’s demise with China’s economic growth. “In 1984, the Australian manufacturing sector employed seventeen per cent of the workforce. Now it’s less than eight per cent and falling. But look at the growth in China. In 2002 they had a workforce of 86 million in the manufacturing sector and in 2012 their manufacturing workforce was at 106 million, an astonishing increase of 20 million manufacturing workers in a decade.

“China’s determination to industrialise itself, and other nations, is part of a mission to transform itself, and the world to a higher level. The Chinese built the Three Gorges Dam, the world’s longest high-speed rail network, the South-to-North Water Diversion Project and is actively involved in space activity, and so forth. What an inspiration for the youth and their future!

“By contrast, both the Coalition and Labor governments have put the youth of Australia on the scrapheap, ever since the Hawke/Keating governments signed this nation onto globalisation and free trade. We need to look to the BRICS countries [Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa] for inspiration of what we can do as a nation. Other countries such as Argentina and Egypt are joining the spirit of development. These nations are not without problems, but their governing orientation is to grow a physical economy to improve people’s living standards—not a financial bubble.”

Presently, the youth of Australia and Western countries have no future. But, the youth are our future. Listen to India’s newly elected Prime Minister Narenda Modi who gave a speech while in New York last Sunday. Modi said “India has capacity, and has competence. This capacity and competence is combined with the fact that India is the most youthful country in the world, with the oldest [cultural] heritage. Sixty-five per cent of the population is under 35. Youth with competence and capabilities can make their own future. We do not have to look back. There is no reason for pessimism, because I can say with conviction, that we will move forward very fast.”

And listen to Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, who at a recent ceremony at Cairo University, declared, “I want Egypt’s youth to be by my side. I love the young people of Egypt and consider them like my children.” He called on Egyptian youth to contribute to the country’s development, by participating in national projects such as the New Suez Canal project which has become the focus of the nation.

Isherwood continued, “To give Australian youth a future, Glass-Steagall is essential to break up the banking system. Let’s keep banking that invests into the economy, but scrap financial speculation. We need a government-owned national bank like the old Commonwealth Bank before privatisation and this bank can invest into numerous job-creating infrastructure projects, to set us on course for many decades to come. No PPPs [public-private partnerships] for vested private interests. No user-paid parking lots and toll roads—but infrastructure for the common good.”

Join us in this fight, today”, concluded Isherwood.

For more information on what other nations such as Egypt and India are doing to develop and create jobs, click here for a free copy of the latest Executive Intelligence Review Magazine.

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