Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The G20 Leaders Summit will be held on 15 and 16 November in Brisbane and Friday, 14 November will be a special public holiday in the Brisbane local government area. The leaders summit will be the climactic event for Australia's presidency of the G20. The Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre, a venue in my electorate of Griffith, will be the principal meeting place. I look forward to welcoming as many as 4,000 delegates and 3,000 media representatives to Brisbane Southside, and I look forward to leaders from around the world getting a taste of what Brisbane Southside has to offer.

The leaders summit is the most important event in the G20 year. It will be the most significant meeting of world leaders that Australia has ever hosted. The G20 countries comprise around 85 per cent of global GDP, over 75 per cent of global trade and two-thirds of the world's population. My predecessor in Griffith, the former Prime Minister the Hon. Kevin Rudd, played a pivotal role in elevating the G20 to a leader-level summit, and I thank our former Prime Minister the Hon. Julia Gillard for her work at the 2011 G20 Leaders Summit in securing Australia as the host nation for the 2014 G20 Leaders Summit. This milestone in Australia's diplomatic history is testament to how far we have come in the world. With our outstanding economic record and our peaceful society, we are now a country to which others look for guidance, inspiration and support.

The G20's 2014 agenda rightly focuses on growth and jobs. Here in Australia it is a great shame that this week's budget provided no plan for jobs, only savage cuts to families, pensioners, young people and other individuals. The St Petersburg G20 Leaders Summit Declaration, the last leaders' declaration, stated:

Strengthening growth and creating jobs is our top priority and we are fully committed to taking decisive actions to return to a job-rich, strong, sustainable and balanced growth path.

It said:

Our most urgent need is to increase the momentum of the global recovery, generate higher growth and better jobs, while strengthening the foundations for long-term growth and avoiding policies that could cause the recovery to falter or promote growth at other countries’ expense.

We understand that sound and sustainable economic growth will be firmly based on increased and predictable investments, trust and transparency, as well as on effective regulation as part of the market policy and practice.

The G20 understands the importance of jobs. So does the Y20, one of the G20's engagement groups. The Y20 is the Youth 20, with delegates from around the world. I recently met with an Australian Y20 delegate, who said to me that the Y20 is focusing on youth unemployment.

As you know, Mr Deputy Speaker Goodenough, here in Australia—including in my electorate on Brisbane's south side—we have a youth unemployment crisis. The Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show a national youth unemployment rate of 12.9 per cent, with 262,000 young Australians between 15 and 24 years old out of work. Jobs Australia has said that teenage and youth unemployment rates indicate a need to support young people to make successful transitions from school to employment. The federal government delivers three youth programs: Youth Connections, the Schools Business Community Partnership Brokers Programme and the National Career Development Strategy. The Abbott government has slashed these youth programs in the budget.

I visited a local Youth Connections program recently and saw firsthand how it works. It is a program with runs on the board when it comes to kids who drop out of the school system. It is a value-for-money program that saves our community money by stopping at-risk kids from falling through the cracks. Nationally, over 80 per cent of people who participate in Youth Connections are in work or study 18 months after finishing the program. It is a great outcome for those kids, and it is a great outcome for our community. Jobs Australia has said:

The Youth Connections Programme has been successful in preventing and addressing disengagement from education, training and employment and helping young people achieve long term outcomes. The strengths of Youth Connections include flexibility, capacity to provide intensive and holistic support, and outreach with the most disengaged.

And yet, the Youth Connections program has been cut by the Abbott government in this week's atrocious budget that attacked pensioners, young people and people who could not afford to bear the brunt of this Abbott government budget.

The Abbott government has no jobs program for young people, only cuts. It made university education more expensive and cut skills funding. It has declared war on young people, despite utterly failing those same young people when it comes to job creation.