Mark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Water) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Green Army Programme) Bill 2014. The Green Army program is one of only two programs in the government's environmental agenda that actually seeks to build something. The rest of the agenda—and it is a busy agenda, I will concede that—is essentially about dismantling and destroying environmental protection policy. In my contribution to the debate on this legislation I want to talk about a number of aspects, both environmental aspects and also aspects of the bill so far as they seek to provide young unemployed people with training and employment opportunities.

This program is not a new concept; it has been around in different guises for more than two decades. In 1992, the Keating government introduced the Landcare and Environmental Action Program, or LEAP, which was similar to this in its essence. It provided a training wage or training allowance remuneration to young unemployed Australians, aged between 15 and 20 years, for six months to receive formal training both on and off the job and also work experience undertaking programs with a land care or environmental bent. In 1997, having come to government, the Howard government reformulated that program in some respects and rebadged it and relaunched it as the Green Corps program in 1997-98.

When the Rudd government came to power, in 2007, some changes were made to that program in 2008 and it was relaunched as the Green Jobs Corps, essentially with the same fundamental elements—namely, the targeting of young unemployed Australians in their late teens, and eventually in their early 20s as well, to participate in the program for a period of about six months; providing them with training to some degree or another—and I will come to that in relation to the current program on offer by the new government; and their receiving either an income support payment or a payment connected to the training wage system.

In principle, the opposition does support a program that uses the environment as a field in which to give young unemployed Australians an opportunity to gain work experience and skills that will help them on to the path of either further training and education or, even more quickly, a permanent job. The opposition does, though, have a range of concerns about a number of the details of this program. Some of those concerns have been raised directly with the minister, and I think there has been a constructive approach to trying to provide answers to the questions the opposition has raised, and I thank the minister for that. A number of those questions have also been raised with the relevant department in Senate estimates, and I think it is fair to say that those questions have not yet been fully answered.

For that reason, and in order to allow debate on this bill to fully canvass those concerns—particularly from the opposition's perspective—I will move a second reading amendment to the motion moved by the minister. I move the following amendment, which was circulated earlier today:

That all the words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading the House notes the:

(1) program will be deeply flawed in its design and implementation given the poor environmental record of the current Government;

(2) bill provides insufficient protections for participants in the areas of occupational health and safety, workers compensation and rehabilitation;

(3) Government should clarify why participants do not have employee status even though they are to be removed from the social security system and paid an equivalent training wage;

(4) Government must provide assurance that the Green Army Program will not displace or reduce employment opportunities for existing workers;

(5) lack of detail of the training provisions in the program, namely specified minimum hours, provision of accredited recognised training and opportunities for ongoing training and career pathways; and

(6) importance of supporting young people to make the transition to meaningful work and further training opportunities.

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