Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker—

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ms Gillard interjecting

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! I remind the member for Lalor that she is on thin ice.

Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. Would the minister advise the House how young workers are sharing the benefits of record low unemployment? How will the government’s new workplace reforms benefit young workers? Is the minister aware of any groups seeking to mislead young workers?

Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Bonner for his question and his interest in jobs for young Australians. I can inform him that the teenage full-time unemployment to population ratio, which refers to the proportion of the total teenage population unemployed and looking for full-time work, declined to just 4.4 per cent in July, which is well below the peak of 10.1 per cent which was recorded in July 1992, when the Leader of the Opposition was then the Australian employment minister.

In 1996, the Leader of the Opposition told young Australians that the Howard government’s workplace reforms would ‘put young Australians at a disadvantage’. The reality is just the opposite. What they have done is provide greater opportunities for young Australians to get into the workforce—as shown by the fall from 10.1 per cent to 4.4 per cent. Not much has changed in 10 years, because, 10 years later, the Leader of the Opposition is still trying to scaremonger amongst young workers about workplace reform. He has said:

Mums and dads know that John Howard’s industrial relations laws are throwing their children to the wolves.

Again, the data reveals that that is just not the case. The member for Bonner also asked me whether there are any attempts to mislead young Australians on these matters. I came across an interesting new curriculum which is being propagated by the labour movement, particularly in New South Wales, for teachers to deliver to their students. The content of these union lessons to be delivered, which are on their website, is quite concerning. For example, there is an activity that says:

Teacher roleplays with students. As the call-centre employer teacher begins to change the conditions of work by setting time limits or quotas on simple tasks. Students complete tasks and teacher pressures them. Conflict is created.

So the union movement’s idea of industrial relations, what they are saying to teachers and students through this curriculum, is: ‘We should go out there and create conflict.’ That is the union movement’s idea of industrial relations. There is another case study on this website which is teaching students to become xenophobic by teaching them to fear having their jobs go to foreign workers. This is a curriculum promoted by the union movement for students in our schools, from years 7 to 10. Why are the labour movement and the Labor Party promoting xenophobia amongst students in our secondary schools in Australia?

As the data which I used at the outset of this question illustrates, the reforms of both 1996 and this year are actually about creating more jobs for young Australians and putting protections in there for Australians. The Leader of the Opposition and the unions are more concerned with and focused on filling young Australians with fear rather than with facts.