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

Previously I had almost finished my speech indicating that we would not be supporting the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Youth Jobs Path: Prepare, Trial, Hire) Bill 2016. However, in subsequent discussions between our party leader, Senator Hanson, and the minister, we have learned more details and have been reassured in relation to some of our concerns, so we will now be supporting this bill.

I still stand by the comments that I made last time that this is, in effect, window-dressing. It has been successful in some part. But we need to get to the basics of employment, which is comprehensively fixing the taxation system, reducing overregulation, removing overregulation and reducing energy prices. These are crippling employment in this country, especially in regional Australia, and indeed along the coastal fringes of Australia, right up and down our coast. So we must get back to basics. However, we will support this bill and look forward to the government going much, much further on employment, especially in regional and coastal areas of Queensland, by getting back to basics—taxation, energy prices and overregulation.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What a surprise to come back on the first day of parliament to see that One Nation have sold out again and are backing a piece of government legislation! But I rise to speak in opposition to the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Youth Jobs Path: Prepare, Trial, Hire) Bill 2016. I want to say at the outset that I believe that this legislation to establish the Youth Jobs PaTH program is poorly constructed and will put young Australian jobseekers at risk of exploitation.

Youth unemployment is a huge problem. In my home state of Tasmania we have amongst the highest rates of youth unemployment in the country. In some parts of Tasmania the unemployment rate amongst 15- to 24-year-olds is as high as 27 per cent. Twenty-seven per cent of our young people are unemployed. We have a youth unemployment crisis, and we should be striving to do anything that we can to give young people opportunities to find work. Unfortunately, the government's PaTH program that we are debating here today will only serve to fail our young people. The government's PaTH program will put young jobseekers at risk and is fundamentally flawed in its approach to addressing youth unemployment.

Our nation is desperate for solutions to unemployment. I talk all the time to young Tasmanians who are worried about their future. This bill does nothing to alleviate their concerns. It does absolutely nothing to create any sustainable solutions to the huge problem we have with unemployment amongst young Australians. What we have before us is a really poor attempt at resolving the issue of youth unemployment. It will not create additional jobs for young Australians and it does not provide a path to good, well-paying, secure jobs. We need programs that genuinely help our young people to find work. We should be investing in early childhood education, university, TAFE and genuine experiences that come from traineeships and apprenticeships. But this legislation that is before us does not provide sufficient safeguards for young people, who are amongst the most vulnerable workers in today's labour market. This is lazy policy from the government. We need a solution that goes beyond the Liberals' mantra of 'jobs and growth'.

I will briefly outline the intention of this bill. This bill is designed in part to support the introduction of the Turnbull government's Prepare-Trial-Hire Program, otherwise known as PaTH. Jobseekers in this program will be placed in an internship for between four and six weeks, where they will work between 15 and 25 hours a week and will receive payments of $200 per fortnight on top of their current income support payment. If you do the maths, this means that an intern who works 25 hours per week but receives only their Newstart payment plus an extra payment of $200 will earn just $14.50 an hour. That is $3.20 less than the minimum wage. This means that young people participating in this program will be paid less than the minimum wage.

In addition to this, businesses will be paid $1,000 to take on an intern and then receive a wage subsidy of between $6,500 and $10,000 if they hire them at the conclusion of their internship. But there is nothing in the legislation to stop employers from using this program's free labour instead of their existing workforce, and there is nothing in this legislation to stop employers from churning through interns to receive the $1,000 government payment.

The bill will also amend the Social Security Act to allow young people to suspend their payments if they are employed. They can then restart them without reapplying if they lose their job through no fault of their own within 26 weeks.

The government claims that the measures in this bill are non-controversial, but the reality is that this legislation has been rushed and would exploit young jobseekers and undermine workforce standards. This bill is simply a way of exploiting young Australians. We on this side have serious concerns about whether this program represents a fair deal for Australia's young unemployed. We are concerned that this will be simply another failed coalition policy, like the Work for the Dole program, where they push young unemployed people into programs that do nothing to assist them in real, meaningful employment.

