Mr PRICE (6:04 PM) —I am very pleased that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance and Administration is in the House again. I hope he will be most generous in his remarks.

Mr Slipper —He is hardworking.

Mr PRICE —I do not know whether I could go that far. I am speaking on the Youth Allowance Consolidation Bill 1999 . This bill proposes to incorporate two disallowable instruments and one set of regulations dealing with aspects of Austudy into the Social Security Act 1991, to address technical issues arising out of implementation of the youth allowance package and to make consequential amendments relating to the commencement of the youth allowance. It could more properly be called, I suppose, the Youth Allowance Balls-Up Bill, because that is what it is really trying to fix up.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Nehl) —Not quite correctly described.

Mr PRICE —Euphemistically described—I am sorry, Mr Deputy Speaker. One of the points I want to make is that it has always surprised me that the Howard government has really attacked two distinct groups in our society. I have never understood why. The first group is the elderly, and we all know the infamous—

Mr Sidebottom —They are vulnerable.

Mr PRICE —Vulnerable people, people who have made a marvellous contribution to Australia, and it has absolutely viciously attacked them by the changes to the nursing home arrangements. And even though the government has backed down, and the responsible minister in Tasmania lost his seat, it is still the case that, regrettably, some older Australians are being forced to sell the family home as a result of these changes. I have to say that it was this group that I thought gave the Howard government outstanding support in 1996, and it always gets a majority of the votes of this group. Why the government has, in such an unrelenting way, attacked them I will never know.

The second group, of course, is young people—the future of the country. On the one hand, it is those who have made a contribution; and the second group is the youth of Australia, those that are going to make the contribution to Australia, our future. Here we are on the edge of the new millennium, the new century, and what is the group that we single out? Young people. It baffles me. I am one who believes we should rejoice in our young people, we should nurture them, we should give them some assistance and then look forward to all that they can achieve in the future.

I have already spoken about one proposal that I find absolutely beyond the pale, and that is that, if you are an unemployed youth and you are illiterate, you get a cut in your social security unless you go and fix your literacy problem. I have not met one person in my electorate who is illiterate who chose to be illiterate, who made a deliberate choice to be illiterate. We have the Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs, the Hon. David Kemp, time after time, in question time tell us all that he has done about literacy. Yet we still have a major literacy problem in Australia.

I have said before that the danger with people who cannot read and write is that, if you saddle them up to a course and they do not succeed, you have probably lost them forever. And that is a tragedy. Usually, not always but usually, people who present with a literacy problem have a whole variety of other problems. So, if we see this as an exercise in trying to encourage the private sector, yes, you may be able to have groups who are very good at treating literacy. But, if they do not come to grips with the other problems, you have lost them. It is not as though we have some really new initiatives in terms of literacy and eradicating illiteracy. We do not have, for example, a national system of re-entry centres for young people who dropped out of school at an early age to go back into a different environment, to tackle their education and bring them up to scratch.

It is really an element of wedge politics—that is, withdraw the sympathy for someone who cannot read and write, and punish them: if you do not fix it up, then you are in trouble; you will not get your full entitlement to social security. It is ironic because I think the Australian people want us to tackle, in a very bipartisan way, some of the important issues, such as literacy. I think if you talked to members of parliament, leaving aside their party affiliations, we could come up with some really good proposals. But it would take money. You cannot talk about these problems and talk them away; you actually have to invest.

Another proposal that is caught up in this common youth allowance particularly affects my electorate—and, again, the minister for education. How many times in question time have we heard that the Labor government ignored vocational education? This is an absolute misstatement of the facts. Did we do enough in vocational education? We all agree we should have done more. But what is the government doing with this common youth allowance? It is saying to people who probably have left school at year 9 or year 10, `Unless you return to school, you don't get any of this assistance from the government, whereas you previously would have.'

Encouraging people to have a good and full education is something that I think all honourable members can agree about. But is it the case that Minister Kemp and the Howard government have ensured that in every state and territory of this Commonwealth we have subjects that will be relevant to these people that we are pushing back into school?

Mr Sidebottom —There was no money there.

Mr PRICE —I agree with my learned colleague. He says that not one extra dollar has gone to the state education systems for this measure. In my own state, it is true that the department of education has vocational education subjects in years 11 and 12. But the problem is that they do not actually lead anywhere. I will use apprenticeships because that is the easiest example I can give. Queensland, for example, has a system where you actually start your apprenticeship in years 11 and 12 and do not miss out on your other general education. If you want to enter the world of work, you do it through the subjects that have value on the TAFE side and hold credentials with employers in Queensland.

Did Minister Kemp, who has so unctuously, repeatedly, said that we did not do enough or that we neglected vocational education, say of this measure, `I'm aiming for a national system. I can recognise the good that is being done in Queensland and we are going to encourage all the states and territories to do this'? Of course that is not the case. That is mere rhetoric. It is really wedge politics. It is singling out young people and making them the victims and ensuring that the rest of the community look down on them.

When I chaired a review into Austudy, one of the legitimate concerns expressed by coalition members was that they did not like people going into years 11 and 12 for the purpose of collecting Austudy—I might now say `common youth allowance'. I accept that. I think there is nothing worse than warehousing young people and not adding to their development. They are not being challenged, they are not adding to their development and, in a sense, they are no better off vis-a-vis the work force by being in school.

What are we doing to schools in my electorate and other working-class electorates and, I dare say, some rural electorates? We are forcing people back into schools who really do not want to be there. They are not being offered subjects that they consider to be relevant and that will lead to a job. I am sure that the Labor Party will be coming up with a very robust policy as far as this is concerned. I just want to make the point that it is really sad that we are singling out young people and victimising them by failing to follow up with dollars to allow systems to adequately cope, let alone making sure that the systems are offering worthwhile subjects.

