Estimates Debate — Vote Youth Development

I stand to speak with regard to Vote Youth Development, and to look at its task of looking after young people—757,000 young people aged between 12 and 24 years—with a focus on the Ministry of Youth Development. When I first came into Government and looked at this vote and the work it was doing, I saw that it was doing a lot of good work. But equally I felt that the vote had moved slightly into doing more work with at-risk young people and young people who were serious offenders, and that it was funding more programmes for them. I felt that the ministry actually needed to get back a bit to its knitting and look after the majority of young people, who are doing positive stuff out there, who are very successful, who are getting ahead, and who will have some pretty awesome opportunities ahead of them as they get further along.

We had a good look at everything that Vote Youth Development was doing. We made sure that we moved some of that vote to where it needed to be. We moved some of it into—[Interruption] The members opposite are welcome to take a call. I notice they did not take a call on Vote Social Development, because they did not see the unemployment benefit numbers as being important enough. Now they have decided to sit and snipe from the sidelines, like the headless turtles that they are, and they hope that that sniping will make a difference. I will not do that when it comes to our young people. It is easy to look at the negatives, and it is easy to think about everyone as failing and not doing well, whereas the reality is that the majority of our young people have incredibly bright futures, and are doing incredibly well out there in some pretty tough times. They are surging ahead, and it is pretty exciting to be their Minister and to be working alongside them.

When it came to looking at what we could do, what was important, and where we were going to move ahead, naturally we looked at employment opportunities for young people who were not involved in upskilling. It was with real pleasure that I heard the Prime Minister announce that $152 million would go into the Youth Opportunities programme. It is no secret that job opportunities have been the biggest intake under that programme initially: 590 Job Ops applicants have come into Work and Income already. I do not have in front of me the number of those who have been placed in jobs; certainly, from memory, over 175 are already in jobs via Job Ops, and it has been running for only about 3 weeks.

Literally hundreds of community organisations have stepped up and are asking all sorts of questions about how to get a project together that young people can work on. Māori organisations are talking about how they can renovate a marae and get a bunch of young people together to work on that. I heard of one Māori organisation that is working at setting up a library, and is getting young people in for 6 months to work on that community project. Another area is talking about getting young people to go around and check fire alarms. They will offer to go into people’s homes and check that the fire alarms are still working and that the batteries are going. There are awesome opportunities for young people to get involved in doing things like that, which give them something meaningful to do in these tough times when there is not as much available to them as there was previously. We have to make some pretty tough decisions.

It was interesting that the previous speaker, Katrina Shanks, brought up the independent youth benefit. About 1,700 16 and 17-year-olds are on the independent youth benefit. From memory, of that number about 1,000 to 1,100 are involved in education, another couple of hundred are involved in other upskilling activity, and about 400 are not actively involved at all in employment, education, or training. We make no bones about and no apology for the fact that we expect 16 and 17-year-olds to be actively engaged in society, whether that is through education, employment, or training. So we will be putting measures in place against those on the independent youth benefit. We will say to them that we expect them to be involved in these sorts of activities. That will mean providing a commitment from the Government to make sure that those activities are there for them: that places are available in upskilling, and that there are jobs for them to go to. We are willing to make that commitment to them, but we will also expect those young people to step up and to be actively involved. Quite frankly, it is National’s opinion that a life on welfare is not a life of full opportunities, and we want more for our young people than that.

Three weeks ago the Prime Minister announced one of the most exciting and significant packages to assist and encourage our nation’s young people that has ever been seen. As the Minister of Youth Affairs, Paula Bennett, has just been alluding to, it represents a total of 16,900 new opportunities for New Zealand’s youth. Today I give credit to the Minister of Youth Affairs for the considerable amount of work that she put into developing this next phase in the Government’s rolling maul of measures to take the sharp edges off the very difficult and challenging recession that we are living in. As I am sure even members opposite will acknowledge, we cannot ignore the conspicuous plight of our nation’s young people.

As the Minister noted while wearing one of her other hats, as Minister for Social Development and Employment, young people are particularly hard hit by the shrinking job market in the current global economic downturn. In my city of Hamilton the consequences of youth unemployment are all too evident. Few sights are more depressing or worrying than young people out of school, out of work, and out of sorts. As a parent of teenagers, I want to see my children and all our nation’s young people empowered to fulfil their potential. Alongside a stable and loving upbringing and a good education, one of the greatest things we can and must give our young people is hope. So I was delighted this afternoon to hear of the initial success of these measures: over 500 employment offers have already been made in response to the Job Ops package, and 251 community groups have registered their interest in providing and supervising opportunities under the Community Max scheme. That is a wonderful response so soon after the policies were announced, and I look forward to hearing of further increases as awareness of the Government subsidies and incentives spreads.

There is no question that the global economic downturn is forcing the Government to make some very difficult decisions, and it will, sadly, continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Few members of society are not suffering some pain in the current economic climate, but young people who are struggling to enter the workforce or to further their qualifications are particularly vulnerable. That is why this year’s Budget put such strong emphasis on enhancing educational and training opportunities, and it is why the Prime Minister’s recent announcements and the unstinting efforts of the Minister of Youth Affairs since she assumed her responsibilities are so important in providing real hope and real opportunities to thousands of young people. It is worth repeating that the Job Ops package will inject $20 million into funding around 4,000 entry-level jobs around New Zealand. The more of those that we see in Hamilton, the happier my constituents, local principals, education providers, youth workers, Work and Income staff, and others will be.

Job Ops and Community Max are generous measures, but they are also very astute investments, and I know that they enjoy widespread support in my electorate and right around the country. I also have no doubt that the young people who take up these opportunities will benefit hugely, and, as a consequence, so will the communities in which they live. The packages that this Minister of Youth Affairs oversees rely on a mutually advantageous partnership between the Government, youth, community groups, and businesses. As we consider the appropriation for her department for the year ahead, I urge the Committee to show its full support for the measures that have been announced, and I look forward to news that they are having a very positive impact in these challenging times.

Moving on to another aspect of the Minister’s portfolio, I tell members that at any one time in modern New Zealand approximately 6,000 children and young people are in State care or custody. Most of those young people come from deprived and, often, dysfunctional backgrounds. We do not sit in judgment; in fact, in many instances we must acknowledge factors that undermine the health and quality of our society and that condemn our children to hardship, dysfunction, and abuse. But we cannot bury our heads in the sand, nor ignore the plight of our most vulnerable young people, for the consequences of doing so are devastating for those children, costly for us all, and often tragic, as we know from some of the saddest criminal matters that have come before the courts in recent times.

Vote agreed to.

Vote Fisheries agreed to.

Vote Housing