That was a good post Pat the Bogan.
You may not be aware our mate rechtub tends to find the worst in unemployed high income workers[hands on not butchers]unions.
The ALP me, young people, once we would have referred to my mate as a red neck.
Both sides of any issue tend to not want to see the other sides view.
We can light afire under any debate with just one short statement, such as boat people.
Muslim, dole bludgers, Christian, America, middle east, migration republic, our flag, not hard to find a reason to fight each other.
But this? miners do need workers, women do work in mines too, and do it well.
RABBOTT knows as I do, it takes something conservatives murdered to turn unemployed youth into miners, TRAINING.
Tony was talking to his backers big miners, seemingly owning his coalition partners the Nationals, he forgot himself.

Now we can not have our cake and eat it too.
We have too much unemployment.
Too many unskilled and untrained.
I will propose an answer in my next post.

Yes some who are on the dole are never going to want to work.
Very few of them.
Let us leave that for another thread.
In former days both sides of politics thought decentralization was worth the extra costs.
Small country towns got help and jobs, we have stopped developing our country.
Jobs locals held in country towns working for councils and rail roads and forests have gone.
contracted out to city firms who bring city workers who go back each weekend.
If we understand some work can repay us with a social dividend, country jobs partly paid for by that already paid in social welfare we can make jobs for unemployed every one of them.
I think my mate rechtub will still say it is a waste of tax but just maybe we should give every one a job.

Belly, how many women do you reckon work in the mining industry in skilled or semi-skilled production positions? How many men?

Having worked in that inductry, as well as civil construction for a very long time, I can say with great certainty that no more than perhpas 1-2% of all mining industry workers are female and with the exception of a few females driving the Haulpaks and the like, nearly all of them are doing office work, such as site admin, secretarial, cleaners, occasionally as first aid officers, a very few engineers and geologists and that's about it.

I'm not making a judgement on that, merely saying it's the reality, which means that any suggestion to address unemployment by sending people to remote sites is going to be mostly a male-centric one. The girls would benefit by having less competition for the jobs at home, which moght help Abbott sell it.

As for training, you're spot on, but it wasn't the conservatives who "murdered it" it was killed by Hawke's Accords (which showed everyone how truly useless the unions are) and by successive State governments (mostly Labor) who sold off their state's assets and tried to turn public services into "commercial units" that simply had no budget for training and no remit from their political bosses to do any.

Today, instead of training being a standard part of any new employees on-the-job experience, it is outsourced to "professionals" who train people in the answers required to pass the certificate, but offer almost nothing in the way of how to actually do the job. There are some exceptions, such as welding or other skilled tasks that have a genuine performance benchmark, but for most semi-skilled people, which is what the industry demands, their training is about as useful as a Union visit.

Pat the Bogan, you have it right, but the problem of male youth unemployment remains.

"professionals" who train people in the answers required to pass the certificate.
Antiseptic,
You couldn't be more right, as in correct that is. I've been harping on & on about this situation on every part of the forum & copped a lot of flak. I recall asking a TAFE lecturer how he could possibly pass the people that he did pass & he replied; "We have to let them pass otherwise we cop too much crap for discrimination". The way this dreadful situation is covered by insurance is that the person is deemed competent at the time of the exam. what happens later becomes a lawyers' feast.
There is a lot of work in remote area but it usually goes to imported gangs at high pay rates & hardly anything goes back into the community. If we wound back the clock 30 years the government provided 100% of employment for 99 % of the community. When Labor got in (QLD) they shirked themselves of the responsibility & put all manual/construction work out to contractors. Contractors want to make money quickly hence no more training occurred hence super high unemployment. It's only since amalgamation that the unions are getting interested because of the thousands of prospective new members.

You have that about right Antiseptic 1 to 2% in mining, civil construction and building.
While numbers are higher than that in the white collar type jobs, HR and IR, few women make it to the coal face.
But some do.
Training has fallen victim to all sides of government.
Once plant operators and trades mechanics and fitters came from government jobs.
You and I both know mine operators are not looking for unskilled youth, male or females.
I Just refuse to think we can not both give unemployed a chance, make jobs that pay social dividends.
And get returns for welfare dollars ,it is true those who dodge work would find it hard to continue doing that.
In the midst of unemployed are people who have lost faith in themselves, it happens , we can do much more if we understand why we should.
It hurts to see low unemployment used as an excuse to raise interest rates, why?

Every unemployed adult of sound mind and reasonable physical health should take a job if offered and if they live within one hour's drive of the workplace. Otherwise cut off their dole payments.

I just don't like Tony Abbott saying what he does and the way he says it. He goes for the negative in so many of his statements that I fear that if he were to win office ( if he holds his Liberal leadership against Hockey who is waiting in the wings)he and Joe and the whole bunch of these Libs will reintroduce employer biased individual employment contracts.

I hate what the Liberal Party stands for and all their media soundbites from Tony Abbott back up my belief.