Kate Ellis (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment Participation and Childcare) Share this | Hansard source

I was really pleased to be able to attend last week's tax forum and to see firsthand this government working to continue to engage with the community on the important issues before us. As we have seen today, we have a proud record of taking on reforms, and it was refreshing to engage with such a broad cross-section of different organisations to talk about some of the big issues of the future. I want to briefly address a couple of the issues which did feature prominently in the sessions that I attended. We saw quite a large discussion about the impact of mature age participation in our workforce. We saw contributions from Everald Compton, who was celebrating his 80th birthday on the day and I pass on my birthday wishes as well, from Ian Yates, the CEO of the Council on the Ageing Australia, and from Judith Sloan, the Chair of National Seniors Australia. We know that these important organisations have been working to address these challenges, which are challenges this government takes very seriously. We are well aware that this year the first of the baby-boomer generation becomes eligible for the age pension, so the time for talking about the future ageing of our population and workforce is over. It is happening right now and our government is responding right now to these challenges. It is perhaps a little-known fact that, whilst the unemployment rate for mature age people is low at 3.5 per cent, when older Australians do happen to lose their job they are at much greater risk than young people of experiencing long or very long-term unemployment. A loss of dignity and income through forced early retirement is not something this government is prepared to accept. We are serious about removing the barriers that prevent older Australians who want to work from participating in the workforce, including the barriers presented by negative employer and community attitudes. We saw just recently the government's appointment of an Age Discrimination Commissioner in order to address some of these issues.

We know that the willingness of Australians to work for longer is a strength, and it is an opportunity that we need to harness. We need to ensure that these mature age workers are properly supported. This is central to the challenge of the ageing population that we all face. Our economy is strong, unemployment is relatively low and the demand for skilled workers is unprecedented. So last week's forum did provide a positive discussion in relation to mature age workers and how we can increase the number of mature age people taking advantage of the growing opportunities in the job market.

We know that these challenges and barriers remain—employer attitudes, individual expectations—but the fact is that mature age workers bring opportunities and benefits to the workplace, including a strong sense of loyalty and of reliability, and insight built up over many years in the workforce. Our government is working hard to break down those barriers and we have announced our Delivering for Seniors package, which includes $100 million in new commitments for mature age people. It includes $30 million to provide up to $4,400 in grants to employers to help mature age workers aged 50 and over who have trade skills but no formal qualifications to undertake skills assessment and gap training. This builds on our Experience Plus program, which benefits mature age workers, job seekers and employers by allowing up to $4,950 for employers to train their mature age workers to supervise or mentor apprentices or trainees and to provide practical help to support and retrain mature age workers whose jobs are at risk due to a health condition, an injury or a disability. It helps to support and retrain mature age workers who are in priority employment areas and in physically demanding roles or who have been made redundant, and it also provides a free telephone based career advice and resume appraisal service for all Australians aged 45 or over.

I am pleased to report that the take-up of the Experience Plus programs continues to grow, with over 4,700 people now participating in programs since it commenced and some of the programs booked out up to two weeks in advance. The government will continue to work with the Consultative Forum on Mature Age Participation to work with the stakeholders who made their views clear at the tax forum last week and to ensure that we continue to work hard to place jobs as a priority of this government. That includes making sure that no-one gets left behind and that we look after the interests of mature age workers and mature age job seekers, who have so much to contribute.

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