Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am delighted to participate in this matter of public importance, particularly as somebody who grew up in the 1990s—as somebody who grew up with the background of the 'recession that we had to have'. I think it is particularly ironic to be receiving a lecture from the Labor Party on youth unemployment given that they were a party in the Keating years that gave us a record 34 per cent youth unemployment for a generation of school leavers who wondered what they would do for a job. What was then Prime Minister Keating's solution to all this? It was to tell a group of students, 'Go get a job.' But, unfortunately, there were no jobs to have.

That was the record of the Keating government. But the poor record of Labor in the youth jobs area continued in the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years. What they did to apprenticeships in those years is an absolute scandal. Apprenticeships are a great pathway for employment. Yet Labor's record of mismanagement in apprenticeships continued. They cut employer incentives, incentives for people to take on people who had not had a job before or who were in the middle of training. They cut those not once, not twice, not thrice, but nine times. They cut effectively $1.2 billion out of employer incentives to hire apprentices, and a quarter of a billion of that money came during the time when the now Leader of the Opposition was the relevant minister.

And what was the effect of that? When you cut incentives for employers to take on apprenticeships, commencements fall. In fact, commencements halved. That is Labor's record in relation to apprenticeships. But Labor has tried to towel up this side of the House in relation to the VET FEE-HELP scandal, but this was something that occurred on Labor's watch: the VET FEE-HELP scandal, where the Gillard government failed to create adequate regulation of VET FEE-HELP and saw this massive growth of a spivocracy, where people came along and preyed on the most vulnerable people in our community, signed them up into courses that they had no chance of completing and left them with massive debts and no qualifications. This was Labor's management of a key youth employment pathway through VET FEE-HELP.

Now, under this government, Labor in opposition continue to oppose youth employment programs. They oppose the PaTH program. We heard many speakers on the other side denigrate the PaTH program. But the PaTH program provides great skills for people who have never had employment before to get a job. The PaTH program will help 120,000 job seekers aged under 25. It gives them the basic skills to make them employable—to turn up on time, to behave properly and in a professional manner.

It gives them a trial internship. It is not a wage that they will be paid on their internship; it is a welfare supplement of $200 per fortnight to take these internships. I do not know why the Labor Party is so opposed to internships, because by my calculation 68 per cent of shadow ministers and parliamentary secretaries have interns or volunteers on their staff. If it is good enough for them to take on interns, why isn't it good enough to have this great employment pathways program?

The third thing that the employment pathways program will do is to create youth bonuses, those employer incentives. Employers tell us that, effectively, it is difficult to justify taking on people who have no real skills. So the employer incentives, the youth bonuses, provide them with an opportunity to do that.

Who is in favour of the PaTH program? The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry is in favour of it. The Business Council of Australia is in favour of it. And why wouldn't they be? They represent the people who actually employ people, who actually give them jobs. But it is not just employers who are in favour of it. The Brotherhood of St Laurence is in favour of it. The Brotherhood of St Laurence is hardly a neoliberal organisation. It is an organisation that is noted for its charitable and welfare effects.

But who is opposed, and who is driving the Labor Party's opposition to this? It is our old friends at the ACTU. When the ACTU says, 'Jump,' Labor say, 'How high?' I think this is a terrible portent, a sign of things to come, of what Labor would be like in government. Whenever the union movement wants things—even if the Brotherhood of St Laurence wants it, even if business groups want it, even if it is good for the country—they will give the union movement what it wants. It is just like 457s, an issue that was raised in this debate as well. We had from one member the idea of what I would call 'economic Hansonism', Australian jobs for Australians. It was effectively a dog-whistle attack on 457s, which are a key employment visa to fill skills in our economy. We need that, and we need to carry on with the government's important youth pathways programs.

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