Chris Hayes (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Those sitting opposite—Tony, you are one of them—are part of a regime that said, 'No cuts to education.' As soon as you got on the government benches, what did you do? You cut education; you cut health; you have consistently cut into young people's futures.

This is one of the astounding things about trade training centres. Sure, I agree: it was a Labor initiative—and we are proud of it. As I said earlier, there was not an occasion when those Liberals and Nationals opposite did not flock to a photo opportunity when we were opening a new trade training centre in a local school in their electorates. These trade training centres were the product of a partnership—certainly a partnership of government but also a partnership of local businesses and schools. They did not work without that partnership. The process started with an assessment of local employment opportunities and the needs that had to be met in local communities. What you are turning your back on is that partnership.

You are punishing young unemployed people in areas like mine that have a high unemployment rate. While you are punishing them by knocking off these types of opportunities, you are trying to forcefully remove young people, under 25-year-olds, from Newstart. You want to take them off the dole and put them onto a youth allowance. For young unemployed people, that is $2,500 a year that they will be worse off under your regime. Do not come here and protest that this is all about delivering efficient service. These services have been in place and your side has been lobbying to make sure that they were established in schools in conservative-held electorates, and they have been established in Liberal and National party electorates. They are a government with no vision. They went to the election, they said one thing and, after the election, they did the exact opposite.

This is about honouring a partnership for the benefit of young people, giving them a choice, helping them become more job ready and helping them to transition from school into gainful employment. This is an investment in our future. What they are proposing here is absolutely bad policy. It is bad for young people; it is bad for their future outlook. This is bad policy because it does not put the interests of our nation first. We need to make sure that we have young people job ready in a way that we can participate in a constructive— (Time expired)

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