Advertisement

Abraham: Creating hope – but not jobs

Jul 24, 2015
Premier Jay Weatherill

Premier Jay Weatherill

“So it’s all forgotten now and let’s hear no more about it – so that’s two eggs mayonnaise, a prawn Goebbels, a Hermann Goerring and four Colditz salads – no wait a moment, I got a bit confused there, sorry.”

This is where it all started to unravel for John Cleese as the innocent, well-meaning bigot Basil Fawlty in The Germans, the sixth episode of the first series of Fawlty Towers.

For those too young to remember, this sees hotelier Fawlty, more deranged than usual after being clocked on the noggin with a fire extinguisher, trying to serve a group of German guests without mentioning the war.

He failed dismally but did gift the world a classic catch-cry, whispering through his teeth to the waitress, Polly, played by the series co-creator Connie Booth:

“Listen, don’t mention the war. I mentioned it once but I think I got away with it all right.”

Don’t mention the war. Maybe it should be our new number plate slogan.

Premier Jay Weatherill is no Basil Fawlty, thank heavens, but he has been knocked on the scone by something big and heavy – the state’s unemployment rate. Unlike Fawlty, however, he is handling not talking about the bleeding obvious with consummate political skill.

So, this state has an unemployment rate of 8.2 per cent. Fingers crossed, it will drop in the next monthly ABS stats because it is depressing thinking about it.

But that is the unhappy reality for now.

Because it is the highest jobless rate in 15 years, and this Labor government has been in office, oh, more than 13 years, it is fair to argue that this government is responsible for the jobless mess. Yes?

When asked by journalist Matthew Pantelis how much of the buck stopped on his desk after 13 years in office, Premier Weatherill replied: “Well, we have to accept responsibility for fixing it.”

Don’t mention the war. The message is clear. The buck for creating the mess does not stop with the government, the buck for fixing it does.

Now a bigger message is being pumped out by the government – this is a state in transition from “the old economy to the new economy”.

Prepare to get sick of hearing this phrase, because you will.

The old economy is manufacturing and the new economy is something clean and exciting, something called “innovation”. To accept this, you need to suspend reality. Barely two years ago, this government’s central economic strategy was all about the “old economy” – propping up GMH and promising the mining boom that never really happened.

Now the government litters its rhetoric with words like exciting, innovation, entrepreneurs, fantastic and new.

On Monday, state cabinet met at the Gepps Cross plant of energy management firm, Schneider Electric. As the premier explained on our program on Monday, Schneider had been chosen because he wanted to “highlight those businesses that are actually moving from the old economy to the new economy”.

“Schneider, of course the old Clipsal, is, you know, an exciting company … they’re doing some fantastic work on research and development and producing new products,” he said.

When pressed on whether this was elevating spin to an art form, by not talking about the reality of unemployment, his answer was revealing:

“I have to be honest about the size of the challenge and the urgency of the challenge but also I need to give people hope that there’s a different future, one which is a positive one and so for me it’s proper to highlight those companies that have made the transition from the old to the new economy.”

Perhaps inadvertently, Jay Weatherill was outlining the government’s survival strategy in a nutshell. He knows he cannot deliver jobs in a hurry, because even if the government meets its own miserly growth target of 1 per cent, it concedes at best the state’s jobs growth will stand still for the next four years. That is a long time to wait for a job.

If you cannot deliver jobs, you at least need to deliver hope.

Oddly, this poses a dilemma for Opposition Leader Steven Marshall, who must damage the hope thing. Now, that is going to be tricky, isn’t it?

On Tuesday, Employment Minister Gail Gago revealed that something called our state’s “innovation eco-system” was very attractive to US entrepreneurs.

She said this after leading a delegation last week to Boston.

Minister Gail Gago

Minister Gail Gago

Ms Gago was on message, explaining SA was “committed to transitioning from an old economy to a new economy” and by “transitioning to become a leader in innovation we will be better placed to accelerate the changes we need to drive new business, industry and jobs”.

One wonders what all those Boston entrepreneurs might make of the outfit that is meant to be driving our state’s transition to a brave new world – TAFE.

InDaily in your inbox. The best local news every workday at lunch time.
By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement andPrivacy Policy & Cookie Statement. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

When the cash ran out on the government’s huge expansion of TAFE training, Minister Gago pulled the pin on the many private entrepreneurs providing that training.

It has now brought that work in-house to TAFE, which by Ms Gago’s own admission provides those services at two and a half times the cost of the dumped private entrepreneurs. This is, she says, a temporary measure to support TAFE while we transition “from the old economy to the new economy”.

And then, around about 2016-17, the private entrepreneurs can have another go. If any of them are still in business. Or are dumb enough to try again.

While all this is happening, the government is chopping around 1000 TAFE jobs and plans to close campuses.

To an innocent bystander, perhaps a Boston entrepreneur, this might look like a total shambles but to the Minister everything is going swimmingly as TAFE is “a very successful organisation, it’s probably one of the… it’s a leading institution, around Australia”.

Which brings us to Basil the Rat, purchased by Fawlty’s waiter, Manuel, in the mistaken belief it was a Filigree Siberian Hamster.

Fawlty: It’s a rat!

Manuel: No, no, is hamster.

Matthew Abraham and David Bevan present the weekday breakfast program on 891 ABC Adelaide.

Matthew is on Twitter as @kevcorduroy

InDaily’s regular political commentator Tom Richardson is on leave.

 

 

 

 

 

Local News Matters
Advertisement
Copyright © 2024 InDaily.
All rights reserved.