I ungenerously, or impolitely, referred to that Austudy report. I notice that schedule 3 of this bill, which repeals the Social Security (Family Actual Means Test) Regulations 1998 and replaces them with similar provisions in the Social Security Act, has the effect of bringing forward some of the recommendations about people's capacity to pay that were adopted as a result of the Austudy report. We all know—and I am not saying that these measures were 100 per cent successful—of the Volvo syndrome; that is, uni students going to university driving a Volvo but in receipt of Austudy.

We tried to look at the actual capacity of the family to pay. I am not critical that the recommendations are there. But, when we proposed them, Treasury said that it was absolutely impossible for us to do anything about the situation and that it was wrong that we should propose this in relation to Austudy on its own. Although the Labor government—or Labor Minister Dawkins at the time—was a bit scathing about it, they were subsequently implemented.

It is a bit hypocritical that the recommendations have been adopted in this area. But, for example, when we look at child support—at women who have a legitimate claim to some child support from those people who do have assets and who are able legitimately to minimise their income and avoid paying any child support—and compare it with the regulations about the common youth allowance, we say we cannot implement it with child support. I think that there needs to be a degree of consistency, and, surely, here is the example. Whilst I have normally been associated with the concerns of non-custodial parents, I have always known of this group of women—and it is overwhelmingly mainly women—who are married to small businessmen, professionals and self-employed who have the capacity to minimise their taxable income, thereby completely avoiding and evading their responsibility. So it is really only working-class people who are caught up in the Child Support Scheme. If you are self-employed or wealthy, there is no problem at all.

I want to say something about Centrelink. I really admire efficiency in the Public Service. I have confessed previously that, in reality, I came to this place as a public servant, having worked for Telstra. But I am amazed—it is a sort of a coming out, I might say, but I have done it before—that an organisation like Centrelink, which can accept a $150 million cut to its budget, can have some 5,000 people slashed from its payroll and we say, `The same standards will be maintained; no problem at all.' I remember the old system. There was nothing particularly dignified about it, but it is true that we used to have queues at the former Department of Social Security. Those queues were annoying for some people, but there was a degree of solidarity, I suppose, in that, if you were in that queue and you looked ahead of you and behind you, you knew that other people were in a similar boat. The queue provided a degree of solidarity, I suppose. But then we went to this great interview system. It says that, if you are a Centrelink client—or customer, I think they prefer to be called—you are anonymous; that is, there is no queue and, when you walk into that office, you are on your own. But, rather than providing a superior service—

Mr Sawford interjecting—

Mrs Elson —A personalised service.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Nehl) —The member for Chifley should ignore his advisers on both sides of the chamber.

Mr PRICE —I thought that the honourable member opposite was making the point that they do try to provide a personalised service, and I guess that there are some advantages about having interviews. The point I want to make is that queues are very visible, but how do you tell if the appointment system is taking a week, three weeks or four weeks? It is very anonymous.

In terms of this personal service, I must say I got quite offended that the minister, with a great deal of fanfare, went and opened the new Tuggeranong Centrelink office. I am not against him opening it; I think that was great. But I have to say that in Mount Druitt the Centrelink office was located in two separate buildings—the accommodation was awful. We actually have a new Centrelink office. Do you think the minister would come to Mount Druitt to open the office? Do you think the minister would send an underling? I have had Minister Kemp send a staffer of an upper house Liberal member in the New South Wales parliament to open a school extension in my electorate. I must say I was offended by that. I guess, if I had a preference, I would rather they not open it in that fashion.

If we are talking about a physical environment, which is important to clients of Centrelink, what is the shame in opening the office in Mount Druitt? Does the minister think I will bag him? No, I welcome that office. I think it is a distinct improvement, especially for the clients of Centrelink, but also the staff. I have been there a number of times. But why is it that he will open some offices but not others? Are we in Western Sydney, or in my electorate, beyond the pale? Don't we deserve it? Don't we merit it? I know members opposite may refer to some of the games we play in government, but I do not believe in that. I think offices should be opened and I think local members of whatever persuasion should always be accorded a degree of courtesy. I must say that when I had the modest position of a parliamentary secretary I was always a stickler for observing the courtesies.

In my electorate, I have to say there has been a reduction in the number of staff, with 10 staff lost from Mount Druitt and seven from St Marys. I am hard pressed to report to the parliament that the service has remained the same. I have infinite sympathy for the staff trying to deal with the demand—that is, the number of clients they have to deal with. I think that sometimes, when we are dealing with public service entities, private enterprise efficiencies and models are not always the best gauge to go by. Sometimes we have to accept a premium for providing a public service to people. I am astounded how we are maintaining this myth that Centrelink is going to be able to sustain a $150 million cutback and maintain the same level of service.

We ought to get rid of the rhetoric. I think in New South Wales there is a message—I would use more colourful language, except that you are in the chair, Mr Deputy Speaker Nehl—that the general public do not like politicians not telling the truth or not being up front with people. They know that the service has been degraded. So I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to speak on this bill. It does affect a lot of my constituents whom I hold in high esteem and I sincerely hope we can start `investing'—to use the rational economic term—in young people. They are certainly worth it, and the cost-benefit return is going to be enormous, especially investing in people that might not be considered to be top of the pile.

Debate (on motion by Mrs Elson) adjourned.

Main Committee adjourned at 6.24 p.m.