The federal government’s Office for Youth will be officially launched on Thursday.
The 2008 budget commitment is designed to put a greater focus on youth affairs and programs across multiple government portfolios.
In response to a question in parliament about the trade school massacre in Finland, Youth Minister Kate Ellis said the office would be unveiled on Thursday.
She said the program would help determine what programs were being put in place by the federal government for young people.
“This is an absolute tragedy what’s happened in Finland,” she said.
“We want to make sure that we put in place every mechanism to prevent any similar tragedies in Australia, and that means we need to tackle this at a number of levels.
“Young people are facing a whole range of issues … with the internet, with cyber bullying, with text messaging, and we need new responses to that.
“What we are announcing tomorrow will be the creation of the Office for Youth.”
Police had questioned the gunman – 22-year-old student Matti Juhani Saari – on Monday about YouTube postings in which he is seen firing a handgun, but he was released because there was no legal reason to hold him.
He shot dead 10 people the next day before fatally shooting himself in the head.
