Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to thank senators who contributed to this bill. I acknowledge the support that all senators have given for action on employment, and youth unemployment in particular. Youth unemployment is an important issue which impacts on young people in all parts of the country.

This bill enables the job commitment bonus, which will provide an incentive for young long-term unemployed people to take a job and keep that job, and by doing so escape the spiral of long-term unemployment. The job commitment bonus is an innovative policy that will provide a total bonus of $6,500 to young people who have kept a job and stayed off welfare for 24 months.

The bill also enables the Relocation Assistance to Take Up a Job program, which will enable long-term unemployed people to gain assistance to move to take up a job. Assistance of up to $6,000 is available for job seekers to move to a regional area or, to move to a metropolitan area, up to $3,000. Families with dependent children will be provided with up to an extra $3,000.

The government notes the opposition's proposed amendments, which will maintain the status quo in relation to non-payment periods. The government will not oppose those amendments.

I will just address a couple of other issues that Senator Moore raised in her speech just then. With respect to the access of New Zealand citizens, this bonus is a targeted measure and not all Australian job seekers are eligible. We make no apology about encouraging young people to get and keep a job, especially when the youth unemployment rate is so high, but it is a targeted measure, and that partly explains that.

I will also address the issue of Youth Connections, which Senator Moore also referred to—and there will be a longer opportunity, I am sure, to discuss this. All the support programs in the world do not matter if the jobs are not there. I will not go into detail about the Youth Connections program—it varied dramatically across Australia—but some of the assertions about its effectiveness are not supported by facts.

Seventy-five per cent of the Youth Connections clients over the first four years of its operation were actually people 17 years of age and younger. That is the age for which all states and territories now have legislation—they have agreed with the Commonwealth that it is a compulsory school age and that, if you are not at school, you have to be in some other form of training. That is a responsibility of those who run the schools. We will hold the states and territories accountable for providing services and taking care of youth services in the area of their constitutional responsibility. The idea that we can keep writing blank cheques borrowed from these kids' future taxes, which the Labor Party and the Greens talk about as if it does not matter how much we spend—this idea that we spend as much money as we can and it does not matter how effective it is because it is all aimed at some good purpose—has not worked.

Can I also point out about the Youth Connections program that it was funded under the national partnership agreement for four years. There was an aspiration for the states and territories to take it over if it met certain performance targets. It did not meet those performance targets. So, last year, rather than make a difficult decision about how we should use limited taxpayers' resources, rather than make a difficult decision about whether to redesign, renew or cancel the program, the government at the time kicked the can down the road and left one of the many budgetary landmines that this government faced. This government does not apologise for making the difficult decisions necessary to make this budget sustainable, for the very people that Senator Moore was talking about.

And, if we want to talk about job opportunities, I look forward to the address of one of those opposite in this chamber which condemns the Shoppies union for their move last year and the year before in Victoria to prevent schoolkids in western Victoria going to work from 4 pm to 6 pm in jobs they already had but which the award system was going to stop them keeping. The Shoppies union came in and said, 'We don't want these kids to have a job, because we want a three-hour minimum.' The point was that the shop was not open. They wanted to work after school, and those opposite stood, lock step, shoulder to shoulder with the Shoppies to prevent those young kids keeping their jobs.

So there is a lot to debate in this space. I look forward to doing so with Senator Moore. But I do understand and accept, as I said at the start, that we all care about youth unemployment and we all wish to address it. I accept that there are probably substantial differences in the means by which we go about doing so. I commend the bill to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.