The sad truth is that Australia's youth are counting the cost of the Turnbull government's failure to develop a real jobs plan for the nation. Instead of fighting for what matters to young Australians, like fair pay, jobs and education, they have spent the majority of their term fighting themselves. Their bickering and infighting is a constant reminder of their inability to provide stable, united leadership for the people of Australia. They are so busy fighting themselves that they have achieved absolutely nothing. They are hopelessly failing our youth and they have achieved nothing—nothing to allay the fears of long-term unemployment for our young Australians. This government promised to fix the budget and to create jobs and growth, but it has done nothing and left young Australians high and dry.

We know now that the Prime Minister is bereft of ideas when it comes to jobs or the economy, and the words 'jobs and growth' have no meaning for those on the opposite side. Here we are on budget day, and the Turnbull government's big and only pitch remains a $50 billion tax cut for the big end of town, for big business. The Turnbull government's shonky record on youth unemployment gives us every reason to fear the exploitation of our young people through this legislation. Despite promising jobs and growth, the coalition has failed to deliver. Unemployment currently sits at 5.9 per cent, which is the highest it has been for more than 12 months. The rate of unemployment in Australia today is higher than in the United States, the United Kingdom and New Zealand.

The Liberals have also failed on their promise to tackle youth unemployment. Youth unemployment has climbed to 13.3 per cent. We have more than 300,000 unemployed young people between the ages of 15 and 24—including 4,500 young Tasmanians—as of March. As I said before, the unemployment rate amongst our young people in Tasmania is just too high.

Youth unemployment remains stubbornly high, particularly in rural and remote parts of Australia, like my home state of Tasmania, where, as I said, we have over 4,500 young people who are unemployed. These high rates of youth unemployment put the future of our young people and our economy at risk. But, instead of tackling the real issue of youth unemployment, the government has come up with a hastily cobbled together scheme that offers no solutions to the problem. This government is so out of touch that it wants to put vulnerable young Australians in a situation where they could be, and many of them most likely will be, exploited.

We should be creating pathways to good, well-paid and secure jobs for young jobseekers by investing in early childhood education, as I said before; in university; and in TAFE. These are all things this government has attacked since we were last here in this place. The Liberal government just does not get it. They just do not get it. They are so out of touch and so far removed from everyday Australians.

A good example of this was the Liberal state government's decision to axe pathway planners from Tasmanian state schools in 2014. There are already so few resources in our schools, and then they decide to take away pathway planners, who help our kids map out their futures. This is further evidence that the Liberals just do not get the issue. They are out of touch and they have no real policy direction.

I tell you that our children deserve better from the Liberal government than unrelenting cuts to education. We need programs that genuinely help our young people find work. You would think that the government would have tried to get this legislation right. But we know that, while they talk the talk about jobs, their record on creating jobs is dismal. If this legislation were passed in its present form, it would see a flawed program come into effect. Labor want to do everything that we can to improve the job skills of young people, but this program falls short and does not deliver. Labor have also said on many occasions that we would be happy to work with the government on a whole raft of issues, none more important than creating opportunities and a bright future for young Australians.

Labor also has a number of other concerns about this legislation. There is very little detail available about how the PaTH program will actually operate in practice. The government have given no specifics about how young jobseekers will acquire the skills they need for the jobs of the future. They have not been able to explain what jobseekers will do while doing the internship phase of the program. They cannot even tell us what their definition of an 'intern' is. There is also no detail on how this program will lead, or could lead, to full-time work. Now, they are pretty important fundamentals; they really are.

This lacklustre bill also raises some serious concerns about inadequate protection against exploitation. I have a couple of questions. What safeguards are in place to ensure that the PaTH program is not used to replace existing jobs with cheaper labour? What safeguards are in place to prevent young Australians from being forced into working for below the minimum wage? What safeguards are in place to make sure that employers are not making interns work outside standard hours without paying penalty rates? We already know what those on the other side think of penalty rates: they are not supportive of anyone receiving penalty rates. What protection is in place to prevent interns from being unfairly dismissed? We do not know the answers to these questions because the government has not given us any reassurances or any idea about how this program will actually be implemented.

The government have the power to fix the issues I have raised, but they have refused to do so. They have obviously come to the table with One Nation and got their support, but they have not addressed these fundamentally critically important issues that I have asked questions about. They have neglected to fix these issues because they are a government that are constantly trying to undercut rights and conditions for workers—it is in their DNA—through their attacks on penalty rates, their anti-union ABCC agenda and their unfair Public Service bargaining framework. It is in their DNA. It is what they believe in.

