Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

I stand also to oppose this bill, which sets out to do five things. This bill deals with the one-week waiting period excluding the disallowance; it introduces a requirement for young people under 25 to wait four weeks prior to receiving income support; it extends the youth allowance from 22- to 24-year-olds in lieu of NewStart and sickness allowances; it makes changes to the low-income supplement; and imposes indexation changes to working-age payments.

I am particularly concerned about the under-25 measure and its one-month waiting period. I have previously stood in this place to oppose to the under-30 measure, as it was then known, where we are asking young people to live on fresh air for six months. I am pleased that Labor stood its ground on that and it is because of Labor that the government backed down on the measure to a certain extent, but, of course, they have not backed down quite far enough. There is still a one-month waiting period proposed for people under 25. It concerns me that the government really has no idea what this will mean for young people. Young people will have no income support whilst they are supposed to be out there looking for work and they will be required to undertake work-seeking activities without receiving any payment. I do not think government members understand how it is possible to maintain yourself, to make yourself presentable, to go along for job interviews, to meet prospective employers or to enrol yourself in training, to get to appointments, to catch public transport to get to interviews, when you actually have zero income for a month— zero, nothing to eat, nothing to live on, no income.

What on earth are young people under 25 supposed to survive on? We have not heard anything from members opposite about how this is to be addressed. We did hear that with the previous the under-30 measure that some non-government NGOs had been given some more emergency relief money for this, but since then a lot of the emergency relief funding has been cut by the government and so a lot of these non-government organisations, which would ordinarily support to families and others without income, can no longer do so.

There are many young people to whom this measure will apply, and you have to wonder why the government would be introducing it. What is the government's motivation? We have been calling on them for some time to do something about rising youth unemployment, which in some parts of regional Australia should be very concerning for all of us. As a Tasmanian, I know there are regions in Tasmania where the unemployment rate is sadly well over 20 per cent and it is expected to continue to rise in the coming years to around 30 per cent. That high rate is quite shocking. Tasmania's south-east, north-west and north are all areas of high youth unemployment. The question, as I have said, is: what is the government's commitment to young people who are currently unemployed?

We did finally see some measures after we called on the government to do something in the last budget. I have said in this place on a number of occasions that we were pleased to see some measures, but sadly there is no new money in these measures. The organisations the government is talking about partnering with to support young unemployed people are the same organisations that do not support this waiting measure and did not support it last time; these organisations know the impact that it will have on young people and job seekers. They know that these people will not be able to be job ready and will not be able to meet their obligations if they are receiving no income for a month—no income for a month.

I just do not know how those opposite, if they are thinking rationally, can think that this is a good idea. If they are really serious about addressing youth unemployment—and I think that some of those on the other side in this place are, because they understand what it is doing, particularly to regional Australia—how can this policy be consistent with that? How can it possibly be? There is no way that this is consistent with tackling youth unemployment. There is no way the government can possibly be serious about it.

As we have heard from previous speakers, the government has also been cutting money to apprenticeships and traineeships, about $1 billion now. We have had revelations today about the government perhaps walking away from vocational education and TAFE training altogether. In addition, as the previous speaker, the member for Makin, pointed out, we have a lot of training organisations preying on vulnerable young people and getting them to sign up to VET FEE-HELP loans without them understanding quite what they are. So, there are some really serious issues out there in areas of high youth unemployment, where people need support and assistance from government and from community organisations which should be appropriately funded to deal with that.

The last federal budget indicated that the unemployment rate in this country would go up to a 14-year high of around 6½ per cent. If you look at unemployment in Australia at the moment, there are around 800,000 to 900,000 job seekers, and there are about 150,000 vacancies at any one time. Clearly, when you 'do the math', there are not enough vacancies for everybody who wants to work or is looking for work to be able to take up a job. What we need to see from the government is job creation. The government need to have a jobs plan. They say that the small business measure is essentially their jobs plan, but I've got news for them: it needs to be more than that. There needs to be a jobs plan and it needs to deal with removing the barriers to work and the disadvantages that some job seekers have and to deal with the education system—with universities, TAFE and vocational funding. It is a very complex issue that requires thoughtful, detailed answers.

The government needs to sit down and make a proper jobs plan that will be effective, will work, and that targets all those different areas, looking at what is required and what levers the federal government has available to it to deal with this, because we are not going to see the unemployment rate drop. It will hover around where it is unless the government takes this issue seriously and actually has a job creation plan.

