Ann Sudmalis (Gilmore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Gilmore has a youth unemployment figure that is not the envy of any other electorate in Australia, so my primary focus is to challenge our employers, trainers and amazing young people to get on board and change the statistics. The coalition's allocation to the South Coast Regional Jobs and Investment Package of $20 million will bring new business to our region and help to grow some of our existing businesses, with a combined outcome of creating more job opportunities. Fiona Hatcher, from Regional Development Australia, who is experienced in effective business growth initiatives, chaired the South Coast regional jobs investment package committee. We've established our regional strategic directions and I'm excited to see which projects are selected. In addition, our Gilmore Apprenticeship Challenge, which began in January, has been incredibly successful, with many apprentices and trainees now registered. We aimed for 52 apprenticeships or traineeships, and we gained 398 registrations by the end of March.

The federal government is also investing $3.2 billion over four years, starting from 2016-17, to support Australian apprenticeship arrangements through incentives, support programs, loans and pilot programs, all of which are targeting school leavers, employers and representatives from the apprenticeship support networks. It aims to get them together and promote jobs and work opportunities. These have been three significant projects delivering jobs to our region, and now the most recent project is centred on giving young Australians the right assistance and encouragement to learn new skills, become job-ready, get a job and stay in a job.

I have introduced the Youth Employment Package to Gilmore. At the core of this package is Youth Jobs PaTH: Prepare, Trial and Hire. It will help jobseekers under 25 years to move off welfare and into employment. The program provides pre-employment training, work experience and wage subsidies, which will help young people get a job and keep it. Recently, the Australian Hotels Association and the Australian Retailers Association committed to provide 20 PaTH positions. The PaTH package addresses the consistent feedback from employers that young jobseekers can improve their job prospects by showing a positive attitude, being reliable, presenting well, having realistic expectations, improving their job search skills and increasing their level of work experience.

We have seven local champions, who have recently worked with Tania Morandini in stage 1 of PaTH, and they now feel more confident and prepared for work. I personally would like to congratulate these young adults and wish them well: Jai Dixon, Jamier Sider, Nathan Roulston, Kieran Berkovic, Cameron Har, Brooke Robinson and Ky-Ree Griffin. In addition, we have 57 young people now in paid employment.

I'm committed to getting young Australians into work, and the best way to do this is to build a strong economy that enables employers to be more productive, more competitive, more innovative and to create more job opportunities. There is nothing but good news here to help young people into work, build confidence and build skills capacity as well as provide the business platform that will expand workplaces.