Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

Certainly the government is consulting on the rules. That is exactly as the government has said and I explained multiple times during the lengthy committee stage on this bill. And, during that committee stage, I responded to the various amendments, a couple of which we are dealing with and reconsidering here.

Let me, for Senator McKim's and Senator Waters's benefit, restate what I said across the chamber before: no deals have been done. Let me equally restate the important merits of this program, which are to ensure that we have incentives in place to stop young Australians from being on unemployment queues for too long and to help get young Australians into jobs. That's what this is all about. Look at it. We've now got a filibuster, in planned preparation happening across the chamber, from those who seem to want to impede the passage of a program to help young Australians get jobs. That's what this program is all about. I've now heard all manner of arguments put to somehow impede, block, complicate or stall the legislation or create different barriers as to why this program needs changing when, at its heart, it's a program that has clear safety valves in place. You don't get the subsidy unless you are employing more people overall—that is, unless you've increased the headcount of the people in your business. You also don't get the subsidy unless your payroll has increased. So not only do you have to employ more but your payroll has got to have gone up. It's designed to ensure and support additionality of employment to help young people get in.

It also doesn't supersede in any way, shape or form any of the different measures in relation to how fair work laws work, unfair dismissal laws work or the like, so we have all the existing protections in place. The program is designed to ensure additionality, and businesses ought to have certainty in terms of this legislation passing so they can get on with making decisions. Yes, the rules are out for consultation but, Senator Pratt, in relation to your question, the scheme applies to new hires from 7 October. Businesses can be, should be, making decisions now about putting young Australians into work, yet the actions of the Labor Party and the Greens in seeking to filibuster this are putting doubt in the minds of Australian businesses. That doubt may well mean that a young Australian misses out on getting a job that otherwise could have been there. That's what those opposite are doing: jeopardising the potential employment of young Australians. Shame on them.