Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the minister for his response and, in particular, referring to, for example, defence industries and manufacturing which, obviously, in those sectors, particular pressures relate to them. It is good to know. As I indicated in my question, it would be great if some of those answers could be taken on notice. I would like to move on to another area within the portfolio area: in particular, a program that was announced during the federal budget this year relating to the establishment of the PaTH internship program, which the opposition has indicated some concerns with. I will keep my question as short as I possibly can, given the time constraints we have.

Six months after the program was announced, and even today through estimates hearings being conducted for the other place, there is no definition of what an intern will be. There is no outline of guarantees to ensure interns will not displace jobs; there is no outline of guarantees to ensure interns will not be used to cut wages; there is no outline of guarantees to ensure that PaTH will not experience the same outcomes as Work for the Dole that I referred to earlier, and whether or not the bulk of interns will fail to get full-time work. I would like to get an indication from the minister as to whether or not he is able to provide the chamber with some assurances in relation to those matters I have raised.

I would also like to ask if the minister is aware of findings of overseas reviews into similar schemes. For example, in Ireland, which has a similar program, the National Youth Council of Ireland found that only 27 per cent of interns were placed in full-time jobs after their internships. I would be interested to know if the Australian scheme will have a higher hiring rate, and what the government's hiring target is for this new program. Can the minister also remind the House of the total amount of public funds dedicated to PaTH over the forward estimates? And has the minister seen or been made aware of a line of questioning that was enthusiastically pursued by Senator James Paterson in estimates today? He was very interested to know whether a potential advantage for this new program is that if an intern does not work out, a business would not be subject to any unfair dismissal claims or costs in that respect. He seemed to indicate that this would be an advantage of the program, that it would sidestep unfair dismissal laws.

Can the minister advise whether or not he shares that same enthusiasm, and if this is actually a program to get people to work or to get people out of work? It seems to be at odds. So I would be interested to get some more details on this, given that the opposition has had some concerns with program designs to date.

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