Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Nick Xenophon Team) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Employment. My constituent Rick is 63 years of age. He was unemployed. He was on Newstart and registered with MAX Employment. He looked for work for over two years. MAX stood to receive up to $10,000 for placing Rick in work. MAX Employment sent Rick to a so-called job interview with Softec Homes. Rick won the job but realised he was not an employee but a subcontractor required to pay invoices. Rick told MAX Employment several times that he was not getting paid. Rick is now owed more than $12,000. He has no money for a lawyer and no longer hears from MAX Employment, and winding up orders were recently issued for Softec Homes. What checks and balances are in place so that vulnerable jobseekers like Rick are not taken advantage of?

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Mayo for her question without notice. It is a genuine question without notice, and I am very glad that she is standing up for her—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Unlike yours, which are always so predictable—yours are always entirely predictable—I do thank the member for Mayo for her question. I think it is important to come into the House and to raise issues about your constituency and about particular members in your constituency who have approached you for assistance. Unlike the opposition, I can see from the member for Mayo's question that she genuinely is concerned about her constituent and would like a fulsome response. As she knows, I represent the Minister for Employment in the House of Representatives, as opposed to being the Minister for Employment in the House of Representatives, so I will take that question on formal notice and I will ensure that the minister, Senator Cash, responds to the member for Mayo directly and that, therefore, you can represent your constituent as well as you possibly can.

In a wider sense, I would say to the member for Mayo that in the last few years that the coalition government has been in government we have created over half a million new jobs in Australia. It is one of the great achievements of the coalition government—under both the Turnbull government and the Abbott government—that when we got elected in 2013 we brought a laser-like focus to creating jobs and to increasing growth. I am sure the Treasurer will correct me if I am wrong, but in the next 12 months we expect growth to be around three per cent in Australia—higher than any of the other countries in the G7 and easily one of the highest in the G22. The truth is that the policies that we are putting in place are designed to create jobs and support constituents like the member for Mayo's—whether it is policies to do with the PaTH program, which we passed through the House of Representatives yesterday, that support young Australians looking for work or incentives for employers to take on middle-aged and older workers for retraining and skilling programs.

In my own portfolio of Defence industry, the member for Mayo, as a South Australian, would know that we will benefit enormously because the Turnbull government is ensuring that $195 billion is spent on growing our defence capability over the next 10 years. While the No. 1 priority is the capability of our Defence Force, the No. 2 priority is maximising the jobs, the industry and the growth here in Australia. In South Australia—in the case of me and the member for Mayo—in terms of submarines and shipbuilding, we will take the workforce at Osborne north and south from about 2,000 to over 5,000 over the next few years. It will be a huge investment in terms of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. I thank the member for Mayo for her question, and I am sure that the Minister for Employment will write to her, responding in a very detailed way.