Matt Keogh (Burt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

As I listened to most of this debate from my office, all I heard from the other side of the chamber was some criticism of the former Labor government. But as I listened to the speeches from those opposite I did not hear any mention of any concrete policies to create any actual jobs. Their only job creation strategy seems to be to transplant several hundred jobs from here in Canberra to the Deputy Prime Minister's electorate up in Armidale. That is not job creation; that is just job transference.

I want to paint you a picture of the south-eastern suburbs of Perth that make up my electorate of Burt—suburbs from Canning Vale, through to Gosnells, down to Armadale, out to Piara Waters and Harrisdale and everywhere in between. My electorate is the home of many mineworkers and construction workers and those working in mining related services. Unfortunately, many of them have been made redundant over the last year or so. Under Labor we had unemployment at under six per cent. Now in my area it is over seven per cent. That is higher than the WA average. It is higher than the national average. And the picture is even worse when it comes to youth unemployment. It is more than double. It is over 15 per cent.

Thousands of young Western Australians are graduating from high school, TAFE and university with nowhere to go. The days when every young person could walk into a job on the mines are a distant memory for young people today in Western Australia.

For all of its innovation and agility, the Liberal government has not assisted WA to diversify its economy or broaden employment opportunities away from mining. Neither, of course, has the Barnett Liberal state government. As was remarked to me by Liberals during the election, 'You can't go and tell a guy who's been laid off from a mine site to go and put on some skinny-leg jeans and develop an iPhone app.' The only attempt at a solution that the government is offering is the PaTH internship program. Well, that is tantamount to working for nix. Otherwise, the Turnbull government's attempts to help young Australians looking for work has seen them trying to deny access to Newstart payments, cutting assistance to apprenticeships by about a billion dollars, cutting apprenticeship numbers to less than 130,000. We have also seen them fail to step in swiftly to stop the VET-FEE rorting where students were being charged astronomical amounts for an education that they never actually received. And of course there is always the continued pushing of $100,000 university degrees, as well as further savage cuts to programs like youth connections. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is about it from this government. That is all they are offering the young people of Australia today.

But Labor offers a different approach. Labor is fighting for what matters to Australians. We are fighting for local jobs. We are fighting to protect Medicare. We are fighting to build a strong economy that delivers for everyone in Australia. We will build Australian first. We will buy Australian first in our contracts. And we will employ Australians first. Because Labor understands that, at a time of high unemployment in Western Australia, stagnating wage growth, below-target inflation and with economic bottlenecks aplenty, the time is right—nay, it is required—that we embark on building nation-building infrastructure. The economic benefit of investing in WA's infrastructure is there. Last year, the Infrastructure Australia audit found that seven out of the top 10 roads with the biggest congestion costs in the country by 2031 are all going to be in Western Australia.

The experts know that we should be investing in infrastructure. The new Reserve Bank governor, Philip Lowe, told a parliamentary committee this year that monetary policy simply was not doing the job to boost the economy. He said:

You can keep doing more of something in the hope that it finally works, and my judgement is that that has not been particularly useful.

Well, the old maxim is that insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, and this is apparently true in our economy and it is the approach being taken by the Turnbull government. They are playing the same old tricks as every Liberal government, and unemployment in my electorate just keeps getting worse. Instead, Mr Lowe called on the Turnbull government to start spending on infrastructure to create jobs. And just this month the IMF said that we should do exactly the same thing. In fact, they said:

A more sustained, multi-year increase in spending on efficient infrastructure also at the Commonwealth level would be desirable …

That was quite polite language to say: 'Just get on with the job, Mr Turnbull.'

Alas, this government is not listening to the many people across this country, like those in my electorate, who keep saying: 'My children haven't been able to find work since leaving school; what is the government doing about finding kids work?' or, 'All of the job ads ask for people with experience, but I need to pay my bills too,' or, 'I've just got a degree and I can't find a job,' or, 'I've been made redundant and there's no jobs out there,' or, 'I've got laid off, but they kept the guy on the 457 visa,' or, 'We've all been laid off, but we've been offered new contracts as casuals at 20 per cent less than before.' When it comes to a job plan, the Turnbull government has a plan for themselves while young Australians have to fend for themselves. (Time expired)

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