Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

Can I also express the fact that the interjection from Senator Hanson-Young—she is saying this is slave labour. What a load of rubbish! It is not slave labour. It is about getting to know a trade or to work in one. An employer is struggling these days, and a lot of people will not—

Senator Hanson-Young interjecting—

Excuse me, Chair. I am still getting interjections from Senator Hanson-Young and it is disrupting my speech to this parliament, which I think is very important because the Australian people are interested in what I have to say.

The TEMPORARY CHAIR: I reiterate my third call for senators to extend the right of all senators to be heard in silence. Interjections are disorderly—please desist.

As I said, having run my own small business, it is quite expensive to put someone on, especially if they are not very well equipped with the knowledge of how to do that job. There is a training period. This is also involved in a training period: if they are capable of doing the job, the employer will—in my instance, if they are capable of doing the job, I would have put them onto further employment.

Until we address the industrial relations in this country by allowing small businesses to employ a person they wish to without fear of discrimination, and sack that person freely without fear of discrimination because that person is incapable of doing that job, nothing will change in this country. That is why small businesses are stifling—not only small businesses, but also other industries—because they are strangled by legislation. So that needs to be addressed.

This is a step in the right direction to get the youth employed, especially in rural and regional areas. I know that businesses will take them on. They are giving them the incentive to put them on, and the youth are given an opportunity they would never have had. If those on the opposite side and the Greens are going to vote against this bill purely because of the $50, they are, I will say, not really considering the unemployed youth out there. They are not really considering giving them an opportunity. By giving them work like this, they are actually going to pick up an extra $200 a fortnight. If they do not have work, what are they stuck with? Unemployment; on the streets; probably on drugs; tied up in gangs; looking, possibly, at crime; no hope of ever having a job whatsoever in the future. This is, at least, going to give them an opportunity to possibly end up with employment. I am sure their parents would encourage them to take up these jobs.

I think it is a great program. Like I said, One Nation will be supporting this. Shame on those on the opposite side of this chamber, be it the Greens, be it Labor or whoever. If they do not vote for this, they are not interested in youth and they are not interested in getting them off the streets or off drugs, or giving them a future in employment. This is a helping hand up. That is all it is: a helping hand. And they are crying out for it.