Robert Oakeshott (Lyne, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to hear the member for Hasluck talking about Midnight Basketball; it is a widely supported program, and is expanding on the Mid North Coast. I strongly endorse his words as to the success of that program. On a related theme, employment and education in Aboriginal communities and also in the entire community of the Mid North Coast is something that we have been working on at a community level for some time. I am pleased to report that we are seeing results. Unemployment rates on the Mid North Coast are now some of the lowest that they have ever been. Importantly, the gap between state and national averages and local averages has closed substantially. It is good work by many that has helped achieved this.

There are a few strategic documents that are the foundations of that campaign. The Mid North Coast Group of Councils has been strategic in the work. As an organisation the councils have been working more closely together and therefore being more strategic in the outcomes they achieve. Alongside that, the Regional Development Australia Mid North Coast strategic plan is an important document and an important vehicle for achieving place based outcomes at a community level. In parallel with that, over the last couple of years the Keep Australia Working funding, and work that has been bringing together the whole range of partners at a local level to put together a regional employment plan and actually implement it, have been successful and important parts of the campaign.

On 2 December in Taree we will see the second jobs and skills expo for the Mid North Coast. The first was a huge success, with 400 long-term unemployed Mid North Coast residents getting direct access to jobs on that day. We hope the day in Taree will be a similar success.

The reason for saying all of that is that the Startup Business Development Program was not successful under the jobs funding applications. I hope it can be reconsidered by government. It is a bottom-up start-up business program. It currently has successfully employed about 100 people, not only in someone else’s businesses but in their own businesses. It is a program that has encouraged innovation and entrepreneurship from the ground up. I ask the government to rethink their refusal of support for that program. It is a program that is working. It is a program that wants to expand into communities such as Taree, Kempsey, Coffs Harbour and Wagga Wagga. If that can be supported, I think it will do a lot more good work in the employment field. (Time expired)