Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this morning to speak on the vital issue of youth unemployment in the north-west of Sydney, in particular in my electorate of Mitchell. I can record for the House that, while the unemployment rate nationally has remained stable, north-west Sydney has experienced an unemployment rate that has skyrocketed in the last 12 months. Most age categories now have an unemployment rate higher than the New South Wales average, and in particular I want to express my concern that teenagers between 15 and 19 have an unemployment rate of 27 per cent compared with the state average of 22.6 per cent. Unfortunately, it is also incumbent on me to record that total north-west Sydney unemployment jumped from 6.2 per cent to 8.1 per cent, compared with the state average of 6.6 per cent.

Unfortunately, this is, I fear, the beginning of a trend in Australia and in New South Wales where we are seeing a government that is prepared to spend a lot of taxpayers’ money in a vain attempt to prop up things that have failed or done badly in Australia. The victims of that are young people in New South Wales, indeed in north-western Sydney. If you think back before the last election, you will recall that the Labor Party had the temerity to criticise the Howard government because we had a skills shortage. They suggested that we had provided too many jobs and not enough skilled workers to fill those jobs. Just a short time later, we find ourselves in the invidious position of almost the exact opposite, where we no longer have too many jobs and too few skilled workers. In the north-west of Sydney we have unemployment skyrocketing, particularly for the people in north-western Sydney. This has a dual effect. We see that young people and people in general from the workforce are returning to study, so we are not even addressing issues like underemployment in this discussion today. But that criticism of the Howard government, that we provided too many jobs, is now coming home to roost.

The real heavy lifting for the Australian workforce is not coming from this government—Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister; it is coming from the local community. I note that the Rouse Hill Times recently helped to launch the Give a Kid a Go campaign, where employers are challenged to find young people under the age of 21 a job. I want to record that this is a very important campaign and I want to thank the small businesses and other employers in Australia for their work in attempting to give young people a go. I also want to record, while I have the time, that this is not the time to be fiddling or messing with our industrial relations system and making it harder for young people to access employment. Unfortunately, that is what we have seen from this government—changes which will affect the ability of an employer to take on young people at a time when youth unemployment in my electorate is skyrocketing. (Time expired)