We on this side believe in protecting workers. We certainly believe in ensuring that young Australians have the best opportunities to have ongoing full employment and good prospects for the future. But the government are hell-bent on undermining a fair go. They have gone after the penalty rates of over 40,000 Tasmanians, many of whom are students. They have cut from TAFEs, apprenticeships, early education, schools and higher education. Now they want to put in place this poor substitute for proper training.

Like with most things, this government just does not get it. This place has proven time and again that it does not support this policy, and yet the government still will not drop it. Maybe they feel like they have a chance now with One Nation, which is always siding with the government.

In conclusion, in its current form this bill is very poorly constructed. There are so many holes in the program that we really cannot take seriously that this government will know how to fix the problems. We have already highlighted many of them. There were the questions I asked this morning. They have not been answered. We have tried negotiating with the government to fix these flaws, as I said earlier. We have tried on numerous occasions. But they will not listen.

It is clear we have a youth unemployment crisis in Australia. Our young jobseekers need real support and real solutions. Job opportunities for young people should not be created through a system that exposes young workers to exploitation, unfair conditions and unfair wages. We would be failing young jobseekers if we were to wave this legislation through the Senate without demanding a better deal for them. Our young people deserve real support to find and keep a good job, not exploitative programs that lead them on a path to nowhere.

The government's PaTH plan is a bandaid designed to cover up their poor record in generating jobs and fixing unemployment. This is the government's latest attempt to undermine workers' potential. Our young people deserve better, and Labor remains opposed to this bill as it stands.

Cory Bernardi (SA, Australian Conservatives) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For the benefit of subsequent speakers, I will be quite brief, so they may want to prepare themselves in the chamber. To be blunt, I remain unconvinced about the merits of this bill, the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Youth Jobs Path: Prepare, Trial, Hire) Bill 2016. Minister Cash has been doing her utmost to persuade me of its merits, and I am undecided as to whether to support it or not.

My initial reaction when this program was announced was that it would be open to rorting and scams, just as we have seen well-intentioned measures put forward by successive governments being gamed. I need only look at the VET FEE-HELP scheme that was implemented and resulted in the enrichment of a bunch of shonks. I look at the childcare packages that have been passed in recent years and the phantom childcare centres which have enriched individuals. I have spoken about that before. These are very genuine concerns. It does not dissipate or diminish the good intentions of the government; it is just that successive governments have demonstrated they are not very good at managing programs to ensure that they are not ripped off.

It is a laudable aim though, of course, to want to get unemployed people, particularly young unemployed people, on the path to a constructive career and get them job ready. Part of that lies in the education system, which has failed young people. Our standards in education, our rankings internationally, are going down. It seems that, the more money we tip in, the less impact we actually have. If you are serious about getting young people into jobs and off welfare, perhaps it might start with actually drug testing some of them. We have vacancies in regional South Australia where 30 or 40 young people will apparently apply for the job and then, when they are told that a drug test will need to be passed, that number diminishes to somewhere around eight. Then, when the drug test is actually implemented, only about two of the 40 get through. That is an outrageous circumstance, and the fact that people think it is okay to use illicit substances and collect welfare money is quite extraordinary.

So I remain unconvinced because I do think this program is open to misuse. I would welcome in your summing up speech, Minister Cash, any further information you can provide for me. I understand that the program has already commenced and that this substantive part of the bill is about allowing those who lose their job placement through no fault of their own to recommence where they left off—so, if they have been unemployed for two years, they still have Work for the Dole obligations and things. It is laudable and worthy, no question, but I come back to: why does the government have to pick up the tab for all of this stuff? If a business receive a $1,000 sign-on bonus for taking a young trainee and then after a period of time decide they cannot work with them, or for whatever reason the trainee does not do the right thing, what happens to the money? Why can't the business pay for the trainee's re-entry to the welfare system?

These are general questions, Minister, that I would welcome an answer to. I do compliment you, notwithstanding your frustration with me, for the persuasive case you make, but you will understand, given the potential for abuse in so many government programs and the demonstrated ability of people to rort them, that I remain to be convinced that this program is somehow going to be different. They are the four most dangerous words in investing and in politics: 'This time is different.' I look forward to your final attempt to convince me that it really will be.

