The politics of youth

That prompts mining companies to include a training clause in their tender documents, which would ensure that smaller sub-contractors are training young people in their local areas, and at no cost to them because it is factored into the tender price. A contract like that for three to five years gives a young person the chance to receive training over an appropriate period of time, and ultimately everyone benefits including the mining company.

Government should also be encouraging businesses to incorporate training into their business models. They can do it: back in 1990 the Government introduced the Training Guarantee Levy (TGL) to:

“raise the training-of-staff efforts of Australian enterprises, in both the private sector and the public sector.  Some sectors in the Australian economy had become concerned that the skills base had been eroding, leaving Australia firms increasing less able to compete, both in international markets and domestically. Surveys conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) had shown that many firms did not undertake any staff training at all, and many more provided only minimal training (although the average amounts overall were above the designated proportions as outlined below). In the absence of any substantive commitments by employers to increase their levels of training, and with apparently widespread concern that trained staff were being 'poached' by firms not prepared to invest in training their own existing staff, the Commonwealth government felt obliged to change the 'culture' of industry training, especially to encourage employers to regard training as an investment rather than a cost. It introduced what became known as the National Training Reform Agenda, of which the TGL was a component.”

Some experts believe the only reason the Training Guarantee Levy failed was because the legislation was not descriptive enough and many employers took advantage of definitional loopholes like the use of the word training instead of "accredited training".

Youth Express also believes that a lot of our young people are not receiving adequate and appropriate careers advice at school, and aren't being educated about job services available to them both before they leave school and afterwards (when it really is too late). For many the HSC is a less than fulfilling experience, and they may go on to University, drop out and in the meantime miss the cut off dates for TAFE. In the interim, they're idle or soaking up insecure casual or part-time work, which hardly makes them self-sufficient.

If they are disconnected or don't secure work for more than six months many lose their self-esteem and become disengaged, and the "black dog" starts to bite. If they don't qualify for the Youth Allowance (for example, because of parental income) they can, if they are told and if they show the initiative, get a referral from Centrelink to Job Services Australia. But if you think like a young person you can see why that isn't an attractive proposition. And if you're over 21 you can, again through Centrelink, get a referral to Job Services Australia and use their computers and services for job seeking, but you don't get any case management. In other words, you feel like you're on your own. Life sucks. Unfortunately Timbuk3, there's no need for the sunnies anymore, thanks.

News of job cuts, voodoo economics and promises of budget surpluses mean little to our unemployed youth. When young people take to the streets it's easy to shout out the bus window, "Get a job!", and trivialise their problems as attitudinal. But like it or not these young people are citizens of this country and they're here to stay. It is in everyone's interests, both short-term and long-term, that resources be allocated, and that clever plans like that of Youth Express be encouraged and implemented, to ensure that young people have the opportunity to work and to "skill up" if Australia is to have any sort of future beyond selling off ever increasing bits of the family farm. The alternative is to just sit back and wait for the fireworks down the track.