Parmar Parmjeet: Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeParmar Parmjeet: Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 01 June 2016. Volume:714;Page:11587. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): I am taking this call to support the Social Security (Extension of Young Persons Services and Remedial Matters) Amendment Bill in the second reading. As a member of the Social Services Committee I want to thank each and every submitter. Looking at the number of submissions we received 10 submissions and I would say that was reasonable for this bill. Each and every submission was given thorough consideration and as a result this bill has come back with some good amendments.This bill addresses a very serious social issue and that is long-term welfare dependency. We know that when people go on a benefit at a young age they tend to stay on a benefit for a very long time. It is very important to engage youth in education—it could be just simple coaching like budgeting courses or parenting courses—and it is important to help them get into employment because that is the best thing we can do to help them. The Youth Service is aimed at improving social and educational outcomes for young beneficiaries and this bill is to extend the Youth Service to 19-year-old beneficiaries with children and 18 and 19-year-old beneficiaries without children but who are considered to be at a significant risk of staying on benefit for a long term.This bill is about extending the support to a bigger group that is at risk of staying on benefit for a long term by helping them get into education training or employment. It is really important to engage youth and it is not an easy task to engage youth in education especially youth who are dependent on a benefit. This Government is fully committed to helping our young people. With the commitment that we have from the Government and with the support of the community and families we can definitely make the change that we want to see. The member from the Greens spoke about the investment approach and she was critical of the investment approach which is not just for the wider economic good but it is going to be good for them as individuals too.Extending the Youth Service to 19-year-old beneficiaries with children and 18 and 19-year-old beneficiaries without children—those who are considered to be at high risk of staying on benefit—is a good step. The Youth Service programme was set up in 2012—yes I heard that members are saying it is a new programme but it is not that new. It was set up in 2012 and it has been successful.Louisa Wall: Where’s the evaluation report?Dr PARMJEET PARMAR: There has been some evaluation done. An evaluation was done in 2014 and the evaluation showed that the programme is making a very positive impact on the lives of young beneficiaries. One evaluation that was done in March 2014 showed that for a number of people—young beneficiaries those who were on a youth payment—when they moved to a work-age benefit the numbers reduced by 8 percent. The numbers dropped from 38 percent to 30 percent so it is definitely giving us positive outcomes.The overall aim of this bill is to have fewer people relying on benefits. We know that employment is the best way of getting out of poverty and that is why we are focused on this. We have recently also done welfare reforms. That was also to help people get into employment and as a result we have thousands fewer children in benefit-dependent families. That is a very positive outcome. This bill is to help more and more young people have better opportunities in their lives. I support this bill and commend this bill to the House. Thank you.