David Leyonhjelm (NSW, Liberal Democratic Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The bill before us, the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Youth Jobs Path: Prepare, Trial, Hire) Bill 2016, underpins a new government policy. It is a policy of encouraging businesses to employ young people at the minimum wage of $17.70 an hour by giving businesses a subsidy so that their overall outlay is only $7.60 an hour. I support the intention of the bill but I oppose the policy. I recognise the concern for youth jobs but I am not persuaded that this is an appropriate response. It is wrong in principle and a waste of taxpayers' money.

Businesses should simply be allowed to offer jobs to people at $7.60 an hour. After all, the dole delivers $7 an hour for doing nothing. The government's policy, and this bill, is a response to the fact that no job exists at $17.70 an hour, but a job does exist at $7.60 an hour. It is a clear admission that the minimum wage destroys jobs. The logical solution is to abolish it, not subsidise it. Abolish the minimum wage and you create jobs and growth. Abolish the minimum wage and you save thousands of Australians from soul-destroying unemployment. Abolish the minimum wage and you save each taxpayer hundreds of dollars a year. I oppose this bill and the logic it represents.

Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak very briefly in relation to the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Youth Jobs Path: Prepare, Trial, Hire) Bill 2016. The Greens have circulated a second reading amendment in my name and I foreshadow that I will be asking for that amendment to be put before the second reading vote.

The Australian Greens are concerned about the very real implications of this piece of legislation for the welfare of young people caught up in such a scheme and of course on jobs in the industries where these interns will be engaged. Firstly, we are concerned that this is effectively engaging young people as interns in jobs where they do not have proper safeguards on conditions and where they are going to be at high risk of exploitation. Some have gone so far as to say that this is asking people to enter into slave type environments and working conditions. There are no effective safeguards to make sure that young people are protected under this scheme.

We all know that youth unemployment is an increasing issue right across this country, and nowhere is it more dire than in my home state of South Australia, where youth unemployment is rising every quarter. Rather than dealing with the creation of jobs for young people, rather than trying to get more young people into apprenticeships or helping them into effective and real training programs, what we see is this pathetic attempt by the government to say that they have done something on this issue while delivering nothing at all.

What it is really going to do is create a situation where young people will be exploited. They are not necessarily going to be trained. There are no credentials around the types of skills that they will get out of these internships, and there is no guarantee that employers will not just use the churn of these interns to displace other legitimate workers. The fact is, if there is a job that needs to be done, get a young person through the door and give them a job. Pay them properly, with the conditions that would be afforded to any other worker and ensure that you create a real job. Fake jobs are no better than fake news in this country. All we are getting from this government is fake news, fake jobs and fake schemes—spending a bucketload of money for nothing. It is ineffective and it is irresponsible.

Of course, one of the key issues is how much young people in these internships will be paid for the work that they do—$7.60 an hour. Are you kidding me? This is the government's pathetic attempt to say that they have come up with a plan to help young people and young workers across the country. It is pathetic. I would like to know if the minister is prepared to work for $7.60 an hour. Would she prefer to see young members of her family work for that kind of pay? Of course not. How is a young person meant to cover the cost of living when they are getting paid a pathetic $7.60 an hour? There are no safeguards in this legislation and there is no real pathway to employment or training under this program. It is just smoke and mirrors.

It is timely to be discussing this piece of legislation today, because of course this came up through the government's last budget. It is budget day today and we know that the budget that is going to be handed down tonight by the Treasurer is going to be a kick in the guts for young people right across this country. It is going to be young Australians who suffer from tonight's budget, undoubtedly. They are making it harder and harder for young people to get a university education. They are going to force young people to pay back their debt before they have even started earning a decent wage. Young people who are earning $42,000 before tax are going to have to start paying back their university loans. This is going to push an entire new generation of young people into poverty. Educated young people, people who went out of their way to get skilled and educated to try to contribute to society, are going to be kicked in the guts by this government.

