Wyatt Roy (Longman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As members know, employment is always a big issue, particularly youth unemployment, in my own electorate and I am sure in the electorates of the members for Forde, Capricornia and Hinkler. It is a big issue. I want to pay tribute and thank my great mate Scott Morrison for coming up to the electorate and for holding a number of forums but particularly an employment forum locally with about 30 local service providers, including some great organisations such as the Beacon Foundation and the Ted Noffs Foundation, Queensland.

As we understand it, the first step is that there must be jobs available in the first place and that is why the government has embarked on the largest small business package our country has ever seen. It is why we have cut taxes, particularly for businesses. We have also got rid of the carbon tax and the mining tax, thereby reducing costs on local businesses. It is why we have cut over $1 billion of red tape every year and, in our first year, over $2 billion so that we can give that confidence to local employers to go out and create those jobs.

But of course once those jobs are available we need to ensure that our local young people have every opportunity available to them to be upskilled and to get those jobs. That is why it was great to have the Social Services Minister, Scott Morrison, there to talk to organisations like Beacon Foundation, which is doing amazing things, giving young people this opportunity. The Ted Noffs Foundation is doing the same thing, as are other local service providers, so that our local young people can run at those opportunities and find meaningful employment.