Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for McPherson for her question and note that she works incredibly hard in her electorate to help keep economic prosperity in place. In 1996, the unemployment rate in her electorate was 10 per cent. Today it is four per cent. That has come about because of the hard economic decisions made by this government and opposed by the Labor Party, which have helped to keep economic prosperity in place.

For young Australians, wages are up in real terms. There are more jobs than ever available for young Australians. In fact, if you look at it today, you will see that only one in 27 teenagers in Australia is now unemployed and looking for full-time work—a 3.7 per cent unemployment rate. Under the Howard government, youth wages have increased in real terms by almost one per cent a year, every year. Under the Labor Party, real wages went backwards for young people by 0.3 per cent every year. So wages for young Australians are growing three times faster under the Howard government. They have more jobs than ever. As the OECD found, when we got rid of those unfair dismissal laws, small business in particular had the courage to take a punt on employing someone who had never had a job—and that is good for young Australians. The Labor Party wants to reintroduce those unfair and discriminatory unfair dismissal laws to small business, and that will inevitably lead to fewer jobs for young Australians and fewer jobs for women.

I am asked what the great threat is. Unquestionably, the greatest threat is the Labor Party. The Labor Party’s industrial relations plan has been written, authorised and paid for by the trade union bosses who are now going to come into the parliament in waves like a tsunami at the next election. Isn’t it interesting that all of the trade union bosses have found themselves a safe Labor seat and these so-called high-profile candidates have been put into marginal seats or safe Liberal seats. It is very interesting, isn’t it?

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