Laurie Ferguson (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

In his contribution the member for Hughes gave kindly advice to unemployed young people and selectively utilised statistics over a convenient timeline. I concede, however, that he made one accurate comment. He said that we cannot see the current situation in isolation. I want to quote somebody slightly more renowned and respected in financial and economic debate in this country than him. I want to quote the governor's foreword to the national accounts of 2009. He spoke of 'the most serious and widespread financial crisis in generations'. He further commented that 'these actions averted in this country a much more serious financial disaster' and he spoke of 'significant private wealth having been destroyed'. He spoke of a 'lengthy period of escalating tension'.

People come in here and say that under Howard we had this rate of unemployment and under Labor we had this rate of unemployment, but they leave out the worst financial crisis since the 1930s. One would think that the member for Hughes had never heard of Lehman Brothers and never had any consideration of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, Bear Stearns and the Bank of Scotland. It all went past him as the United States and the United Kingdom renationalised financial institutions and taxpayers saved them and bailed them out after the crisis when mortgage backed securities collapsed.

When we look at unemployment in this country this kind of rhetoric about what happened between Labor and Howard is absolutely ridiculous. Despite the realities of that financial crisis, in this country in 2008 there were 20,000 people aged between 15 and 24 who were long-term unemployed and today there are 58,000 people aged between 15 and 24 who are not just unemployed but long-term unemployed. Youth unemployment has reached 13 per cent nationally. Youth unemployment is currently sitting at 13.6 per cent. It pushed above 13 per cent in mid-2014 and has remained above that level ever since. That rate was never reached during the entirety of the previous Labor government. One in five unemployed Australians are teenagers. The unemployment level hit 20 per cent for 15- to 19-year-olds in January this year.

The National Youth Coalition for Housing has estimated that 42 per cent of homeless people in Australia are under 25. They are not waiting around for the advice from members of parliament, who are on quite high incomes, to go doorknocking. They are actually homeless and sleeping on the streets. That is about 26,000 people under 25 are already out on the streets on any one night.

This bill has some very disturbing aspects. It extends from 1 July 2015 the ordinary waiting period for all working age payments. It removes access to Newstart allowance and sickness allowance for 22- to 24-year-olds and replaces these benefits with the much lower youth allowance. They will lose $50 a week. Some people have quoted a very useful statistic in the last few weeks: that some of these welfare payments are less than what the Treasurer of this country receives in overnight travel allowance for staying at his wife's residence in Canberra. That is the comparison: the people this is hitting earn in one week the allowance he gets for one night here and not paying rent.

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