Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I commend the member for Charlton for bringing forward the motion. Unemployment, particularly youth unemployment, and underemployment are massive issues for this country. But I would like to pick him up on one thing. The first duty of any government is to secure its borders and protect its citizens but, as a Labor member of parliament, I expect that he would gloss over those things.

There are a lot of issues around unemployment and underemployment, and the issues in my electorate are wide-ranging. There are three major concerns in my regional electorate: youth unemployment, which is over 20 per cent and that does not include those who have opted out of the system; senior unemployment; and unemployment for non-English speaking migrants. We have to understand that governments do not create jobs; governments create the circumstances for business to employ people. We have to set the circumstances. If the set of circumstances are too lax then abuse occurs. If it is too stringent, opportunity is restricted. I see a bunch of school kids up behind the glass in the gallery. I say to them, what we are trying to do, and the issue the member for Charlton raises, is that when you leave school, whether you go to university or just get a job, you are able to go out and get a start. When I speak to kids at Queensland Youth Services or at Green Army jobs, what they are really chasing is a start, an opportunity. They do not really care what they do, so long as they can get that start. What they want is that opportunity.

A letter to the editor of the Townsville Bulletin a little while ago talked about the Snowy Mountains scheme and how visionary that project was. People from all around the world worked on that massive scheme and barely a word of English was spoken, yet they did such a fantastic job for Australia. Unfortunately, none of those people could get a job today because they would not pass basic literacy and would not get past the workplace health and safety issues. These days, people under 24 must have 100 hours as a learner just to get a drivers licence, including 10 at night. Whilst we do not want unsafe workplaces and unsafe roads, we are putting up barriers to employment and to opportunity that are working against the very people whom we should be trying to provide with opportunity.

The member for Charlton and I both come from regional electorates where public transport is not that easy. We are very much a car society. In Townsville, if you live in the upper Ross and if you have to be in the city for a nine o'clock job interview and you miss the 6.30 bus, or it does not turn up, which is often the case, you cannot get to the Willows in time to get the connecting bus into the city. If you are from a low-SES background and your parents do not own a car, that is how governments preclude people and make it harder for them to get an opportunity.

We do not want lax workplaces and we do not want to roll down things, but we do have to look at the exclusions that we put on people who are trying to get a job. We must look at these things here. Governments have a serious role to play in providing opportunity. Queensland just recently elected a state Labor government. That is all well and good. Labor went to the election saying that they would provide the jobs and the opportunities without selling assets. As soon as they got in, they still want the money from the federal government's asset recycling fund, which is a bit silly. The figure I have heard bandied about the place in relation to the amount of private investment pulled out of Queensland due to the change of government is $37 billion of private investment. That is a massive amount of money. That is a massive amount of private investment. We will wait with bated breath to see what Curtis Pitt is going to do with the state budget. He must map out a plan for the provision of jobs and a map for the provision of opportunity for Queenslanders because we are ones who are really up against it at the moment.

Queensland made the decision, and that is very well and good, and that is fair and I accept the decision, but you cannot sit there and say we do not have opportunity because we do have opportunity. If you are asset rich and cash poor then you have to look at the rationalisation of assets. Opportunity is what we are seeking for all people. 'To get a start' is the phrase I hear all the time in my community. 'I just need a start.' We have to make sure that employment laws and workplace health and safety things are right and that opportunity is there so we can guide people and help them get that start. It is so much easier to get an opportunity if you are in the workplace. It is so much easier to get a job if you are actually in work. That is what we have to work towards.

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