Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The thing about being the member for Herbert is that I rarely use the word 'Herbert'. Wherever possible, I use my city's name, Townsville. I do not officially represent all the city, but I do have the bits where most of the jobs in the economy are sustained and grown. I use the word 'Townsville' because it is my home and it is the city I represent, officially or not.

The city of Townsville also represents the greatest and richest region in our country. North Queensland has it all—tourism, professional services, education, defence and defence services, mining and mining services, agriculture and agricultural services, retail, manufacturing, arts and culture. And Townsville is at the heart of the region of North Queensland.

Unemployment figures fluctuate every month, and more so in regional areas. There can be no doubt, however, that underemployment is high. The number of people dropping off seeking employment is on the rise, and small business does not seem to have the confidence to hire. This is a major concern for me but more so for the people who are looking for work themselves or trying to find a position for their son, daughter, mother or father. Unemployment figures quoted to me recently for North Queensland showed a rate of 9.4 per cent. This figure should not be viewed as the decimation of our workforce, because the figures fluctuate. But, if the overall rate of unemployment is 9.4 per cent, then youth and senior rates would be significantly higher than that. Again, this is a major concern not just to me but to everyone in our city and region.

What we need to find out is why business is not hiring. There are many theories out there and there is much finger-pointing about what government should spend and how much more we should spend on whatever area of self-interest people may have, but that does not answer the question of why business is not hiring. I do not have an answer as to why, when someone leaves a small business, they are not replaced. I do not have an answer as to why small business will not trial a young person with no experience who just wants to work. I do not have an answer as to why business will not access the pool of talent in the over-50s, who would bring a proven work ethic and the stability of future, where they have decided they want to stay in our city. I do not have an answer as to why, when our markets demand our hospitality and retail services remain open for longer and longer, our businesses are employing fewer and fewer people. Sure, the cost of employment is cited as a reason here, but we have always been a high-wage country. We have always, as a city and as a country, been highly productive to counter that.

The issue, to me, always seems to be industrial relations reform. Every article and book I read points to the dropping of our productivity, and the slowing pace of reform in this area. But please do not confuse this with a statement which may link up the Productivity Commission's upcoming report into penalty rates and minimum wages. I want to know which of the government regulations and laws that are preventing people from getting a chance to secure a job can be removed.

I am currently reading Paul Kelly's Triumph and Demise. In that book he takes a swipe at both sides of this parliament. He says that the reforms of the Hawke and Keating era and early Howard era were productivity driven. But, when the boom arrived—and it was sustained for so long—reform dropped as we in this place stood back and watched our economy and our wealth grow without any effort. We, in this place, had become complacent on productivity. We, in this place, must share the blame and correct these errors.

One of the biggest issues is replacement employment. Too often I find employers in small business telling me they simply do not replace people when they leave because either the training is too hard or they do the work themselves to save money as they fight the internet sales. I am an auctioneer by trade, and you do not have to have an economics degree to get that licence. I worked through the Keating recession and I have seen a fair bit of insolvency in my time. These things I know to be true: a business intent on survival only will fail; a business looking only to lower costs will not expand; and a business seeking only to look after their existing customers will not find new ones—and the existing ones will eventually leave. Business must be brave and must look to grow and must look to opportunities to get better at every opportunity. We simply cannot afford to be negative.

Much like Minister Scott Morrison said last week on social security—and what I hope will be a purposeful conversation when the Treasurer releases the Intergenerational report this week—we need to have an open and honest conversation regarding employment in this country. It must include the small business people who carry the risk and do the paperwork. If it is a regulatory issue, then let us work on breaking down those barriers. I know that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, Christian Porter, is keen to fight for small business and grow our economy. If it is an issue around opening times, security levels, banking conditions, penalty rates, transport, attitude, education, training, social security, racism, cronyism, being overqualified or underqualified, drivers licences, local government, state government, taxation, indexation, bracket creep, or a combination of all these things, we need to get working on it.

I was listening to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Defence, Darren Chester, speak yesterday about the scourge of methamphetamine. He was able to tell this place that he did not have the answer. What he did say was that he knew there was a problem and he was willing to work with any stakeholder to get the answer which works for them. That is the truth of it. The answer must be the one that works for them. For me, it comes down to flexibility and fairness. It must come down to the employee recognising that the employer is the one with the risks and is paying the bills. That must have some weight in the discussion. The employer must recognise that the employee may have a completely different motivation for turning up to work. That must be okay. Neither must abuse their position.

