The major issue with this IMO is that young people need to start on the employment ladder at the bottom and work their way up.
As a nation, we are failing our youth if we ensure that those jobs are taken by foreigners who they cannot compete with. What I mean by this, is that illegals are employed outside the system whereas locals cannot compete because they must accept minimum wage, pay tax, collect super etc as they are forced to be within the system. If jobs are going to foreigners because those jobs are not even available to locals in the first place, that is a disgrace.
I am sure there are dole bludgers amongst them, however, I refuse to believe that there are a lot of people who would choose the lack of money, self esteem and associated negative consequences of being unemployed. People (for the most part) fundamentally want to be involved in society and get ahead. I myself spent a year as an unemployed person (having previously been continually employed for 15 years) and I can attest that it is not something many people would choose willingly.
Our society has failed if we choose to look after others ahead of our own.
Creating a generation of people unable to work will have very negative consequences for our society both economically and socially. Europe, where birth rates have plummeted and welfare dependency has sky rocketed, partly as a result of high youth unemployment, should be flashing a bright red warning sign to us.
I am as free markets as the next person and believe in small government and a safety net approach to welfare. Yet, what we have created in Australia by the looks of it is a fundamentally broken and corrupt labour market.
