Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Women) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Smith for the question. The government recognises that we need to provide assistance to support young Australians into employment and also to ensure that they have the skills and the support that they need to do this. One of the things that we have done as a government is to release our Growing Jobs and Small Business package. That makes it easier for small business to flourish. In particular, it makes it easier for job seekers, particularly young job seekers, to get work.

We also have a $300 million Youth Employment Strategy. This introduces new initiatives that provide incentives to employers because it is the employers who have the jobs. So it provides incentives to employers to take on unemployed job seekers. It also builds on young job seekers' employability skills because we know they sometimes need assistance in this regard. It also strengthens job seekers' obligations to reinforce the community expectation that young people should be doing all that they can to find themselves a job.

I have also recently been able to invite organisations to apply for funding under our new Empowering YOUth Initiatives. This is going to allow those organisations to deliver proposals that help young people, in particular those young people who are at risk of long-term unemployment. I have also invited not-for-profit community organisations to put forward proposals for innovative ideas to help vulnerable young Australians to not just find but also keep the jobs that they find. What we are looking at from these organisations are ideas that are slightly different approaches to those that are currently available. We are all about getting people into jobs and ensuring that, as a government, we provide them with the requisite tools to do this. (Time expired)