Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last night in this place we saw a budget delivered. We saw a budget that was not about jobs for Australians but really about saving the Prime Minister's job. We saw a budget that really was about a short-term fix and not about the long-term future of Australia at all. Indeed, this budget failed the government's own test. According to their own numbers in the budget, the budget will have more tax, more debt and higher unemployment. The budget papers actually say:

The forecast below-trend GDP growth means that the unemployment rate is still expected to drift up to 6½ per cent in 2015-16.

This would be the highest unemployment rate in Australia for more than 14 years. Not only do the budget papers say that unemployment rate will go to 6.5 per cent but the unemployment rate will be higher every year for the next four years as was forecast just one year ago in the last budget and even in the budget update, MYEFO. So unemployment is going to increase under this budget according to the government's own numbers.

Last night we saw an attempt by the government to try and deal with the issue of youth unemployment, a really serious issue in Australia at this time. The number of unemployed youth in Australia has been growing and has more than doubled. In some places it is almost three times the general unemployment rate. There are more than 280,000 young people unemployed in Australia at the present time. We have been calling on the government to do something about youth unemployment for quite some time. About a year ago, we started to talk about the need for youth unemployment to be dealt with. It has taken this government some time to actually realise that this is a really serious issue.

We were pleased to see some initiatives in the budget. But on closer inspection, this youth unemployment money is not actually new money. They talk about $300 million. They talk about a pool of wage subsidies of $1.2 billion for unemployed people to be able to access employment but not 1c of this is new money. It is actually just money that is already available that was already in programs that Labor had when in government. Those opposite took those programs out and they realised that the new Job Active program from 1 July is not going to work so they have had to put these programs back in. They took the money out, they put it into other things and now they have revised realised that Job Active will fail young people so they have had to put this money back in and address youth unemployment.

We know that Job Active and the way that the government has designed the new employment system from 1 July will actually disadvantage vulnerable people, particularly young vulnerable people. So it is actually good to see that the government has recognised this and done something about it. But of course some of this would not be necessary if they had not cut that programs that were in place in the first place, wonderful programs like Youth Connections, like partnership brokers, like national career development services—all really critical services that were dealing with the transition from education to work. Indeed, they worked and they worked very well. Labor announced just last week a youth jobs connect policy. It is good to see that the government has actually done something about youth unemployment in this budget. But as I said, the detail does actually show that it appears that there is no new money.

In my home state of Tasmania, youth unemployment and unemployment are very serious issues. We still have the highest unemployment rate in Australia, sadly. I sat through the budget papers last night and had a good look at them and thought, 'Well okay, you would expect with the highest unemployment rate that this budget would have something for Tasmania.' No, it does not. Indeed, what the budget papers show for Tasmania is more than $2 billion in cuts to health, education and hospitals in my home state. There was no money for the Mersey Hospital, which we hear from the government is likely to come out next week. There was the $16 million for Cadbury's—that I am sure many people will remember—has been put down as a saving from under the tourism department. We were told this money will come back to Tasmania. Where has that money gone? Money has come out of the freight rail project. We think it is around $100 million but nobody will actually give us the figures. Clearly this is a cut to Tasmania that comes on top of the cuts to health and education that come on top of the $100-million cut for road funding for the Midlands Highway. Tasmania appears to actually had a decrease in this budget.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It being 8 pm, the debate is interrupted.

House adjourned at 20:00