Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also wish to address the recommendations of the report entitled Adolescent overload? produced by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Education and Training. I would like to state at the outset that it must never be forgotten that the primary purpose of school is education. The recommendations in the report relate to students combining school and work. Lots of young Australians do this, but the committee wanted to ascertain what impact this had on their lives and, specifically, on their career development.

The first recommendation of the committee is most significant. It recommends that the government ensures that further research is done to examine particularly part-time employment and its impact on students’ academic performance and retention, including the motivations of students who work longer hours. A further recommendation is that community-volunteer work and working in a family business be included. This will ensure that all such activities are taken into account and that volunteer work is given the credit it deserves but often does not get because ‘if you don’t get paid, it’s not real work’.

Recommendations 3 to 6 cover employers and supervisors. The recommendations include giving employers and supervisors a code of practice by which they can assist students in documenting their acquired employability skills; establishing a national employer of choice for youth program to support and recognise good employers; giving students a tool kit of helpful information, which would be circulated throughout Australian secondary schools; and ensuring collaboration between jurisdictions to achieve harmonisation of existing state based legislation regarding the employment of young people as well as national consistency of regulatory measures. Other recommendations are for a national commissioner for children and young people; a national definition for what constitutes engagement in part-time senior secondary study and part-time work for statistical and reporting purposes; government engagement in research to quantify the number of students in part-time study and employment; cooperation of governments to ensure that structured workplace opportunities are available to all students participating in school based vocational education and training; evaluation of local programs targeting disadvantaged students; and more promotional material in schools about government income support benefits and services for students.

I commend this report as it tackles one of the social issues which rarely gets any publicity. Everyone has or knows kids who have jobs to get some extra money to buy the latest gadget, to socialise or even to save for a car—and that is fine. What we are addressing here, however, is not far from the sentiments expressed earlier today in relation to protecting and cherishing our children. A significant proportion of students with part-time jobs, estimated to be around 10 per cent, are working to meet personal living expenses, to pay for their education or to supplement their family income. This is vastly different from doing a few hours at Maccas for extra spending money. This is working to survive and this involves children. We do not want to be here in years to come, apologising again for failing to support children who, for whatever reason, fall through the cracks in our welfare system.

One Queensland girl helps buy food for her family with her wages. Another girl, typical of the many who have left home, cannot survive without working because she does not get any assistance from Centrelink as she is under 18 and her parents earn over $60,000 per annum. There was a South Australian student who worked over 30 hours a week in years 11 and 12 to support herself because she obtained no family support whatsoever.

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