Ms KERNOT (10:39 PM) —I want to take a few minutes to speak about the committee's inquiry and the Age Counts report brought down today. I probably have to do this in instalments because there is so much to say about it. It is a comprehensive report, but I wanted to make a few basic points. I think it is very frustrating for people in this country who are 40 and over who have been unemployed for some time to find that the government has taken so long to respond to this pressing unemployment issue. Over two years ago Labor did some research on this. We have around the country organisations like Don't Overlook Mature Employment. They know what the issue is, and this is such a frustratingly belated response for those Australians who have been taking an unfair share of the consequences of economic restructuring in this country. Many of the problems facing those people have been clearly understood by so many of us for so long, and for this government to say `We will take over a year to do a report and, in the meantime, we will put in place $3 million for a pilot program to find out if the mature age unemployed face greater obstacles to finding work than the rest of us' I think is a bit of an insult to these people.

What these people need is action, and I welcome some of the recommendations in this report. I welcome and Labor welcomes the emphasis on early intervention. In other words, it is a bit of an endorsement of our Workforce 2010—although I am sure it is not meant to be—where we say that we should put more effort into identifying sectors and workers at risk, we should work with those workers and sectors at risk, and we should require Centrelink, as the report says, to actually be available to these people at risk before they become unemployed. Labor endorses this proposal; in fact, it is something we said back in 1998 in our own 45-plus report, What government needs to do.

We also welcome the emphasis on training initiatives, especially mature age training apprenticeships. We welcome the recommendation on wage subsidies, and we hope this government will not take too long to respond to the crying need that we see in people who are at a very vulnerable time in their lives, when they find themselves, having banked on a job for a long time, now without the required means to meet mortgage repayments and to meet school and education payments for teenage and university student children, and often at a stage when their own parents are quite elderly and frail.

One of the things this report draws attention to—and I think it is a very welcome comment—is the way in which a tax credit scheme could be reintroduced for people on benefits—an earned income tax credit scheme spread over the financial year for those in casual and part-time work. Labor has consistently drawn attention to the need to look at the interaction between the taxation system and the social security system to encourage people from welfare into work. It is good to see this committee at least acknowledging that this is an important issue. Another thing is that, if you talk to people who have been retrenched for some time, they talk about the way in which they have to run down their superannuation. They have to draw on their superannuation until they are eligible to receive income support. In other words, there is quite a policy contradiction here. They are forced to sacrifice their retirement savings without the future opportunity to add to those retirement savings if they do not, in fact, find full-time work again. So, to the extent that the committee and its report have recognised this, Labor welcomes it. Again, it was something that we drew attention to two years ago. We also drew attention to the way in which it cost nothing for the Minister for Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business to actually draw attention to what a good idea it is to have a balanced work force and to say, `It is great to have flexible, innovative, mobile young people; it is also important to have balance at the other end of the scale.' There is an economic benefit in having mature age employees, and this committee has come to that same conclusion. (Time expired)