Woods Megan: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Woods Megan: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Sitting date: 29 January 2013. Volume:687;Page:7563. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram) 
: 
 I would like to take this opportunity to wish both you and this House a happy New Year. 
Well it looked for a while like the National Government had had an epiphany over summer that it had woken up to two things: that we had a youth unemployment problem and that we needed to invest some money into skills training and apprenticeships. But actually after hearing the last contribution it seems it was a very short-lived epiphany because what we have had is a whole lot of backtracking from the Minister for Social Development who has just spoken. She has told us about how those schemes existed National has been doing it and she cited the wonderful example of Job Ops. This was $5000 as a subsidy to an employer to help people in. It was regarded as a reasonably successful programme. It was not apprenticeship training but it was a way of moving young people into work. So it was for this reason that we were greatly disappointed when in Budget 2012 the funding for this scheme was cut and it was not rolled over into the new financial year. This is a policy that the Minister got up and told us about tonight that was actually cut in last year’s Budget. 
There are two important reasons why the epiphany if it had actually been long-lived would have been good. Firstly yes we do have a youth unemployment problem and secondly we might need some people trained for rebuilding Christchurch and in our skills trades more generally. Is there a youth unemployment problem? Obviously the Minister has spent the summer rather than having an epiphany trying to rejig all the numbers to make it sound better. 
Let us look at what the state of employment and the future actually looks like in 2013 if you are a young person in New Zealand. It ain’t that flash. If you were aged between 15 and 19 years of age at the end of last year 25.5 percent of your cohort was unemployed. One in four of your cohort was not in work. This is not something to be proud of. This is not something to celebrate. It is something that any member in this House no matter their political hue should be concerned about and committed to actually addressing. 
But it was not just for this very young age group for the 15 to 19-year-olds. If you were aged between 20 and 24 years of age 12.8 percent of you and your peers would not be able to find a job. These are not levels of unemployment that any of us can think are acceptable. These are young New Zealanders who are growing up without hope and young New Zealanders who are getting on planes and leaving all the time. 
Then we have 13.4 percent of our young people or 85000 young New Zealanders who are not in any form of work education or training. There has been nothing done to address this. There has been nothing substantial done. 
 Let us have a look at some of the measures that this Government has put in place. I want to briefly have a look at the Limited Service Volunteer scheme which was put in place. This is of course the great scheme where young people were going to go and do an intensive course with the military to train them up and hopefully to get them back into the workforce. 
Darien Fenton 
: What happened to that? 
Dr MEGAN WOODS 
: Well what did happen to that? That is a very good question that I have been asked. At the end of the 2011 financial year 40 percent or 735 of the 1828 people who had completed this course were still unemployed after 3 months. Do not think this is substantially addressing the very real problems we have in youth unemployment. 
But then last year the Prime Minister came up with this stunner. He came up with an absolutely stunning way to address the 25 percent unemployment we have in some age groups in youth unemployment—the 85000 young New Zealanders who are not in work education or training. He wrote to 175 businesses asking them to take on a Limited Service Volunteer graduate. Did this work? I do not know. The Ministry of Social Development has informed me in answers to written questions that it has not collected any data on this. So we do not even know if this is working. If there is data now being collected on that we would welcome the chance to see what the uptake from those letters was. 
But let us go back. Let us roll the clock back a bit to April 2011 an election year. John Key rode into Christchurch on his white horse to the Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology and talked the talk on skills training and apprenticeships. He was going to offer sweeteners as he said in April 2011 to get young people into trades training. Well this failed. His “Mr Fix-it” Steven Joyce the man who is handling unemployment in this country at 7.3 percent came and told us that this was because there was a lack of demand. John Key’s sweeteners have not worked. And what did we see last week when John Key rebooted the apprenticeship policy when John Key had another crack at it? More talk of sweeteners—$1000 or $2000 if you are in a priority trade to help you buy some tools. Is this a sweetener? 
Jonathan Young 
: Great idea. 
Dr MEGAN WOODS 
: What would be a great idea is actually structurally looking at getting young people into apprenticeships. We support getting young people into apprenticeships but what we see from members opposite is a squandered opportunity. 
The money was allocated in Budget 2011 for training people throughout our country to help with the rebuild of Canterbury. Until November last year a good 18 months on this Government opposite had managed to spend only $8 million of the $42 million that was budgeted. It has squandered that opportunity. In that time 657 young New Zealanders took up that opportunity. It is no wonder that we have members opposite standing up and telling us today that skills hubs in Canterbury are about bringing in overseas workers to fill the gap. They have failed to train our young people. They have failed to give our young people this opportunity and they need to own up to that. 
The 10000 places that were announced last week is too little too late and it is only a drop in a bucket. It simply does not address the level of skills. If we had actually used the money when John Key announced it back in 2011 we would have young people who were 18 months through their training. These would be people who were nearly ready to go on the job site and contribute. But no. Instead what we are doing is we are going and we are seeking skilled migrants from all over the country. This is not acceptable. This is not a Government that is committed to doing anything. 
In John Key’s epiphany he told us last week there is a big opportunity over the next few years particularly with the rebuilding of Christchurch to train more New Zealanders in vocational careers that will set them up well for their working life and Mr Joyce had similar sentiments. Well actually they have just re-run the press releases from April 2011. This was exactly the same rhetoric that was used then and they have squandered that opportunity. It is our hope that it actually will be put into place and that the sweeteners being offered may get young people into some of these training opportunities this time. 
And yes we have been telling you in this time that we need to do something about this. Labour has consistently since the 2010 earthquake in Christchurch been telling the Government that we need to address this. We have put up positive alternatives but there are 20 percent fewer apprentices today than when National took office. Half a decade in 5 years on what have they got as their legacy? Fewer apprentices in this country. The money that they put back last week into apprenticeship training—let us be quite honest. It is not even the equivalent of what they ripped out a couple of years ago from the training budget. It just does not add up. 
So what will Labour do? Labour does have a positive alternative to tackle youth unemployment and it is a positive alternative that we are rightly proud of. And when we go around the country when I talk to young people in my electorate of Wigram and when my colleagues talk to young people in their electorates there is a great deal of enthusiasm. 
We will pay employers the equivalent of the dole to take on apprentices. We know that employers all around the country are crying out for some help to work with this. We will back Kiwi businesses to be able to do this. We will work with councils on projects that support their provinces. We are going to be actively creating jobs. We are not going to sit back and wait for the magic of the market to do it because we know that what is needed now and what New Zealand needs to address this crisis is an active Government that is willing to roll up its sleeves and do something and not sit back and hope for the best. Hope hope and more hope have not led to positive outcomes for our young New Zealanders. 
I think the future that our young people face is an absolute travesty. As David Shearer said earlier this afternoon in his speech aspiration is not a word we hear anymore from members opposite. They have no aspiration for young New Zealanders. I hope to see some movement on the real issue of youth unemployment this year.