Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is for the Minister for Education and Youth. Will the minister update the House on how the Morrison government is supporting young Australians through COVID-19, particularly those students who are sitting their final-year exams?

Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Youth) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for her question and for the incredible support she provides to young people and indeed all people on the Central Coast in New South Wales. As all members are aware, young Australians have been doing it tough during this pandemic. Today there are close to a million people, a million students, who should be at school who are learning from home. In the last couple of months, six states and territories have had to close down schools for a period of a week or more. With the ACT, it will be seven. In my home city of Melbourne, schoolkids have lost close to half a year of face-to-face schooling now.

This has been a very tough time for those students, and I particularly feel for those year 12 students who are facing exams coming up. I want to assure them if they need mental health support, that is there for them. During this pandemic, we have provided an extra $500 million to support those people who have mental health concerns, and much of that money has gone to youth-oriented mental health services, including fantastic organisations like Headspace, which are targeted at 12 to 25-year-olds. I encourage young people to reach out and to know also they will be getting special consideration in their year 12 exams, at least in New South Wales and in Victoria, so they have that hope.

My general message to young people is that they should have absolute hope and optimism in the future because, I can tell you what, when they graduate from year 12 this year, the opportunities which they will have will be as great as ever before, because, from a job perspective, our unemployment for young people is now the lowest in 12 years. University places—never have there been more. We are putting billions of dollars into training and apprenticeships, so there are more of those opportunities there. They should be as optimistic and positive about the future as we are in this House.

I want to finish by thanking all of the young people for the resilience which they have shown during this pandemic, for seeing this through and for putting their arms around each other, because ultimately that's one of the most important things that they can do. I want them to know we are thinking about them as we go through this pandemic, ensuring that the economy is strong, ensuring that those mental health supports are there, ensuring that those opportunities are there for them to go to university, for training, for jobs. The future is great for those young people. I'm very proud of them as I know everybody is in this chamber.