Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to contribute to this debate on the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Youth Jobs Path: Prepare, Trial, Hire) Bill 2016 because it is an essential debate to be had in this place insofar as providing opportunities for young people in this country to find work is concerned. I start by commending the contribution by the member for Mayo. I think her concerns about the bill are absolutely correct. The intent of the bill—at least if it is to ensure the opportunity of young people to get work—is noble and good, but, as always, we need to look at the impact of the legislation and whether in fact there are sufficient safeguards in place for the most vulnerable workers in the labour market, namely young people.

I also think it is true to say that there is no point providing a subsidised program, if you do not understand the challenges confronting young people. The member for Mayo went to the issue of non-vocational barriers to employment—the fact that there are so many young people who are not only not equipped with skills to deal with the labour market and find a job but also dealing with so many other barriers, including homelessness, intergenerational unemployment, drug dependency and all sorts of other difficulties. Whatever we do in supporting those on the margins—young people struggling—we need to ensure that we attend to them in a holistic manner; not only providing a job, in the case of people who might be struggling, but also attending to their other concerns so we can make sure that their attachment to the labour market is not a precarious one.

Labor supports opportunities for young people. We are concerned that there are in excess of 260,000 young people unemployed in Australia, and that is a very significant proportion of the unemployment numbers in this country. We know, as the result of automation and other changes in the labour market, there are fewer entry-level jobs for younger people. Therefore the government does have a role to partner businesses and partner companies to ensure we provide greater opportunities. We also know, because of the disruption to other sectors of the labour market, we have a situation where young people now are competing against older workers for the same jobs. There was a time when fast-food chains probably employed predominantly young people. That still may be the case but, increasingly, we are seeing older workers having to take on fast-food work because they have been displaced from other sectors of the labour market. This adds to the difficulty young people are having finding work at the moment.

We support the tenor of the bill, but we have some grave reservations. The member for Chifley has moved a very significant amendment that goes to the concerns that Labor has in relation to this bill. The night of the budget, when it was introduced by the Treasurer and later advocated by the Minister for Employment, was the first indication we had in relation to this proposed initiative that it would only apply to existing jobs. In fact, when asked whether it would apply to additional jobs or existing jobs, the Minister for Employment advised that it would only apply to existing jobs and then, of course, subsequently had to correct the record and say, 'No, it could include additional jobs as well.' That is a fundamental concern we have with respect to this initiative.

There is a concern that we are using tax payers' dollars to subsidise jobs that were going to be provided to young people anyway. If the minister needs to get a lesson on deadweight loss, she only need look at the weakness of this scheme. The way that the scheme has been set up will allow employers to use it to ensure there is no additionality to the labour market and, indeed, allow them to employ young people in existing positions, thereby avoiding having to fully pay for their own workers and, of course, not having to pay them pursuant to industrial instruments. There is a twofold problem here: firstly, the taxpayer will be paying for these so-called interns for work they were going to employ someone for anyway, but now they are getting a subsidy from the taxpayer; and, secondly, they do not have to ensure it is additional to the workforce. That is a concern, and it has been catered for in the amendment moved by the member for Chifley, where we want to get some guarantees as to this initiative.

We do not have to go too far back to remember what this government was considering doing to young jobseekers. It was not when long ago that the government was looking at cutting any benefit whatsoever for all jobseekers up to the age of 30 from any support for six months. This government advocated that young people up until the age of 30 would receive no support for six months even when they were looking each and every day for work. Because of the pressure from Labor and others, that has now been reduced to one month, but I can tell you that for young people who are independent people looking for work, if they are not to receive any support for the first month they are unemployed and they are not living at home, it is an enormous burden and it is counterproductive. It will be more difficult where there is no support whatsoever for young people to look for work.

We ask the government, as they ended up backflipping on the six-month suspension of any support, to also change their position on the one-month suspension and provide some level of support, provided the young jobseeker is looking for work. That is what mutual obligation means. You cannot have the principle of mutual obligation when you say, 'There's an obligation on the young jobseeker to look for work, but there is no obligation on us to help them.' That is not mutual obligation. That is just putting the onus on them with no support from the government, and that is completely undermining the principle of mutual obligation that I thought both major parties shared in that regard. I ask the government to reconsider their position on the absence of support for one month so that they are not being unduly unfair.

