Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is not a job at any cost. If you are a young person or indeed an adult on a casual job, according to the Turnbull government, if a casual job is being offered 100 kilometres or even further from where you live, they expect you to uproot yourself and take that casual job. Study after study, report after report—

Senator Scullion interjecting—

Look at them nodding. Yes, that is exactly what they expect: take up the casual job that might just last a couple of months. It's a job! Their mantra is a job at any cost—not a job that is going to create a good future for the person who takes it up but a casual job. So they uproot themselves at great cost. It costs hundreds of dollars to move even if you do it yourself. You still have to incur a cost. Then take up a casual job that is going to last a defined period, and then suddenly you find yourself unemployed. It will be a low-paid job—there are not too many casual jobs that pay really well—and, if they get their way, it will be a job without any penalty payments. That is the kind of picture that they paint.

We know how they feel about young people in particular. There were those outrageous comments made in the other place labelling young people as lazy and wanting to just lie on the lounge and play their games—though actually you have to sit on the lounge. I'm not sure I've seen too many people lying on the lounge; you have to sit up and do it! But that is the kind of label they applied: young people are all bad and should be forced to take up any job. If and when they do not, there will be these punitive measures put in place.

Of course I think there are good part-time jobs out there, but generally speaking they are not jobs people stay in for their lives. You only have to look at the cleaners here in Parliament House, who are living on poverty wages. That is the sort of job the Turnbull government seems to think young job seekers should be forced to take up.

We have not seen the government do anything at all to put a better focus on jobs and job training. They certainly cannot stand up and point to any schemes that they have put in place that are about job creation or that focus on jobs. They believe in a trickle-down economy, and we know that that is a failed strategy. We know—through their inability and their unwillingness to go after multi tax avoiders, their unwillingness to really put pressure on those that are currently abusing the system, their big mates at the big end of town—that they are not serious about job creation. But Labor knows that jobs, particularly for young people, in many parts of the country are just not there. They do not exist, particularly in my state of Western Australia. There are pockets right across the country now where youth unemployment, particularly, is at alarming levels. And what have the government got? Work for the Dole. That is really the only thing on offer.

I just want to go through some of the programs that Labor had in place particularly targeted at young people which were slashed and burnt and cut to ribbons by the Turnbull government—and they should be ashamed of themselves. It is completely unacceptable. I will say that I think everyone in this place is on the same page about getting people into work. We recognise the value of work, that it brings dignity and respect and so on. I do not think we disagree on that. However, where we really disagree, in quite divergent ways, is about how you get young people into jobs. There is no acknowledgement from the Turnbull government that actually jobs are pretty tight at the moment. It is unacceptable to have high youth unemployment levels and the only plan on the table from the Turnbull government being one to blame young people and punish them for not being able to get a job, even though, for many, no jobs exist.

Quite frankly, the government's efforts in getting young people into work have been lame—no thought-out policies. Early in the term of the government, with very little warning, the government abolished Youth Connections, an amazingly successful program and a cheap program—much, much cheaper than Work for the Dole. The program was inexpensive to run and had very high success rates right across the country. You could point to a Youth Connections in any state or territory and you would see the success rate of that program. That program worked at an intensive level, because it accepted that getting people into work was not just a simple equation of: 'There's a job; you have to take it or we'll punish you.' It recognised that it was much more complex than that, that often people come from disadvantaged backgrounds or have had a bad start or have been sacked from work a few times and that they might need their confidence levels increased or indeed they might need to go back to study to increase their skills. The sorts of proposals on the table from the Turnbull government do not recognise any of that.

That program re-engaged those young people. You never hear that word, 're-engage', from those over there. It is all about punitive actions. That program re-engaged young people with work, study or school, and they were successful. That was a very successful program. Like many Labor senators, I really believed, as we got closer and closer to the end of that program, that somehow the Turnbull government would see the folly, the bad move, of defunding that program and would see the effects that that would have. But, no, they did not. They just cut it without any warning. There was no evaluation—but of course we know, through everything they do, that they never bother about the facts and figures. They never bother about that. It is just a flick of the pen and, 'Let's get rid of it.' So that funding disappeared. Why would any government that is really serious about engaging young people in work or study ditch a program with a very high success rate? That just does not make any sense, but again it is pretty hard to work out anything the Turnbull government does that make sense.

Early in its term, the Turnbull government—it was the Abbott government then—made life harder for apprentices. Apprenticeships are on the decline in this country, so you would think we would be doing whatever we could to lift that great opportunity for young people to skill them up for their future.

Debate interrupted.