Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Marshall, the Local Solutions Fund was built on our knowledge of people who are most seriously at risk in our society. There are children who grow up with parents who are out of work. There are people without the skills to get a job. There are kids who drop out of school far too young. There are teenagers who are looking after their own kids. We need all of our system to be able to work for them. We want to make sure that, for instance, teenage parents have the opportunities to get a fair go in life. We know that they are motivated to get the best start in life for themselves and their kids, but we also know that we need to build the individual resources available to make sure we can keep them at school and we want them to be able to connect with parenting support services at the same time. We want to be able to develop new approaches to help people get through these difficult periods in their lives. We want to be able to connect people to economic opportunities to ensure that they have a prosperous future, no matter where they live and no matter what their economic circumstances. (Time expired)