While I am on my feet, in relation to support from government, they also extended the youth allowance to cover 22- and 23-year-olds so there would be, in effect, a 20 per cent cut, in real terms, to income support for unemployed young people at the age of 22 and 23. That is still something the government is seeking to pass through the Senate. It is a massive cut. If you are on Newstart, on the lowest support—we know Newstart is not a very significant income—you are going to be subject to a 20 per cent cut to that income, if you are 22 or 23, Again, that is a pretty harsh thing to do to that age cohort, and we would ask the government to reconsider its position there. It is pretty harsh stuff. It is not going to help them find work. It is going to make it more difficult. It is just gratuitously punitive and, quite frankly, quite nasty, but in keeping with this sort of government.

This government wants to have a society that is easy to hire and easy to fire. That is liberal philosophy, quite frankly—let the market rip, underline the safety net, go after penalty rates, find ways to displace workers in the labour market, undermine employment security, diminish the conditions of employment, and smash unions so that there is little collective bargaining happening in the labour market. That is pretty much the modus operandi of the Liberal Party. Given that the aspiration of Prime Minister Turnbull and this government is to have an easy-to-hire, easy-to-fire, low-wage society, we are concerned that this initiative, even if it is well-intended, could actually lead to that result. Therefore, I think the government should seriously contemplate the amendment moved by the member for Chifley. I will just go to some of those points.

The member for Chifley has made clear that the opposition is not declining to agree to the second reading of this bill, but we are concerned about a number of key areas. Firstly, we are concerned that the jobs will not be displaced by cheaper labour. I have mentioned the fact that with this scheme, by being able to replace existing workers, rather than it involving additional jobs and an increase in the number of jobs available for young people in the labour market, we are concerned that if you have these so-called interns coming into workplaces on income that is less than the award that applies to that workplace you are effectively undermining the existing arrangements in that workplace. It is the classic race to the bottom method used by reactionary right-wing governments, and we would be concerned that this initiative will actually apply in that way. So, quite rightly, the member for Chifley has said that we need to be given some assurance that that would not take place as a result of the efforts of this initiative.

Our further concern is that wages will not be undercut and some participants will be paid below award minimum wages. That is specifically referring to the failure to recognise awards in the workplace. Further, that participants' safety will not be compromised and that adequate insurance arrangements will be provided. Again, because this class of jobseekers will not be strictly identified as employees, they will not be covered by the workers compensation schemes that apply to actual workers. It would be very concerning to Labor if there were not sufficient support to provide some other means to ensure not only their safety benefits but, indeed, provide compensation if they are injured at work.

Given that this scheme is effectively going right across the labour market, dealing with private sector companies, we are concerned that there is a possibility that these young people will be in unsafe situations where they will be at risk of injury, or worse. The member for Chifley may have already mentioned that we recently saw the tragic death of a very young participant on a Work for the Dole scheme in Toowoomba. It was an absolute tragedy and I know everyone in this place has that view. We say that when it, in particular, comes to young people in workplaces who do not have a great deal of experience, and given that this can go across so many sectors of the labour market, we do really need to ensure that we go above and beyond in providing safety and that in the induction of young people into these workplaces there is sufficient training for them to understand the potential risks. I am not suggesting that that will not happen, but there is no clarity from the bill suggesting that it will happen. Labor is insisting that we get some undertaking from the government that the safety of these young people has been taken into consideration.

Too many deaths are occurring in workplaces in this country. Three weeks ago a German backpacker was on the 14th floor of a building site in Perth and fell to her death, tragically. That is just one of many examples that can happen if young people, or workers generally, are not given sufficient safety training. We need to make sure that happens.

Another concern is that participants will not be used to help businesses sidestep unfair dismissal protections. That goes to our concern that, increasingly, people feel so little security of work. We would be worried about the vulnerability of workers if employers were able to obviate their responsibilities and not provide sufficient protection for those participants.

We have talked about prioritising small and medium enterprises. We do not want to see wholesale use of this scheme by large employers just as a mechanism to displace workers who are being paid under an award. Any scheme that involves taxpayers' dollars to subsidise wages should be about adding to the labour market, not taxpayers subsidising under-award-wage jobs. That is not what this bill should be about. Yet, when you read the bill, there is no clarity—none on security of employment, none on safety and not sufficiently on insurance, if compensation is required when there is an injury. There are so many questions requiring answers from the government, which I think are very inappropriately determined through our amendment. Until we get some clarity we have not made our position fully known on this. We ask the government to take these issues very seriously.

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