Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Assistant Minister for Employment) Share this | Hansard source

I can say: absolutely, the activity test will apply. Those job seekers during that period will be in receipt of support from the government to find a job. It is not going to do anyone any good—

Ms Collins interjecting—

You asked the question. Please allow me the courtesy of responding. It is not in anyone's best interest to allow a young person to sit at home without trying to get work. What we are involved in is assisting young people into work. That is why, on coming to the portfolio, I embarked on a review of the Job Services Australia system. What job seekers were telling me was that the job services system was not meeting their needs. What employers were telling me was that the job services system was not meeting their needs. What the job service providers were telling me was that they were so bound up in red tape that they were being diverted from their main task, which is getting people into work. They were so busy with Labor's red tape that the system had become a form-filling exercise rather than an exercise in bringing job seekers together with employers. We have already made a range of announcements reducing red tape that has been a burden on job service providers. What we are proposing to have done and the process we propose to continue is to strip away the red tape, make the job services system more effective, allow them to offer better services to job seekers and improve the prospects for employment.

So I say to the shadow minister that, absolutely, job seekers will be required to leave no stone unturned to get a job. That is the purpose. A life of welfare is not something that any young person would aspire to. We are working with them, we are working with job service providers. We want to get them into work.

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