Mr ALLAN MORRIS(9.40 p.m.) —I am not sure whether this is the third or fourth or fifth or sixth leg in this government's assault on Australian families. For a group of people who stood on a platform of being pro family and who still parade under that title, it is very difficult to imagine a policy which is more anti-family. I seem to recall last year government members speaking about nursing homes in similar terms for their then budget measure. Let me advise government members that what has happened with nursing homes is going to happen here but only worse, because the anger and difficulty the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Youth Allowance) Bill will cause will be to a much more energetic group of people who have a much longer future than those disempowered people who require nursing home places.

This is one of the nastiest tricks, one of the nastiest little innovations, imaginable from a government that is supposedly pro family. Mind you, we should not forget that this is the same party that sent 18 year olds off to war to get killed. They could not vote but they could go and get shot in Vietnam. This is the same party that is now saying that these young people are still the responsibility of their parents until they are 21. This party sent this group of young Australians to war 30 years ago, deciding by a draw from a barrel as to who went. Every year we go through the Vietnam services for young men, 18, 19, 20 and 21 years old, who were killed and maimed in war. We are still seeing the trauma of that.

This is the same `pro-family' party that is now saying to the 30,000 young people who are under 18: `Forget any income support altogether.' The idea of full-time education and training is a joke because the government has cut funding to schools and to TAFE. In other words, the bodies that could provide full-time training and education do not have the places. The government admits that. The state governments have made it clear that there would be a shortfall of some $127 million in the education budget if all of those young people stayed at school up to year 12, and that is apart from the cuts they have already suffered. The `pro-family' parties opposite say: `Remove income support for people under 18 unless they are in full-time training.' We say: `Okay, where are the places?' They say: `That is not our business. It is not our problem.'

The idea is that these young people will stay at school, like it or not, because it is the only way the family can survive. And remember the figure—$23,400 per year is where it starts to cut off for people who are in training or education. This is not new apprenticeships, this is not working for the dole—this is none of those things. Sixteen- to 18-year-olds who are not at school or in full-time education or training get absolutely nothing. Those families are going to carry the cost of not just feeding and clothing those young Australians but also helping them with the funds needed to find work.

It does not matter about the income at all. It does not matter whether it is $23,000 or $15,000; they still have to find the money to feed them. What they have just done is dramatically reduce the income of some of the worst off families in the country. Some of the families that are the most financially stressed in the country are going to have their incomes cut because those opposite have somehow decided that if you are under 18 you must be in full-time training.

The idea of this whole scheme is not about youth or families; it is about money. This is another exercise from that budget in 1996. It is the same kind of mentality. This is a family program designed by Treasury and Finance. We have already seen nursing homes designed by Treasury and Finance. We are now seeing family policy designed by Treasury and Finance. We are about to see in February a whammy—therapeutic drugs policy designed by Treasury and Finance. They use these glib words that on the surface appear okay. Do you know why that is the case? It is because Treasury and Finance do not know how the programs work. They do not really understand.

Let me tell you what will happen—and when it starts happening in your electorate don't come in here complaining. When young people start to realise that the only way to get money is to not live at home, then all the things you have said for the last four or five years about homeless allowance being an attraction for young people to leave home will start to happen. It is already happening now because of Austudy, quite frankly. The chan ges to Austudy brought in at the start of this year have seen in my electorate families break down. And you all know this. This is not news to anybody in this parliament. We all get the same cases coming across our desks week in and week out, so we all know. Those opposite who start to pretend that this is a progressive social measure know they are being dishonest, not just with this parliament but with their constituents.

Without doubt we will see an increase in the rate of homelessness because those families on very low incomes whose children are 16 or 17 and not in full-time training for a number of reasons—it may be because they have a learning disability and the programs are no longer there or because there are no facilities where they live—will not get funds to go somewhere else. All those programs have been cut. What happened to SAR, the students at risk program? It got cut. All the things that were there to try to help these families have been cut back. Then along comes the whammy of them all—the ripping out of the whole income support for 30,000 of them under 18.

