Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Today, I want to raise the many difficulties faced by young people and the lack of attention to the plight of young people in this government's policies. For far too long, the scales have been tipped against young people in our society, and my generation is the one taking, often without thinking, all the benefits. For too long, it's been easy to ignore our youth. But I strongly believe we cannot do this any longer. It appears that our young people are going to be worse off than their parents, and this is something we should be ashamed of and try to change, not ignore.

These days, when a young person finishes high school and has to make a decision about future training and career paths, there are many very complex scenarios that have to be faced. For example, do they choose a university with high HECS fees, no job security and very competitive placements? Do they choose vocational education, again, often with high fees, poor apprenticeship wages and unscrupulous providers, who have in the past really damaged the system almost irreparably? There is very poor post-school support for those who struggle with learning and other disabilities. For those who may take time to enter the jobs market, social security payments, for example, Newstart, are at all-time lows and below what I would see as being subsistence level. In this day and age, it is virtually impossible in any of the major cities for a young person to live off Newstart, without extensive support from friends and family, even just to cover their housing costs.

Australia's population increased by almost two million people between 2011 and 2016—that's a rate of almost 10 per cent—and about half of those are under 40. The median age of the Australian population is now 37, so we have a lot of young people. We hear a lot about our ageing population, but, in fact, over half of our population are under 40 and need us to be cognizant of their difficulties. There are many, many difficulties faced by young people with things like housing. For example, 20 years ago, over 60 per cent of people under 35 were buying their own home. That has now been reduced to 41 per cent. I have been to auction after auction with my children to see them outbid many, many times by investors, who have enormous tax advantages in buying housing. How can this be fair? Do we want our younger generation to be renters for the rest of their lives? That's what we're looking at. With housing, it's important to remember that it is one of the most important social determinants of progress. For children to have a stable home, without having to change school all the time, is the most important factor in their education. For people in work, having a stable home is very important in maintaining their job prospects and improving their job mobility.

In education, work, health and housing and social welfare, young people are discriminated against all the time. We have a system that's weighted against them, and there is very little impetus on behalf of this government to make things better. With private health insurance, the premiums are now at a level that young people just can't afford them, yet very little has been done to make private health insurance more affordable. We're seeing young people, in particular, dropping out of private health insurance every week that goes by. Our children, our young people, are our future. Unless we do something to help them, our future looks very bleak. It is important that we make changes, and those changes need to happen very quickly.

My belief is that we should have a minister for young people, specifically tasked with improving the situation for our youth. We should also be trying to look at ways that make housing more affordable, such as the negative gearing policies developed by the shadow Treasurer. In every talk we have about the dividend imputation removal of cash refunds promoted by our financial team, we need to be cognisant of the fact that our young people are the ones that are being damaged. (Time expired)

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