Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party, Minister for Workforce Participation) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for Fadden for his question. It is a most important question for the economy and for all Australians who expect a fair go. The member for Grayndler a little while ago said in a press release:

Persistent high levels of long-term unemployment are indisputable proof that the Howard Government’s Job Network is failing to place the unemployed into jobs.

This was amazing. This was followed up with an ABC Adelaide radio interview, where the journalist asked the member for Grayndler:

“So you will take back, you will do away with the privatised network and you will bring all of these functions back into government if elected?”

The member for Grayndler snapped back:

No, certainly not.

Of course, the member for Grayndler understood that the Job Network is an extraordinarily successful program. The latest figures show that the Job Network has delivered record-breaking numbers of job outcomes, especially for the long-term unemployed.

In the last 12 months, Job Network has helped nearly 640,000 Australians, previously welfare dependent, into a real job. Nearly 47,000 of those jobs were for single parents, and that is a 57 per cent increase on the previous 12 months. We have also placed 11,000 people with a disability into employment—that is a new annual record. Almost 45,000 Indigenous Australians were found work. Mr Speaker, you know our Indigenous Australians have had some of the greatest difficulty finding jobs in previous generations. Most importantly, long-term unemployment has fallen by over 70 per cent since 1993. That is 230,000 fewer people—fewer families—who have been locked into long-term unemployment.

You need to compare these statistics to when long-term unemployment actually peaked at 330,000 in May 1993. Yes, it is a significant date: it was when the Leader of the Opposition was employment minister. That is when long-term unemployment peaked, very tragically, for the Australian people. What did the Leader of the Opposition, then the employment minister, say about this problem? He said that long-term unemployment was ‘an almost intractable problem’ and ‘the guts of the problem is going to be there with us and it is growing’.

Can you imagine what the long-term unemployed thought when they heard that dismissal?

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