Ian Goodenough (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Assistant Minister for Employment. Will the minister update the House on the government's plans to improve the job opportunities for older Australians? What obstacles stand in the way of helping mature-age workers get jobs?

Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Assistant Minister for Employment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the good member for his question. The member for Moore is a member who understands the benefits an older worker can bring to a workplace. And the member for Moore understands the fact that we need as a nation to increase the participation of older workers if we are to maximise our standard of living and maximise our national productivity. The budget included new arrangements for the Restart program to help more older workers into work and to help more employers. Restart is a $10,000 wage subsidy for employers to take on older job seekers, aged over 50, who have been unemployed for six months or longer, and the program is assisting people in the good member's electorate.

I would like to bring to the attention of the House the fact that recently a 66-year-old was employed as an estimator at a small electrical business. That has been done through the assistance of the Restart program. And a 62-year-old has been working as a patient care assistant in the good member's electorate, assisted through the Restart program. But as part of the budget we are making Restart more attractive to employers by paying the $10,000 subsidy sooner. It will be as a result of the budget being paid over 12 months, not over 24 months. Also, payments will be made more flexibly to better meet the needs of employers. Payments will be made up to fortnightly to assist employers with the cost of hiring and the cost of training new staff—a great subsidy being made more effective for employers.

But I have been asked what challenges the government faces in assisting workers into the workplace. I can say that the great challenge we face is the Australian Labor Party. Sadly, we had the opposition leader forgetting to mention young unemployed people in his budget reply speech. It pains me to say that he forgot to mention older workers as well. We have the year of the idea. The only ideas we have had in the area of unemployment so far have been a couple of talkfests and a $20 million youth pilot. As the year of the idea achieves a crescendo, we have had the announcement today of another talkfest. We have the member for Gorton and the member for Bendigo heading off on vacation—a talkfest vacation. We have people on the ground needing assistance to get into work. This government is doing that. The members opposite are just standing in the way and holding talkfests rather than coming up with real policies to help workers. We are about getting people into work; you are about talkfests.