• Tony Nicholson

30 August 2010Disadvantaged jobseekers need to be given a clear line of sight to a decent job, writes Tony Nicholson in the Age

DESPITE the fact many considered it lacklustre, the federal election campaign did serve to expose an economic and social fault-line that needs to be bridged if Australia is to really thrive in the decade ahead.

Today two forces are banging together with the potential of causing real damage to our social and economic foundations.

On the one side, there's the certainty that, as our economy grows and our population ages, we're going to need more people who are able to work. As demographer Peter McDonald has pointed out, we can have a bogus argument about this, but we are better off acknowledging the reality of growth and doing something about it, rather than pretending otherwise and making problems such as skill shortages and urban congestion worse.

On the other side, there is serious concern about social disadvantage. Many of those…

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Image: Andrew Jeffrey