BY RON BAKER
National conferences are usually the domain of well-established organisations with various reasons to hold a gathering of the faithful. Little on the agenda and a lot on the bill seems to be a common outcome.
Conferences claiming to address unemployment have usually excluded the key stakeholders, allowing punitive policies with populist appeal to slip into place with barely a challenge, because the unemployed are denied a voice.
So, instead of trying to be heard at the decision-makers' forums, how about a conference organised by unemployed people where all of the speakers are unemployed people delivering the message to politicians, government agencies, community organisations and the media?
This concept will become a reality when UNEMPA, Unemployed Persons Advocacy, with the assistance of the Brisbane Institute, presents the ROAR conference on unemployment, from October 24-25 in Brisbane.
Surrounded by government offices, corporate ivory towers and the stock exchange, Brisbane's Old Customs House is a fitting venue at which to deliver the message to the top end of town.
Day one of the conference will feature unemployed representatives from states and territories speaking about "Rights, Obligations, Alternatives and Rewards".
The keynote address by Tony Monks, the general secretary of the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed (INOU), will demonstrate that unemployed people can contribute to solutions if they are given the opportunity rather than being regarded as the "problem".
The Irish government has welcomed INOU into a process which has developed not just employment strategies, but policies which provide genuine support to assist unemployed people whilst they make the transition from welfare to the workforce.
The second day is dedicated to a workshop in which unemployed representatives will work on the details to establish an Australian National Organisation of the Unemployed (ANOU). Important preparatory work has been done and the conference will workshop the necessary agreement on the logistics and the priorities for action by the new national group.
If you're unemployed, you won't be enjoying the politicians' level of welfare benefits, so a two-day trip to Brisbane may not be a consideration. But the ROAR conference is the vehicle for the founding of a national organisation — and providing support to smaller local groups of unemployed people will be a core objective for ANOU.
Unemployed people are well able to generate and manage good policy and strategy. Around a million unemployed Australians, their partners and families need to put the major parties on notice. No more excuses and distractions; jobs and fair treatment of unemployed people must be high on the policy agenda.
[Ron Baker is the vice-president of UNEMPA, which can be contacted at Level 2, 16 Peel Street, South Brisbane 4101. Telephone (07) 3255 1253, fax (07) 3255 0873 or email <Kebar@bigpond.com>.]