The government do not give two hoots about young people, making it harder for them to go to university and harder for them to get an education, doing nothing to deal with the issues in relation to proper apprenticeships in this country and, of course, absolutely zilch to help young people with one of the biggest costs of living, which is housing and accommodation. Where is the government's backbone to take on the real issues in relation to housing in this country, and that is the tax rorts through capital gains and negative gearing? Unless the government tackle those things, young people in this country are going to continue to not be able to afford their own home or put a roof over their heads. Rents in this country are out of control. All you need to do is talk to any young person about how they are struggling to pay their rent, week in and week out.

Reports have been released that say that some people—in fact, the majority of people—are paying more and more as a percentage of their overall income on rent. We have a problem. If you are paying 50 per cent of your income on your accommodation, it is very hard to cover the rest of your cost of living. We have pushed young people in this country into poverty. The PaTH scheme does nothing but make that worse. It makes young people slaves of the system. That is what the PaTH legislation will do. It is disappointing that this is all the government could come up with.

We will wait for the next onslaught of attack and ridicule of young people right across this country when the Treasurer, Scott Morrison, hands down his budget tonight—a kick in the guts for young people, a kick in the guts for the unemployed and nothing to crack down on the massive living cost rises in relation to accommodation and housing. This government do not have the ticker to take on the real crisis when it comes to housing costs and the rising cost of living, particularly for young people. They can do plenty of things for their mates in the corporate world—tax cuts over here, tax cuts over there, tax cuts for the wealthy, but absolutely zilch will be in this budget for young people. The Turnbull government do not like young Australians. It is as clear as day. They do not give two hoots about them. It started in last year's budget with this piece of legislation and it is only going to continue tonight when we hear the dribble from the Treasurer at 7.30. I foreshadow the amendment and I look forward to it being voted on.

Malarndirri McCarthy (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In February, the youth unemployment rate in Australia was more than double the national unemployment average. Nearly 300,000 young people across our nation are unemployed, and people turning to the government for a solution should know that PaTH is a path to nowhere. Young people are some of the most vulnerable in a workplace. Young people experience a greater number of job losses and higher unemployment rates than adults. In the Northern Territory, the unemployment rate is eight per cent. If this legislation passes, PaTH will be the young person's equivalent of CDP. It will leave young people at risk of being exploited without any hope of secure employment.

We have seen the government's record on CDP. CDP is a difficult program across our regions in Australia. It is a program that requires greater scrutiny, which is what the Senate will be doing. One of the incredible flaws of CDP is that it keeps people in poverty and it keeps them disadvantaged. If what is being proposed here in the Senate is equivalent to the CDP, there can be no doubt that this is not good news for young Australians. It does not create jobs; it creates a pool of free labour. For every unemployed youth in the Northern Territory, there are two other people competing for that job. We all know that, because of inexperience and lack of skills, young people are vulnerable in the job market.

This government should be looking for solutions to youth unemployment. Instead, the government have slapped together a scheme that is no solution to the growing problem. This is poorly constructed legislation that the government maintain is designed to give work experience to young jobseekers with the view of leading them to secure employment. That is the idea. However, this is not going to be the reality. In fact, this legislation leaves young people exposed to exploitation from dishonest employers and this legislation will leave young people with no workers' compensation, no superannuation, no award wages and certainly no option of union protection. I ask the Senate: is this where our country is headed? Is this the value that we display to our young Australians, telling them, 'You have no future; however, you can work in the present without any concept of what your future is going to look like'? There will be no support, no compensation, no superannuation and no award wages.

Employers are set to make the money here. The sign-up incentive is $1,000, which is provided to employers, will do nothing more than create a pool of vulnerable, disposable, cheap workers who will not be offered long-term employment. No jobs will be created through this program, not one. There is a very serious risk that PaTH will displace people who would otherwise be employed to fill genuine vacancies. PaTH will take in 30,000 young Australians, classify them as interns and place them in businesses around the country, in an already weakened labour market. Young people trying to get into entry-level employment will be competing with the people in the PaTH program, operating as cut-price labour for government subsidised employers. Young jobseekers who take up these internships will work between 15 and 25 hours a week for between four and 12 weeks. For this they will receive payments of—wait for it—$200 per fortnight; not a week, a fortnight. Who can live on that? On top of their income support payments, even when paid at the maximum rate, the payment is substantially less than the national minimum adult wage of $17.29.

