Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is my pleasure to rise and speak on this bill, the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Youth Jobs Path: Prepare, Trial, Hire) Bill 2016, in continuation. I was talking about the three stages of the PaTH program, which will support up to 120,000 young people over four years. The first stage is getting them ready—preparing young people. The second stage is giving them a go—trialling them through an internship, supported by a youth bonus wage subsidy and voluntary internships of between four and 12 weeks where employers will receive an incentive of $1,000 up-front and a young person, an intern, will receive a $200-a-fortnight payment to supplement their Newstart allowance—on top of their Newstart allowance. Then, of course, the third part of this program is hire—giving young people a job. In order to provide that incentive to employers, the government is proposing that businesses will be eligible for a youth bonus wage subsidy of between $6½ thousand and $10,000 from 1 January next year.

This bill is needed because it is required to ensure jobseekers are not disadvantaged by taking part in the Youth Jobs PaTH measure announced in the budget to encourage eligible young jobseekers to take up a PaTH internship. Participants, as I have mentioned, will receive $200 fortnightly in addition to their social security payments. The bill ensures that these payments are not considered as income for social security and veterans' entitlement purposes. That is obviously very important; we do not want to do anything that will impact on their social security entitlements. So it will amend the Social Security Act, the Veterans' Entitlements Act and the Social Security (Administration) Act to support the Youth Jobs PaTH measure.

I do want to make some particular comments in relation to the member for Melbourne's contribution and more broadly in relation to some of the opposition that we have heard from members opposite. This is an incredibly important program for young people. In contrast to those opposite and to the Greens, here we are, as a government, looking at every possible measure to drive young people into work. We are incredibly proud of what we are doing. And it is absolutely fallacious to suggest that this is a $4-an-hour program. What we are providing is a $200-a-fortnight bonus—that is in addition to Newstart; $200 extra per fortnight—which will put young people into the position of an internship for a limited period of time and, very importantly, will give employers the opportunity to trial someone and to train them. We all know that, when an employer brings anyone new into their business, there is a high degree of commitment by that employer to introduce a young person into the workplace, to train them and to get them job-ready, and the employer does not do that unless he or she, or the company, has a commitment to bringing someone into their organisation. It is also great opportunity for young people: to learn new skills; to get a taste of that industry or to get an understanding of that business; to get a sense of self-worth; to be encouraged; to be inspired; and of course, in doing so, to receive this important bonus.

So it is really regrettable that, while we have had this criticism both from the Greens and from the Labor Party, we have seen no ideas from members opposite. What are their ideas? We have seen no contrary ideas from the Labor Party.

As a government, we are doing everything possible to drive jobs, to drive new programs and to look at new ways of getting young people into work. And its is not just through the PaTH program. We have our $96 million Try, Test and Learn Fund, introduced by the Minister for Social Services, asking all members of the community—volunteer groups, community organisations and members opposite—to come up with innovative employment ideas to drive employment. But what do we hear today from the member for Melbourne? No ideas. It is a zero ideas zone from the Greens and from members opposite. We recognise that government does not have all the ideas, and we are saying to Australians, 'Here is nearly $100 million for an innovative scheme'—like a scheme that is being promoted and funded in my region, the GROW scheme, where G21 and Give Where You Live have done some wonderful work to try to address the very significant problems with youth unemployment, particularly in the Geelong region.

We are making some very important inroads, despite some members opposite—particularly the member for Corio—trying to talk down our local economy at every opportunity. Last month's unemployment figures show that unemployment in the Geelong is currently sitting at four per cent, with a three-month rolling average of 5.8 per cent. Despite all the criticism from those opposite, we are doing so much better than the Labor Party have ever given us credit for. While we get criticism from those opposite, what is remarkable in this debate is that we have no ideas from those opposite.

Not only do we have our Try, Test and Learn scheme on top of our PaTH scheme; we have the Transition to Work scheme, which is an alternative for the jobactive providers. It supports young people aged 15 to 21 through intensive pre-employment support to improve work readiness and help them into work or education. We have the ParentsNext program, which helps eligible parents to identify their education and employment goals—again, to help them get into work. We have our Empowering YOUth Initiative, again to support innovative approaches to helping young unemployed people move into work. We are absolutely committed and doing everything we can to drive those jobs and to drive those opportunities, and it is really disappointing that we have not seen some bipartisanship on what is a very, very significant measure.

The Minister for Employment, Senator Michaelia Cash, did an extraordinary job in leading our charge in passing the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Bill 2014, which of course is a bill that is all about putting Australian workers first. In contrast to Labor, who wanted to back the union organisers, including those who had engaged in fraud and corruption, which is very disappointing, our government is focused on putting Australian workers first. It was wonderful to visit Kings Cars with the minister and to talk—

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