Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When I sat in the House on Tuesday night and listened to the budget, there was something that became absolutely clear to me—if it was not already—and that is that there was not much in the budget for young people. We live in a world of extraordinary opportunity. The world is changing so fast and there are opportunities everywhere. We will live in a different world in 20 or 30 years time. Whether our young people flourish in that world or not is largely dependent on the decisions we make in this House right now.

We know—and there has been a campaign on this recently—that this current government does not have a minister for youth. We did when we were in government. It was abolished when the Abbott government came to power, and we still do not have one. We know from this budget that the voice of youth is not being heard. We also know that there are about 250,000 people out there between the ages of 18 and 24 who did not even enrol to vote in the last election. It was about 1,500 people in my electorate. So it is hard to know which is the chicken and which is the egg—whether the government does not listen to young people because not enough of them vote or not enough of them are enrolled to vote because they do not think they are heard. It is a chicken-and-egg situation, I guess. Either way, we have a budget and a government which has ignored the needs of young people.

When I talk to grandparents, they tell me, 'It is about time we all started worrying seriously about the future we are creating for our grandchildren.' Whether it is jobs, the environment, education or housing affordability, this budget does not address the conditions that young people find themselves in now. In fact, when they find themselves in a bad spot of unemployment, they are punished as if they are a child who did not clean up their room. Whether it is making it harder for them to receive unemployment benefits, denying them benefits for periods of time, drug testing them on the way in or you name it, there is a punitive approach to people who cannot find a job even though we know that there are not enough jobs for young people. In some sections of my community, when I go census district by census district, there is more than 50 per cent unemployment. We also know that across the board in Western Sydney there are 160,000 more workers than there are jobs now. That will grow to 306,000 by 2036.

So we have real work to do, and the key to ensuring that our young people can find that pathway into work is education. Instead, we have seen the government cut $22 billion from our schools and $600 million from TAFE, on top of the $3 billion they have already ripped out of TAFE, skills and training since 2013. We have lost 130,000 apprenticeships under this government, and nearly 1,500 in Parramatta. We have had cuts to uni funding of $3.8 billion. Uni fees will be higher, and graduates will repay them earlier. In every single area where you might give young people a handup for the future they will build for us, this government makes it harder. It is time to get a minister for youth, and to young people out there, it is time to enrol to vote. (Time expired)