Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment Participation) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to thank the member for Forde for his question. It is a very important question, and I know he shows a great deal of concern about job seekers in his electorate. The government wants to boost the nation’s workforce to improve productivity and ensure that we stay globally competitive. Employment participation is one of the key elements of the government’s war on inflation. This inflation legacy—the highest inflation in 16 years—was bestowed upon the Australian people by the previous Liberal government and needs to be tackled on all fronts. Increasing participation in our workforce, of course, is also a foundation of the government’s social inclusion agenda. We know that having a job creates opportunities for financial independence and personal fulfilment.

The previous government were lucky but lazy. An unprecedented mining boom, of course, led to a welcome fall in unemployment, but the Howard government sat back and did what all Tory governments always do: they let the nation’s natural resources do the work for them instead of doing the work as a government. They ignored, for example, 20 Reserve Bank warnings on the skills crisis that besets this country. They constantly ignored the warnings of the Business Council of Australia, the Australian Industry Group and other employer bodies who were crying out for the government to address the skills crisis.

Of course, as we know, recently the shadow Treasurer has informed us, either in this place or publicly, that he does not believe there is a skills shortage in this country. The only skills shortages he likes to talk about are those that are exhibited by the Leader of the Opposition. That is the reality in this place. The only thing the shadow Treasurer likes to do is to get on the phone, and also use his email, to indicate how much he thinks the Leader of the Opposition is deficient as the leader of the party opposite. He is happy to talk about those skills shortages all day long. We know that the Howard government also ignored those who remain unemployed and failed to adjust employment programs to suit the new workforce circumstances.

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