Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Hansard source

It would be remiss of me to not talk about the minister's statement, given that prior to coming to this place I worked in the youth sector—and we have the member for Riverina here. In fact, I met the member for Riverina many years ago when I was hosting a youth forum in his electorate. I think it was in the township of Griffith, from memory. I was really pleased to see the member for Riverina there. That's because all of us here should be really engaged with the young people in our community. We should, I think, as a first focus, very much think about the needs of young people in our decision-making.

First of all, I'd like to congratulate the government for having a youth minister. One of my first questions when I came into this place was to ask then Prime Minister Turnbull why we didn't have a youth minister. He had a little bit of a cheeky response. He said that he and his cabinet felt very youthful. He then mentioned that many of the members of his cabinet were parents of young people or indeed, I think, grandparents of young people. The previous government did appoint a minister for youth—a minister for youth and aged care, from memory. That was a senator who I think was also probably a grandfather of a young person—not that there's anything wrong with that. What I'm trying to say here is that it's really important that we have a minister for youth, and I think that that minister should sit within cabinet, because the decisions we make today that affect young people will have ramifications for generations to come.

There are a couple of issues I'd like to talk about. Prior to coming in this place I had a role as the national executive officer for a program called Youth Connections. We haven't, in this place, since that program was cut in 2014, had a program that was there to support young people to re-engage with education. We do have Transition to Work, which is a very good program, but that's about connecting young people into employment, many for the first time. But we don't have a program that scoops up those young people who are falling out of the education system in year 7 or year 8. We don't have a federal government program anymore that scoops them up and helps them to get back and, hopefully, finish year 11, year 12 or equivalent. We know that the best tool that you can have in order to live a good life, a life of fulfilment, is a good education. I would urge the government to go back in time and look at the program called Youth Connections that you had when you were last in government. From the 1970s through to 2014, there was always a federal government program that invested in young people who were outside of the school gate to get them back inside the school gate and worked with their families to do so.

I'd also like to touch upon youth unemployment. While you could say that nationally our unemployment figures are very healthy, youth unemployment is always stubbornly higher than the national unemployment rate. I think it normally sits at around double. Where I'd like to go with this is for us to look at what is happening overseas. For many years the EU has had a youth jobs guarantee—that is, where there are no jobs in the market for a young person and where market programs run by various employment services are failing young people, it provides a youth guarantee.

I've got to also commend a previous government. When we had Tony Abbott as Prime Minister, one thing he did do for youth—even though there were many things that he cut from young people and didn't do for youth—was the Green Army. I would really urge the government to look at that again. That was a fantastic program. In my electorate I met a young man who was of refugee background. He had travelled—many people don't know South Australia—from the northern suburbs by train, then on another train way down to the end of the train line at Seaford Meadows, where he then got picked up by a car to get down to Mount Compass and be part of the program that was rehabilitating the grasslands and swampland there. There are some particularly important frogs and birds that live in that grassland.

I would really urge the government to reconsider that program. Not only was it good for the environment; it allowed a lot of young people who had not had experience in the workplace to build those soft skills, get up early in the morning and connect with other people outside of their family and friends. It was an excellent program, and I think all of the young people in that program from my electorate went on to roles, largely, in the environment sector, which they were pleased to hold. It was a great loss when we had a change in prime ministership that then resulted in the ending of that program.

I'd also like to talk about the fact that when I was a young person—

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