Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Families and Payments) Share this | Hansard source

I thought he might have been listening to the unemployed people and community organisations that have said from the very outset that this is a completely meaningless way to help unemployed people into jobs.

I thought he might have been listening because last week, I think it was, on 2GB Drive Minister Abetz said that he was not about people applying for jobs in meaningless ways. Of course, he acknowledged that that would be a burden to small businesses. So I had a little ray of hope that this minister, who has put this policy out there—this policy that will not work and which does nothing to help unemployed people into jobs—was finally listening, even to the small business community.

But it appears today, from his answers in the Senate, that that hope has gone. He was not listening. He is not prepared actually to look at his ideologically-driven policy and to put it aside because everyone knows, including the minister's own party, that this is a policy that will not work.

I also asked Senator Abetz about Tasmania, where we have 7.6 per cent unemployment and where we also have, unfortunately, the highest youth unemployment rate in the country. Up in Braddon on the north-west coast, Mr Whiteley's seat—the member for Braddon—we have 21 per cent youth unemployment.