Let us go further, to the 18- to 21-year-olds. This is the Vietnam cohort—the conscripts. It is a new kind of conscription: send them to war in one generation; in the next generation rip away any shred of independence. I can remember very clearly when this stuff was first announced. It was going to be grandfathered. In other words, people who were getting the benefits at the time would not lose them. It is hard to find where that is mentioned in here. The Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (Mr Ruddock) in his tabling speech carefully does not mention that at all. The department seems to say, `We are still working out the regulations.' But the fact is we are going to have young people of 19 and 20 who are going to be solely dependent on their parents' income, and at $23,000 a year it starts to cut out.

The fact is that the government has already ripped Austudy out from 125,000 young people by increasing the age of independence to 25. This is going back to the dark ages again. Mr Deputy Speaker, you were not here in 1983 when the age of independence for Austudy was 25. What we have seen in the last year and a half is regression, but with a twist to it. When a person got to 25 they were entitled to Austudy. The twist is that if you start a course when you are 25 you miss out. A person starting medicine at 24 will still be dependent on parental income until they are 29, 30 or 31, depending on how well they progress. So they have actually made it worse than it was pre-1983. You have ripped away 125,000 Austudy places already and now you are going to the next level of 18- to 21-yearolds and means testing them fully.

The speakers opposite are all indulging in deception of this parliament because the impression they are giving—very deliberately—is that the current jobsearch allowance for 16- to 18-year-olds is means tested. Only half of it is means tested. Part of it is not means tested at all. Everyone who is looking for a job is entitled to a base amount which is not means tested. They have a lot of hoops to jump through—the work test, the availability test—to qualify for that, but they all get a base amount. It is means tested beyond that. The impression the government is giving to people is that it is all means tested. That is deceitful and dishonest. But then what else would you expect from a government that is perpetrating one of the nastiest frauds on Australian families that we have ever seen?

To fully means test the 18- to 21-year-olds and make out that this is somehow making it the same as it is for 16- to 18-year-olds will put pressure like we have never seen on those young people and their families. Most of us in this place are parents. The responsibility of parents is to teach their children to become independent. The period from 16 to 21 is critical in that transition.

I would urge those members of the government who are new to this place, and even those who are not new but have not read it, to go and read a report that was prepared in the last parliament by the Standing Committee on Community Affairs on aspects of youth homelessness—a report which the minister who wrote this tabling speech was involved in. If you are really interested, go and read the Hansard of the committee hearings and read of the tragedies that were occurring out there—the 30,000 young Australians who were being abused every year, the number of children from dysfunctional families, the number of young people who are not able to develop the self-esteem and all the things that are needed to cope in this world—and look at what we put forward in terms of additional support that was needed.

What are you doing? You have done the opposite: you have ripped away what was there. This is the final straw; this is the final nasty bit. What you are finally doing now is saying, `Lock them into the house until they are 21.' That is what you are saying. For so many households there will be no other money available. They will not be able to afford to go to another town and rent while they seek work. How could they do that? How could a person from a small country town go to a bigger town and look for work? Who is going to pay for that? The government is not going to and there is no other income available for them to have some sort of independence. The whole functionality of developing and establishing independence for young people so that they too can become parents with some esteem and some pride is interfered with by locking them into their houses.

This is a lock them up and throw away the key exercise. It is based on the false notion that somehow by giving them income support you encourage them to leave home. This is an absolutely nonsensical notion. The party that sent young people to Vietnam to get killed now wants to lock them into their houses. I find that a fascinating concept. Thirty years ago you could send them off to war. Back in the 1960s the vote was not available to people that age. Now, 30 years later, when they have got the vote, what are you doing to them? You are tying them to their parents' income, where support starts to cut out at $23,500.