The ACTU made a submission to the Senate inquiry and said, 'The Youth Jobs PaTH program is a poorly considered and ineffective response to the significant issue of youth unemployment in Australia.' Well, it is just another example of an out-of-touch government that has continually failed to engage with young people who are hungry for jobs.

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

I rise to wrap up the debate in relation to the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Youth Jobs Path: Prepare, Trial, Hire) Bill 2016. As a courtesy, I thank all senators for their contribution to the debate, even if much of what has been said is completely, totally and utterly wrong. I will take the opportunity to address a number of the statements that have been made. The core of this program, the youth employment package, is the $763 million Youth Jobs PaTH. It is a program that gives our youth the ability and the skills that they need to undertake a job. It will prepare our young people by providing them with employability skills training to help them understand the behaviours expected by employers in the workplace and provide tailored, industry-specific training that will prepare our youth going into jobs.

In terms of the trial part, these are voluntary internships. You put your hand up if you would like to undertake one. They will be between four and 12 weeks and they respond to feedback from youth, who have been telling us, 'We would love to get a job, but we do not have the skills employers need.' Guess what? With this program the government is going to give these youth who want to get a foot in the door and get a job the ability to get the skills that they need.

Senator Hanson-Young, in her contribution to the debate, said: 'If it's all about getting these kids a job, why do they need the training? Why can't they just get a job?' Senator Hanson-Young completely, totally and utterly misses the point of this program. These are young people who, without the skills training, are not going to get a foot in the door. That is what the first element of the program will do: it will give them the training so that they are able to put their hand up and undertake the intern part of the program. At the end of the program employers will now be able to access the new youth bonus wage subsidy to support the ongoing employment of this young person.

I find very interesting the comments that have been made about the use of interns. I need to highlight the absolute hypocrisy from those opposite in not supporting this legislation given that the PaTH program has commenced. I am very delighted to say that the program commenced officially on 1 April. The youth bonus wage subsidy commenced on 1 January, but the actual program is up and running, and young people are already participating in the program.

Those on the other side talk about internships and how terrible they are. Let us have a look at the dozen or more Labor MPs who themselves have utilised interns and in particular focus on the current Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten. His office took on an Australian National University student named Ben through the high-profile Australian National Internships Program. Those on the other side are very happy to support internship programs when they are utilising them—and they understand the benefits that those programs will give—but apparently employers who have a job at the end of the internship are not allowed to utilise such a program.

The internship program that Ben undertook through the office of the current Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten, is promoted on the ANU's website. It quotes Ben as saying that he personally contributed to several policies that were announced in Mr Shorten's budget reply, which at the time fewer than 10 people knew about. Other Labor MPs who have used interns or volunteers include: the workplace relations spokesperson, Brendan O'Connor; assistant workplace relations spokeswoman, Lisa Chesters; employment services spokesperson, Ed Husic; the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Tanya Plibersek; and Senator Dastyari, who is here in the chamber. Senator Dastyari, I think you would agree with the benefits of the internship program. Unfortunately, given the use of interns by those on the other side, I think it is, quite frankly, rank hypocrisy when they stand here and say that they will not share those benefits with others.

In relation to what this bill does, this government makes no apologies that the best form of welfare that any government can provide to someone is a job. We know that when many young people are entering the labour market for the first time they do not have the skills and the experience employers look for. This obviously can make it much harder for them to get a start. If they cannot get a foot in the door, it will ultimately mean that they will be susceptible to long-term unemployment and welfare dependency. The government is committed to supporting young people to acquire the skills that they need in order to make that really important move from welfare into work.

The Prepare-Trial-Hire Program maximises the opportunities and the chances for jobseekers under the age of 25 in getting a job. As I have already stated, the first stage is all about preparing them. Employability skills training will help young jobseekers learn the skills expected by employers so that they are more competitive when applying for a job. The trial stage is a voluntary internship of between four and 12 weeks to give the young jobseeker a chance to show what they can do in a real workplace with a financial incentive to participate, and that is of course the $200 incentive payment over the fortnight. Then, in the hire stage, employers are now able to access the new youth bonus wage subsidy of up to $10,000 to support the business in employing this person.