We cannot continue to come into this place to argue about what are essentially savings measures in the budget. These measures are not about getting people jobs. They are not about encouraging young people to go out and seek employment. They do not do that and they will not do that. All this government is doing with this bill is pushing young people into a cycle of poverty that they will be unable to get out of. That is all that it will do. It has the potential to put young people in a cycle of poverty, with no income support at all, as I keep reiterating—no income support at all: nothing for people to live on for months, nothing with which to pay their bills, nothing with which to buy food and nothing with which to pay for accommodation.

I do not see how this is fair. I do not understand how members opposite can continue to come in here and defend this bill. I do not know how they can possibly defend it. It really is an abandonment of young people by the government. It is really showing the unfairness of this government, and the unfairness of this budget and the previous budget. It is showing that the government do not care about young people in our community. They say they do, they had the youth unemployment measure in the budget, but we know the truth and young people know the truth—that, if the government were serious about youth unemployment, they would not have put those measures in this bill.

The bill has about $1 billion in savings over the forward estimates. That is $1 billion that could be in the pockets of unemployed people, to pay for their food and for their shelter. My question to the government remains: how are people going to be able to pay for these things? Who is going to pay? How are these young people going to pay for their food, how are they going to pay for the bus fare to go to a job interview, how are they going to pay their rent when it falls due if they are not receiving any money? I really do not understand why government members cannot comprehend this. How do you pay for these things when you are not receiving a cent? It is not that complicated.

I am just astounded—and you probably get that, Mr Deputy Speaker Mitchell, from the way that I am talking. I am astounded that we are in this place again looking at measures similar to those we stopped the government implementing last budget, and they do not appear to have learnt very much. They have come back with what is, I guess, an improvement, as I have said, but not much of an improvement at all. You have to wonder what it is going to take for the government to actually listen. What is going to take for the government to listen? How many times are we going to have to knock down punitive measures targeted at job seekers instead of welcoming a job creation plan from the government? How many times are we going to have to do that? How many times are we all going to have to stand up and knock back, speak against, this type of legislation that increases penalties for job seekers?

In my portfolios, I have had to stand up here many times and address punitive measures for job seekers, where the government is trying to ask more of job seekers and penalise them more. This bill does that, again. It will penalise young people. I am not sure whether the minister and/or the government have in fact looked at how this will interact with other measures, as I talked about, such as the cuts to emergency relief funding; the removal of some of the housing measures, with homelessness and housing affordability being such issues; and the cuts made to community service organisations that would ordinarily help people who do not receive an income of any sort or any support from government.

I do not think the government have thought this through very well at all. It appears that, in their last budget, they simply went hunting for savings. They identified that they could cut off payments to people and that that might make savings and also motivate young people to go out there and get themselves a job. But, as I have clearly outlined, the jobs are not there—and nothing the government are doing will create more jobs and more job vacancies.

That is the fundamental difference between this side of the House and that side of the House. We believe that governments have a role to play when it comes to job creation in this country. We believe that governments have levers available to them to go out there and to support industry, to support business, to support small business and to do other things in the community that generate employment, but also to invest in education and to invest in TAFE and vocational education.

Today is national TAFE day. As I said earlier, we have seen the green paper and other documents today that say that the government might take away vocational education and/or TAFE funding from states. This is just appalling. I have had people come and see me today about the importance of skills. Having been a TAFE-educated individual myself, I understand the wonderful role that TAFEs play in our community. The government really does need to look at the whole thing in terms of vocational training and education, higher education and job creation, and come up with a proper plan to deal with unemployment. The government's own budget has unemployment going up to 6.5 per cent—a 14 year high. We have youth unemployment rising right around the country, particularly in regional areas and particularly in my home state. I know that many people in regional South Australia—and South Australians in this place—are also very concerned about their unemployment figures.

The attitude of the federal government appears to be: 'Hands off. Not our problem. It's the problem of the states when it comes to funding education. It's the problem of the states when it comes to funding vocational education. It's the problem of the states when it comes to dealing with employment issues.' That is simply not good enough. It is not a good enough for a federal government who is saying, on the one hand, that it wants to do something to support small businesses to hire people and is saying that it cares about youth unemployment, to then not look at this issue in a holistic way. It is not actually looking at all the different things that do need to be addressed so that we can address unemployment in this country—particularly youth unemployment—properly.

I am proud to be opposing this bill. I am proud to come in here, and I will keep doing it. I will keep coming in here and standing up for young Australians, who are out there and who want to have a go. They are being stopped from having a go by this government who wants to take away money from them at every single opportunity. The government does not seem to want to let up.

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