This parliament has a lot of responsibilities in this country. We can and do affect how people live, how they cope and how they develop. We do influence the growth of our society or its regression. In this last year and a half we have seen a series of measures which have been driven by budget savings for a fictitious objective, with incredibly serious consequences. We have watched with some interest in recent months while government members have been writhing around because last year they were pretending the nursing home initiative was terrific. Go read their speeches: one after another they went on and on about what wonders it would achieve. We all knew that was nonsense. They were either ignorant or deceitful. In the months ahead we will be watching developments with the therapeutic grouping arrangement, these new kinds of drug groups. We will be watching how those who have been proclaiming that it is a wonderful scheme get off that.

In July next year we will start to watch with interest how all the people opposite speaking in this debate start to square off with their electorates and their families as to why it is that there is no help, as to why it is that a 19 year old in a household on $30,000 is being fully supported when in fact that 19 year old is doing their level best to try to get a job, despite the fact that the high cost of travelling to look for work on the Central Coast and the cost of living somewhere else to try and find a job is beyond their capacity. So they are locked into a house in a place where there are no jobs available.

The tensions on those families will become impossible. And, when those tensions erupt, don't forget it. Don't come in here and talk about youth suicide, don't come in here and talk about families, because what you are doing now will be the worst thing that has ever happened in my time in this parliament to exacerbate the stress and tensions on young Australians and their families. These people simply need assistance and support so that they can continue their maturation. What is happening now is that that is being denied to them.

Those opposite try to dress this up in some sort of absolutely obscure guise of being good policy. The minister has not tried to do that, to be honest. He has not had the gall to actually go quite as far as to say that it is actually good social policy. He has used a lot of other words about it but has said very little about what it would actually do to benefit the personal development of these people. What came out in the Senate inquiry is what will be coming out in the months ahead. We are now in November. It comes in in July next year, and we are going to have six or seven months of case after case of young people and their parents coming into our offices explaining to us how it is going to affect them.

As members opposite see that human tragedy, as you see that stress, as you see that unfolding, have the guts to come in and tell us. Tell them too that the funding for TAFE has been cut and the funding to schools has been cut. Have the guts to come in and tell them you were wrong. The fact is that this is not just a mistake; this is a conscious, deliberate blunder. It is not just one party here. On one hand it is being done by Treasury and Finance, but there is a strong school of thought within the government which is of a puritan nature, which is of the view that the best way to make young kids grow up is to lock them up in their houses and make them totally dependent on the parents. Keep them under control; this is about control. The tragedy is that the parents involved do not want to control their kids. They understand that their kids need to grow up. This is about giving parents control when parents do not want it. So what we are getting is a throwback not just to the 1950s but I think to way before that.

I am from a family where both parents left school at the age of 12 and had to go out and work at that very young age. I chaired that inquiry into homelessness and I watched the tragedy that has been unfolding for years, and we know it. I am watching what is happening here and I say, `Go and do some homework. Go and talk to those kids, go and talk to their families.' I do not know which planet you people are on, but on this one we certainly should not be cutting away income support from low income families for under 18 year olds and cutting away income for young Australians 18, 19 and 20 and making them dependent on their families when so many have had that income cut. The question of control will become the major issue between young people and their parents when the passage to independence, which is such a vital part of development in our society, is being driven by a government policy about money and nothing else.

The party that sent kids off to get killed at this age is the same party that now wants to lock them into their houses, and I find that barbaric. They were barbaric then and they are still barbaric.

Mr Lloyd —Mr Deputy Speaker, on a point of order: I take offence to the honourable member's comment `the party that sent the children off to be killed at war', and I ask that he withdraw it.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Nehl) —I ask the honourable member for Newcastle—

Mr ALLAN MORRIS —Mr Deputy Speaker, that comment has been made in this House every year since I have been here. It is not an offensive remark; it is a statement of fact. The Liberal-National Party in government sent 18- to 20-year-olds off to Vietnam knowing that there was a good chance they would be killed, and many were killed. It is a statement of fact. (Time expired)