What the bill does, though, is actually quite simple. It is designed to help young jobseekers by making sure that the young people undertaking the PaTH internships receive the full benefit of participation. Youth Jobs PaTH internship incentive payments to participants will not be considered as income for social security and veterans entitlement purposes. This means that participants will receive the full amount of the incentive payments on top of what they will continue to get, which is their existing social security payment or veterans entitlement. If the bill does not go through, those on the other side will be costing these young people up to $48 per fortnight. The amendments also aim to ensure that eligible young people in particular circumstances will be able to have their social security payments restored without having to make a new claim. So, if they were to lose the job with an eligible employer, through no fault of their own, when in the hire stage, then within 26 weeks of ceasing to receive income support they could be reconnected to government services and income support. So, the bill ensures that young people, in the event that through no fault of their own they lose their job, are able to quickly and easily return to employment services and have their income support payments restored. That is all the bill does. As I said, the Youth Jobs PaTH Program is already up and running. It commenced on 1 April.

I will just respond to the amendments that have been moved in the chamber. The government will be supporting the amendments to the bill proposed by Senator Griff and, we understand, also supported by One Nation, which would involve a review of the Youth Jobs PaTH Program being conducted and a report tabled in each house of parliament two years after the bill has received royal assent. The government accepts this change as it will complement the planned evaluation strategy and ensure that the outcomes of the program are made freely available.

The government will not be supporting the second-reading amendment that I understand has been moved by Senator Cameron. The government is confident that the design of the program addresses each of the concerns raised, and in fact a number of the concerns have been raised by the government's response to the committee report in relation to this bill. But just very briefly, for the benefit of the chamber, PaTH internships will not displace paid workers, and this also goes obviously to what Senator Bernardi raised during his contribution to the debate. Placements are time limited and are specifically designed to prevent host businesses from terminating or reducing the hours of existing employees. Before starting an internship, employment service providers must be satisfied that there is a reasonable prospect of employment, and the host business itself must agree and certify that they are not displacing workers upon signing the internship agreement. If they are not prepared to do that and they do not sign the internship agreement, then no internship can take place. Participants in the internship program are not employees; they are undertaking a supervised work experience placement. And the incentive payment is not a wage; it is a payment on top of the welfare payment that the jobseeker already receives and will continue to receive.

As with any government program, the participant's safety is obviously of utmost importance. Providers will undertake risk assessments prior to the placement to ensure the safety of participants, and participants will be covered under state and territory workplace health and safety laws. As with other work experience programs, and certainly whilst Labor was in government—the work experience programs that continue to run when Labor was in government—participants will be covered by the insurance policy of the Department of Employment or, for disability employment service participants, the Department of Social Services.

As I have already stated, and just to respond to some of what Senator Bernardi has raised, in relation to the displacement of workers the program is specifically designed to ensure that this does not occur. Before commencing a PaTH internship, as I have stated, providers must be satisfied that there is a reasonable prospect of employment for the jobseeker with the host business. That is, where the host business has a current vacancy available, will likely have a vacancy following the internship or has a regular pattern of recruitment. Host businesses will need to certify in the PaTH internship agreement that the PaTH intern will not displace existing employees or reduce their hours of work. If they are not prepared to do that, they will not be able to enter into an intern agreement.

In terms of the internship placements themselves, they are time limited, with a duration of between four and 12 weeks for an average of between 15 and 25 hours per week. They are specifically designed, as I have stated, to prevent host businesses from terminating or reducing the number of hours worked by employees that are being employed in the business.

The PaTH program is up and running, and we are very proud of it. It is a significant investment in getting those youth who are on welfare and who are looking down the barrel of a lifetime on welfare an opportunity to get off welfare and to get the skills that they need so that they can avail themselves of the job. In terms of what this bill does, there are two very discrete things. If the bill does not pass, despite those opposite standing up and saying that they actually believe that the youth deserve all of this money, et cetera, they will be responsible for PaTH interns losing up to $48 a fortnight in incentive payments and, also, if they do lose their job through no fault of their own, then having to reconnect with the system and go through an entire process. We say that is unfair. The youth deserve the full $200, but they also deserve, in the event that they are disconnected or they lose their job, to be reconnected to the welfare system.

In conclusion, passage of this bill will ensure that young people are afforded every opportunity to become fully engaged and job ready to maximise their chances of finding work as quickly as possible. I commend the bill to the chamber.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the amendment moved by Senator Cameron, on sheet 8050, be agreed to.