Kate Ellis (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Youth and Sport) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you very much to the member for his question. I am upset that you had to move back there to be able to get a question up! But it is a very serious issue, and I would like to answer this, because I think that what this parliament needs is to be spending more time talking about issues affecting Australian young people. That is one of the reasons why this government recreated the portfolio of the Minister for Youth after the previous government abolished it. And it is one of the reasons why we have been working very hard to set in place programs to make sure that we can look at the impacts of a whole range of different issues on young people in Australia.

In regard to the particular issue that you brought up about communications, obviously the minister for communications has a very important role, also, in monitoring these issues, because we know that it is not only young people who are using the internet or who are the victims, sadly, of cyberbullying and a number of other issues. But what we are doing is working right across government to make sure that we can see that every portfolio is tackling how that particular area is impacting on young people. In fact—though I would not like to pre-empt the announcement—tomorrow we will be having some more to say about the creation of the Office for Youth.

As I mentioned earlier, the previous government abolished the position of minister for youth. They also de-funded many of the operating programs when it came to young people and cut back on the departmental resources to make sure that young people were getting a fair go from the government. What we will be announcing tomorrow is the creation of the Office for Youth. Their role will be to look across government—whether it be the health department, the communications department or the education department—to make sure that we can see, right across government, all the programs that are being put in place for young people—

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