The Liberal-National Government and Youth: 'Training for Real Jobs'

The Liberal-National party government is making major changes to a number of policy settings. It pledged a commitment to a strict program of budgetary restraint in its first Budget of August 1996. Its Workplace Relations and Other Legislation Amendment Bill (1996) signified its intention to introduce a 'revolutionary new era' in Australian industrial relations. This involved introducing individual employment contracts, limiting the Australian Industrial Relations Commission's (AIRC) powers and reducing unions' role in enterprise bargaining. Less noticeable has been the government's pursuit of major reforms to Australia's education and training policies. These education and training initiatives are taking place in a context of seemingly permanent unemployment or what has been called 'the end of work' (Rifkin 1995). If such claims overstate the case, the training and education initiatives are occurring in the wake of 'normal, autonomised processes of modernisation' which are opening paths to a new post-industrial order (Beck 1994: 3). But there are a number of questions to be raised about the extent to which a concern for equity and the protection of those most at risk in such a process may be compromised by complete faith in, and too eager a support for, market processes.