Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have some questions flowing on from the earlier comments from both ministers dealing with the Building Australia's Future Workforce package and the particular reference they have made to the youth allowance. I commend both ministers on their endeavours in this area, particularly their faith in that labour market and understanding it is, after a downtime, to make sure people are prepared to come out of the bad times so that the labour market is trained and ready to go. I think we have learnt from some of those errors in the past—rather than just let the market rip. It is good to see that people in this parliament do have faith in markets as the way to achieve some of these things. I say that particularly as a Queenslander, because certainly some of the Beattie government's focus on that 'earning and learning' message is something that has translated into actions in this parliament.

I particularly note Minister Ellis's comments on the long-term unemployed. Some of those figures are a shock to see. Whilst we are the envy of the globe in terms of having unemployment with a four in front of it, some of those long-term unemployment figures are still going up, which is obviously something we need to change. We need to move the dignity of work into the households in some of our poorer suburbs. I can think of suburbs in my electorate where people are almost getting into the third generation of unemployment. There are no positive role models, no opportunities to break free.

With that preamble, I want to ask Minister Crean a question about these measures touched on in the youth allowance. They have been designed to confront the problem of young people who are neither working or studying; what figure does the government have to show the extent of the problem in these respects?

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