Page 475 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 21 February 2012
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MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (10.59): I think this is an important aspect of this transition process. It may seem like small beer to the minister, but it was interesting that, in the discussions I had with officials, there was a level of reluctance to do for young people for whom the territory has had parental responsibility the sorts of things that an average parent would do. I raised the example of someone who may be an apprentice who has to get to work at an early hour in the morning when public transport is not available. I actually asked the officials what might happen in these circumstances. And they said, “Well, you know, we could help them get their drivers licence and we could perhaps put them in touch with some carpooling arrangements and we could help them talk to their employer about their transport needs.” But the real thrust of it is that apprentices, generally speaking, need a car to get to work. They are often young people who are just out of school who are not earning very much money, because apprentice wages are not very high, and they need a reliable car to get to work.
That is where, in the normal scheme of things, parents step in. They might guarantee a loan; they may dip into their own savings and loan their children the money if they have the means to do so. But these young people who are most vulnerable, who have the least support and who need these really important elements to make everything fit together, cannot keep their apprenticeship if they cannot turn up on a building site at half past six in the morning, and they cannot get public transport to get there. Sometimes they might be able to ride a bike, but with building sites you essentially move from site to site. Sometimes it might be easy to ride a bike and less easy later on in the piece. To ensure that these young people can keep the jobs that we help them get into, sometimes we might have to make those sorts of arrangements.
I thought it was interesting and revealing that the department could not concede that as a possibility, and I thought it was interesting and revealing in discussions with the minister last week when she said: “We can talk about loans all you like, but there is no money for loans. We have the mechanism, but we don’t have the money. We have the mechanism, but we don’t have the will.” This is an example of why I say we will watch this government like a hawk to ensure that they actually create the systems necessary to ensure that young people are able to transition effectively to independent adulthood.
Taking the example of an apprentice in the building trade, they will often need to get to out-of-the-way places at times when there is no public transport. There is not going to be wholesale reform of the public transport system so that these young people who are transitioning out of care into independence can get to work on time, so from time to time somebody may actually have to ante up with the money so these young people can meet their work commitments.
This is what we are saying: from time to time there will need to be loans. If there are loans, the government, like any reasonable parent, should not be charging interest against them. Also, I flag that the government shows very little will to address this issue. The minister herself says, “There’s no money for this.” Well, it is about time the minister started looking into what is in the department and finding a means to find that money.
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