Laurie Ferguson (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Last year, in typical huff and puff hyperbole, the Treasurer talked of 'an eventual train crash on the budget'. He went on to say that we face a 'tsunami coming across the water'. That was the kind of justification he had last year for saying that unemployed young people should not get any payment for six months. We do not have a situation where these people can always rely on going home and having family support. We have a situation where there are crises in families, where there are disputes, where there are family units breaking up and reforming. Last year, using his same justification, he said that they could be condemned for six months. Because the Australian people revolted, because parents came to my office giving their children's actual circumstances and expressing such extreme opposition, those opposite backed off.

This year, all of a sudden that crisis disappeared. Yes, there is certainly a crisis—a crisis of confidence in this country. This year, in a desperate attempt to try and precipitate change from this crisis of high unemployment, the government brought down a less austere budget. But the Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank, Philip Lowe, made this comment about their latest antics:

It is unlikely to be in Australia's long-term interest to engineer a consumption boom by encouraging people to borrow large amounts against future income.

The government are basically saying, 'Go out there and spend; go out borrow.' It typifies the mentality of this government that when, in the last few weeks, people raised the issue of the huge interest rates that banks are charging on credit cards—20 per cent when the base rate in the country is two per cent—one of their ministers said, 'Oh, it is dreadful to raise the question of credit interest rates—it is bank bashing.' In this country at the moment there is $48 billion in personal debt on credit cards, and $33 billion of that attracts interest of 20 per cent. With this mentality in the government, it is not surprising that they seek to attack unemployed young people, to make them the victims, to basically say, 'We will exploit the unpopularity of young people amongst older society by making life hard for them.'

This is a government which advises people to go out and get a well-paying job. We all know that most people in the Australian workforce, the US workforce and the British workforce gain employment not from labour market companies but from connections. Not every person has the advantage of having a family with a business like Hockeys Property, where four people conveniently have the name 'Hockey'. Not everyone in this country can just walk into a company and get a job through family, but that is the kind of mentality over there: 'If you have got a problem with housing, go out and get a good job.' Quite frankly, the Australian people are not interested in whether the Prime Minister owns a property on the North Shore of Sydney and whether he thinks higher housing prices are good for people. They are more interested in the fact that the kids of people in Penrith cannot afford to have a house these days. It is a dream for people in this country to have a house, and it is disappearing if you are under 30. And the Prime Minister says, 'Rising house prices are great because I own property.' This is the kind of mentality that affects this government—a government of privilege, a government of elitism, a government that tries to divide people between so-called workers, and shirkers and bludgers.

The measures in this bill are so disturbing that there is a great possibility that the bill infringes a number of international conventions that we have signed up to. People might occasionally complain and be unhappy with these conventions, but I challenge the government to resile from them, to abandon them, to withdraw from them. Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights—which this country and this government continue to adhere to—requires that people have a right to social security and a standard of living. Under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, discrimination based on age, gender or personal type is frowned upon; it is outside the understanding of what should occur.

These measures are indeed deeply disturbing. The mentality of this government is perhaps epitomised by a speech made by former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher—one of the great heroes of the current Prime Minister. It was virtually to the week 19 years ago that she addressed the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and made an infamous speech, quoting a letter by Paul to the Thessalonians, where he said that if people work they can live, and if people do not work they can starve. It is interesting that, at the end of that great contribution by Margaret Thatcher, which many people regard as the beginning of the end for her, the General Assembly gave her the church reports on poverty, housing and a fair social benefits system.

That is the mentality of this government—a government which basically says 'We will reduce access to decent training; we will make it harder for people to aspire to go to university, particularly in Western Sydney, by pricing courses out of their hands; and we will say that Work for the Dole is the only solution to these kinds of matters.' At the same time, they reduce the availability of training. People need decent training. The unemployment pattern is not just affecting young people. I see significant numbers of older people who had worked in industries for 30 years, and they want to be employed; they still seek work. Quite frankly, they are never going to be employed, because, whether you can establish it or not, the reality is that employers will not take them on. These people often have experience. They do not necessarily need a Work for the Dole exercise to give them an understanding of work habits, how to work with colleagues, how to get to work on time; they need proper retraining to actually be useful to the workforce.

Here, on National TAFE Day, we see the recitation of statistics in this country about the decline of TAFE systems, the retreat of people from this well-established, internationally recognised body to fly-by-night operators in the private sector. We see the cost of courses escalating to the point where people are walking with their feet and unable to have recourse.

Kate Carnell, the Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, recently said that we face a generation of young people on the fringes of the economy. That is so true, with unemployment figures reaching levels unseen since the Howard government. The previous member mocked Labor for at one stage hoping for an unemployment rate of 6¼ per cent. I think he should look at his own Treasurer's comments this year, where he speculated about unemployment of 6½ per cent being the outcome in the next few years.

This bill contains a variety of severe measures that will affect young people. Significant numbers of them will be in very desperate circumstances because they do not have strong family support mechanisms available to them. They are often from families who have endured generations of sporadic employment. They live in parts of our capital cities that are not close to public transport and so they are discriminated against in the labour market because employers want people who are readily available.

I was interested in the question about the kind of people this legislation stamps on. This week a report was released by ACOSS, titled Inequality in Australia: a nation divided. Quite frankly, we should have a bit more concern about the increasing inequality in this country rather than taking the hammer to young unemployed Australians. That report noted that 20 per cent of households in this country earn over $232,000 a year and own $2 million in assets. That is the top 20 per cent. The lowest quintile have property worth $44,250 on average. That is the value of the property of one-fifth of Australians; and, despite the view of the Treasurer that 'poor people don't drive cars', it is usually restricted to items such as cars and home contents. This is predominantly where the unemployed young people who are now going to be condemned to $50 less a week and basically be deprived of access to any money whatsoever for a significant period of time come from.

I want to very strongly join with other opposition members in noting, firstly, our success in countering a measure last year which would have deprived people for six months, and, secondly, our continued opposition to these measures.

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