Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Communications) Share this | Hansard source

Young Australians are being devastated by the current COVID-19 pandemic and the accompanying recession. In my electorate young people are doing it particularly tough. I recently held a forum in my electorate with the Foundation for Young Australians to hear from young Australians in the electorate—and it was heartbreaking to hear their stories. That first decade after leaving school should be a time of hope and opportunity, a time when young Australians set out in the world, plan for the future and chase their dreams. But COVID-19 means that it is currently a time of fear and anxiety. The Australian Bureau of Statistics tells us that the national youth unemployment rate is now 14.5 per cent. Analysis from the Foundation for Young Australians suggests that the youth unemployment rate in my electorate may be closer to 30 per cent—more than four times the overall unemployment rate.

Eight months, three weeks and two days—that's how long ago this pandemic began in Australia. It's been almost 9 months of seeing this pandemic and recession devastate young Australians and almost 9 months of financial stress. Yet we still see no comprehensive plan from the Morrison government to support young Australians. We've seen, at best, short-term bandaid fixes and marketing slogans from the Morrison government. Nine months into the COVID pandemic, at the federal budget, we finally saw one policy for young Australians. We saw one 12-month hiring subsidy for young Australians, with a marketing slogan and much media fanfare—no comprehensive strategy for job creation or skills investment, but an announcement. Sadly, though, we've seen this before from this government—and it doesn't end well.

In 2013, the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government needed an announcement for older unemployed Australians. Their answer was another wage subsidy, with a marketing slogan—the Restart Program. When it was announced, Restart was a $520 million program to help 32,000 older Australians into a job every year. But, in the delivery—and it's always the punchline for the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government; the delta between announcement and delivery—the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government spent less than half the money, helped only a third as many people into jobs in total and kept only half of those who did get work in work for more than six months. It is what happens when you have a one-off policy instead of a comprehensive plan. It is what happens when you spend more time on the marketing than on the delivery. Now they are recycling this failed policy as a solution for unemployed young people.

In the seven years that those opposite have been in power we have seen Australians increasingly pushed into insecure work, with no security and no entitlements. Nowhere have we seen this more starkly than in the industries where young Australians are most often employed—retail, hospitality and the arts. They are the industries hit hardest by the pandemic and the health restrictions, and they are the industries with the highest rates of casual workers. It shouldn't surprise us then that, while 15 per cent of all jobs are filled by young people, 40 per cent of jobs lost during the pandemic were those done by young Australians. But the Morrison government in designing its JobKeeper package chose not to support them. Almost one million casual workers are not eligible for assistance, because they are short-term casuals. More than a quarter of short-term casuals who don't meet the eligibility criteria for JobKeeper are young Australians.

But the Morrison government isn't just slugging young people in the present; it is also mugging their future. What would the Morrison government have a young person do who has lost their job, can't pay the bills and is not eligible for JobKeeper, like many of the 30 per cent of young unemployed in my electorate? Their answer is: drain your super account, which could leave you up to $100,000 worse off in retirement. Mortgage your future.

What's the Morrison government's plan for young Australians who want to invest now in the skills that they will need to get a job in the future? Double the cost of a university degree. Yes, in the middle of a global pandemic and recession those opposite want to saddle students who will be graduating into the worst recession in a century with even more student debt. Young people are bearing the brunt of this pandemic and recession, and they are being left behind by the policy decisions made by the Morrison government. Is it any wonder that 52 per cent of young people don't feel they are represented in public affairs in this country? That is why this motion is so important and why I am rising to support it. Young people deserve better than marketing slogans and policies that leave them worse off than when they started. Young people deserve better than the Morrison government. Young people deserve a comprehensive plan to address the impact of this COVID-19 pandemic on them specifically—a plan that is designed with them, not just for them; a plan that listens to the needs of young Australians, involves them in our democratic process and gets them through this immediate crisis and builds into their future.

See this speech in context