TONY Abbott has proposed banning the dole for people under 30 in a bid to entice the unemployed to head west and fill massive skill shortages in the booming resources sector.
The Opposition Leader made the controversial remarks during a two-hour meeting with about 15 senior resources industry leaders in Perth on Monday night.
Mr Abbott told the roundtable briefing he believed stopping dole payments to able-bodied young people would take pressure off the welfare system and reduce the need to bring in large numbers of skilled migrants to staff mining projects.
His comments were attacked last night by Australian Workers Union national secretary Paul Howes, who described them as "Hansonesque".
"If he genuinely thinks you are going to solve an economically crippling skills shortage by taking punitive measures against welfare recipients, he has clearly never lived in the real world," Mr Howes said.
What's going on? Abbott wants economic refugees from the east to come here? They say there is no mining boom here in WA (probably to lower voters expectations of higher standard of living in the West), now they want to get people to come over to take up jobs in the non-boom? Colin Barnett says we (WA) in economic crisis? Hospitals, policing, housing and many other WA services have not caught up with the last influx of people (around 80,000 in 12 mths at one stage) arriving in the last alleged boom. Does Abbott think if he gets his unemployed people from the eastern states over here they will be out of sight and become invisible to voters like the refugees they no longer talk about?
