Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities, Carers and the Voluntary Sector) Share this | Hansard source

The Social Security Amendment (National Green Jobs Corps Supplement) Bill 2009 seeks to introduce a training supplement of $14.60 a fortnight to eligible participants in the Green Jobs Corps. The Green Jobs Corps, as you may remember, Mr Acting Deputy President, was announced at the 2009 ALP conference by the Prime Minister. At that conference Mr Rudd promised to deliver 50,000 new green jobs—a very memorable commitment. Yet we now know that, of these 50,000 new green jobs, only 6,000 were actually real jobs. I well remember the television footage of Senator Arbib on Sky, at the national conference, with the Darling Harbour venue in the background, struggling to explain how many of these jobs were new and real. I did actually feel sympathy for Senator Arbib—he is someone I am quite fond of, whom I spar with from time to time—because I suspect that Senator Arbib had this sprung upon him. I know that Senator Arbib would otherwise have been across the detail. It looked very much like something that had been cooked up very quickly in the Prime Minister’s office, and no-one had really quite thought through the details. So I think we all should be understanding of the very difficult and unfair situation that Senator Arbib was put in on that occasion.

The Green Jobs Corps is a six-month work experience program for 18- to 24-year-olds who have been unemployed for more than 12 months. Participants will continue to receive Newstart, youth allowance or a parenting payment. Whilst not a job, work experience is a welcome step in the right direction. Work experience programs such as Work for the Dole, Greencorps and Green Jobs Corps are designed to increase the employability of the unemployed. They do help job seekers to become job ready. They are a pathway to a job, but they are not jobs on their own.

Greencorps, it is important to remember, was an initiative of the former coalition government. And in many respects the Rudd government’s Green Jobs Corps appears very similar to the coalition’s Greencorps. The only differences are in the increased eligibility for older participants and that participants in the program receive income support payments now rather than the old Greencorps allowance. A cynic may even accuse the government of simply rebadging the coalition program. To be fair, Labor has added in the word ‘Jobs’ to the name, but it has not yet defined a pathway between this training and an actual paid job.

Employment for young people in Australia has serious deteriorated since the Rudd government was elected. In the last 12 months alone 108,300 full-time jobs have been lost amongst young Australians. And the rate of unemployment for teenagers who were not in full-time education rose to 18.5 per cent in 2009, up from 12.2 per cent in 2008.

The coalition will not oppose the passage of this bill. However, it is clear that the Rudd government have no strategy to create actual jobs for young Australians. We on this side of the chamber sincerely hope that they find a plan to do just that.