Speech in the Legislative Assembly
26 March 2009

Mr Speaker, next week is National Youth Week.  From 28 March – 5 April there will be a series of activities celebrating youth.  There will also be a number of activities aimed at young people coming together and sharing ideas and raising issues that are of concern.

It is therefore timely and appropriate in the lead up to this celebration of youth that I put on the record my congratulations to one of Australia’s oldest and largest youth organisations: the Young Liberal Movement of Australia.

The Young Liberals have a proud history of significant contribution to the Liberal Party.   Their genesis was in the Young Nationalists organisation which was formed around 1929 and had Robert Gordon Menzies as its first president – who was of course later to become the longest serving Prime Minister of Australia.

In 1944 during the formation of the Liberal Party, the Young Nationalists played a significant role and in December 1945 the Young Liberals were formed.

In the ACT, our local Young Liberals were formed in November 1962.  During 1963, the now active ACT Young Liberals helped form the ANU Liberal Club, another body for youth in the ACT that represented and advocated for student issues on campus.

The Young Liberals unashamedly stand up for the values of mainstream Australian youth.  The youth of Australia do believe in individual freedom, in stable and democratic government, in economic freedom, in individual responsibility, and in society and family values.  These are the beliefs of the Young Liberal Movement. Through the Young Liberal Movement the youth of Australia have a voice in Australia’s most successful post world war II political party.

At this time of youth week, it is worth recapping the record of Labor Governments as it relates to youth.

After around a year-and-a-half in government, what has the Rudd Government achieved for the youth of Australia? A new compulsory fee at universities.  I have already spoken in this place on this issue, and will simply add that at a time of financial and economic turmoil, the single thing the Rudd Government can give to students, is a new tax.

Where has the ACT Government’s Minister for Children and Young People been on this issue? Has he been out defending the students of Canberra against the Rudd Government’s proposal? No.  I certainly haven’t heard him come in here praising the policy – so he must be sorely embarrassed that it is his own party that is imposing an unfair tax on young people while he is supposed to be supporting and defending those very same young people.

I am pleased that the federal coalition will vote against this unfair imposition. 

The Young Liberals, along with the Australian Liberals Students Federation, have campaigned against the re-introduction of this Labor tax on youth.

Of course, many Australian youth are not students.  Seventy per cent of young people are not students.  Governments have made the mistake in the past of treating those in trades as a second rate career.  I’m very proud that the Howard Government reversed this trend and sought to restore the trades.  Amongst the initiatives implemented by the Howard Government include:
• Australian Technical Colleges – so that by the time you finish school you can be well on the way to a career in the trades
• Tax free wage top ups
• Apprenticeship Training Vouchers – reimbursement of course fees
• $800 toolkits

And what is Labor’s record on this demographic? 

Failed land affordability policy, for a start.  Instead of reducing taxes and releasing land in an orderly manner, the Stanhope Labor Government has not one, not two, but three failed land affordability schemes that are leaving young Canberrans hanging out to dry. 

At the last election we took as a policy the abolition of stamp duty for first home buyers on properties under $500,000. The ALP would do well to copy this policy.

The difference, Mr Speaker, could not be more stark.  We have the Labor Party that has escalated the cost of land out of reach of young Canberrans, and the Liberal Party that has offered real alternatives to reduce the cost of housing for young Canberrans.

Mr Speaker, the Liberal Party is the party of youth because the Young Liberal Movement is one of Australia’s oldest, largest, and most effective youth organisations and has at is core a set of believes that are aligned with those of mainstream youth throughout Australia.