Eric Hutchinson (Lyons, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Too many of our young people grow up in a family where no-one has ever had a job. Previous governments have tried, and we must keep trying. Our nation needs these young people. We in this place know that the best form of welfare is a real job, so the $840 million Youth Employment Package, where 120,000 young people will have the chance to get a real job, is an absolute necessity. At its core is Youth Jobs PaTH—prepare, trial and hire—targeting young people up to 25 years of age to get them into real paid work with a real employer. In the preparation stage, there will be intensive three-week training to help meet the needs of employers, to provide them with advanced job-hunting skills and to improve their preparation for real work and their presentation once they get there. In the trial period, which is a voluntary period of between four and 12 weeks, there will be internships for up to 30,000 young people, a $1,000 incentive payment for the business to host a placement and an additional payment of $200 per fortnight on top of the income the job seeker is receiving either through Newstart or youth allowance to incentivise these young people to get into real work. There will be work experience with the opportunity for up to 25 hours per week and then a real chance that they will be hired. A job is a life-changing experience, and we owe it to our young people to keep trying. We owe it to our nation.