Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment Participation, Training and Sport) Share this | Hansard source

The $298.5 million extra into employment services is welcomed by the opposition. This will help to address the problems with the new employment services model. However, it is almost exactly the amount which was ripped out of employment services in last year’s budget, where the Rudd government cut funding to employment services by $279.8 million. So they cut it last year and they are having to put that money back in. They are putting back in what they were planning, only last May, to pull out.

I would like to speak briefly on the measures for apprentices, worth $155 million, which were announced by the Deputy Prime Minister last Thursday. During the recession of the early 1990s we saw the numbers of apprentices fall from 161,000 in 1990 to 120,000 by 1993. We do welcome the incentives being paid to employers and group training organisations. We think they are the right people to pay the incentives to. We also think they are focused on the right place—on the completion of apprenticeships and also on the out-of-trade period. The main issue that we have is the small amount. There is a real contrast between $42 billion, which we are told will support 90,000 jobs, and $150 million, which we are told will support 60,000 apprentices. This is either extremely well targeted or it will not work. But the opposition are prepared to give the government the benefit of the doubt, and we will monitor its effectiveness closely.

The government have not, to date, introduced any specific youth unemployment initiatives, and it is very disappointing that they have not. In the last 12 months, we have seen 57,400 jobs for 15- to 19-year-olds lost from the Australian economy. This has been a silent tragedy. We hear nothing about this from the Rudd government. We hear nothing about this from the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and we hear nothing about this from the Minister for Employment Participation. Anyone who is old enough to remember the last recession will recall the devastating impact unemployment had on school leavers and on teenagers looking for their first job. University graduates would complete their courses and then find that there were no jobs available. Parents were desperate to find or even pay for an apprenticeship for their children. There were hundreds of applicants for every job advertised. We saw the unemployment rate for 15- to 19-year-olds looking for full-time work rise from 14.2 per cent in July 1989 to a high of 34.5 per cent three years later. Having more than one in three teenagers unable to find work was a national tragedy.

In the last recession it was younger workers whose jobs were most vulnerable. Sadly, those who were born during the last recession may become casualties of the next one. To avoid this generation being locked into a jobless future, it is critical that the federal government is proactive in addressing youth unemployment. There are already some ominous signs. We are already seeing falls in the number of teenagers in jobs and rises in teenage unemployment.

In the package that has been announced, there is nothing specifically for school leavers and there is nothing for young people who have never had a job. It is critical that the government provide more early intervention and work experience opportunities for job seekers in their teens and early 20s to help them make a successful transition from school to work. Without early intervention for those who are out of work, the social cost of inaction may well be a lost generation of school leavers who have never known work and will struggle to maintain continuous employment. I seek leave to table my media release of 7 August 2008, ‘Too little too late’, which highlights these very problems.

Leave not granted.

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