Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has delivered a fiery defence of a controversial new internship scheme unveiled in Tuesday night's budget, saying the program could prove "life changing" for disengaged youth.
Unions have slammed the PaTH program as "slave labour", stoking fears young people could be forced to work for as little as $4 an hour with poor prospects of securing ongoing work afterward.
After days of public backlash against the short-term internships, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull came out firing against criticism of the new measures.
"This is an outstanding new measure that's been proposed in the budget and it's one that will ensure that young people who are unemployed get the experience of employment," he told reporters in Sydney on Friday.
"You take a young person who is unemployed, who is perhaps unemployable, and you make them employable, you change a whole life.
"You change their life, the life of their partner, the life of their children."
After championing the advantages of securing work experience and honing life skills, Mr Turnbull unloaded on Labor and the unions.
"It is a matter of great shame that the Labor Party, and the unions that direct the Labor Party, are opposing this," he said.
"They are standing in the way of young people with poor prospects transforming their lives for the better, and they should be ashamed."