One suggestion that was made to me shows my region's perspective. While I know this cannot work in a commercial world, it is a glimpse of how my region feels left out and vulnerable. Its intentions are pure, so to speak. If a government road or construction tender is awarded to a large contractor from out of town, then the local subcontractors want and need some of that work. If that local council, or some other body, were able to break up that tender and hand the work to local subcontractors, keeping it under the winning tender price, then that money would wash through our local economies more than once and money would stay in our local communities. I know there are many impracticalities with this idea and it could never work in any real commercial sense, but my community continues to see work handed to large contractors and out-of-town subcontractors, and locals are not getting a lick on the way through. It frustrates the living daylights out of my community, and I know that many communities throughout this country feel exactly the same way.

I have said it before in this House, and I will say it again: government does not create wealth; business creates wealth. Government can only set the scene, lay out the parameters and let business get on with it. When wealth is created people get employed, and further wealth is created. As Minister Scott Morrison, the Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, and the Treasurer, Joe Hockey, have all said: the best form of social security that can be provided is a job. My city is focused on an answer. We, as a country, must be focused on finding the answers which will work best in each region. We must be prepared to get them to work for them and not tie them up in red and green tape.

That brings me to the second part of my contribution on these bills. It has to do with Townsville's future health needs and, in many ways, it works hand in glove with the first part of my speech. I have spoken often about our Defence Force and their efforts in places such as Timor Leste, Iraq and Afghanistan. I have also spoken of the ADF personnel who did not make it home. Each of us here carries with them a great amount of respect for our service personnel. Each of us is very aware of the issues surrounding PTSD in service ranks. But it is also prevalent in our day-to-day society. It is said that one in five of us will have a mental health episode in our lifetime. Depression and anxiety are with our families and our communities constantly. Often it is the police, ambulance and fire department who have to deal with the outcomes when things get out of hand. Our hospital in Townsville is a great and modern facility and filled with people and professionals who care a lot about what they do. But when it comes to mental health, there is a void.

Our hardworking nurses and doctors at the Townsville Hospital do not have a facility where patients can be housed long enough to get their heads right and get back to their family and their friends and get on with their lives. Our hospital only has an acute ward where the meds are issued and the patient stabilised. They are then released into the community, sometimes without a home to go, and then they become the police service's problem. They end up in the criminal legal system. They end up, in many instances, in jail or, worse, dead. If they want to get access to a mental health facility where they can really deal with their illness, they have to travel to Brisbane. That causes separation from family, and that is certainly not good enough—and it is not a good outcome. We have to be near our loved ones. Often, when mental illness strikes, we take it out on the people we know will cop it—our families. When that reaches breaking point, there is a wound that must be healed. It cannot be properly healed from 1,400 kilometres away—not properly and not holistically.

Townsville needs a dedicated mental health facility where our people, be they ADF personnel, police, ambos, teachers, check-out chicks or MPs, can go and get themselves right. They need to have quality treatment in our part of the world. We need to tie it in to the teaching side of our university, James Cook University, and the Townsville Hospital's teaching efforts. If we do that, we can drive our tax dollar further, with quality treatment and observations driven by students ensuring that the government spend is washed through our economy more than once. That is a side benefit of the training in a controlled environment. The real benefit is to the people with an illness treated close to home and close to loved ones to a standard where they can once again cope and succeed in their lives.

Mental health is—if you watch the ads—costing our economy over $10 billion a year. It wrecks lives and it ends in death, at its worst. At the other end is a bunch of people who deal with their issues and get on with their lives. I have always said that, when you have an episode with your mental health, there is a tunnel through which you travel and not a cave in which you dwell.

North Queensland has a growing population. We have a large number of defence personnel, and we are proud of them and their families. We are a retirement destination of choice for many defence personnel and their families. They live and work alongside us every day. We are one community with a single goal when it comes to mental health: that we get the treatment we need in an environment which is most conducive to good results. I have lost three friends to suicide. I have also had two mates die in single car accidents on straight stretches of road. Townsville has seen young people with great promise take their own lives—and very recently. We must do better in this space; we simply must.

I know funds are tight and I know that the issue was not an election commitment from my side. But I want my electorate and my city to know that we are more than roads and dams; we need the social infrastructure as well. My government is a government which knows this and will work with any community prepared to have a go. If you have a plan, we have a way to get a result. But we have to work hard, and my community is prepared to do that. The Minister for Health, Sussan Ley, comes from regional Australia and has seen these things in her role as a member of her community. We have a Prime Minister who brought mental health into the sunshine when he was Minister for Health. We have a Minister for Education who, along with the Prime Minister, was instrumental in creating Headspace and rolling out that vital program of early intervention. I am however putting this government on notice as to what my city needs to cope with mental health issues. We need a hand up to get it off the ground. We need to build this facility and we need to get on with it. So I will be calling on all my ministers to make sure that happens. The good thing about it, though, it that I have ministers who are prepared to listen to us, who will come to our communities and sit down with us as stakeholders and have those conversations.

I support these bills but will not be supporting the amendment proposed by the member for Watson. I stand by what this government is trying to do in this space. We must live within our means and we are going about our business the way we should. I thank the House.

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