Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The situation, Minister, is that the government has its focus entirely wrong. The government is focused on implementing legislation which will destroy job opportunities for generations of Australians. Just walk down the main street of any town or city in the country and you will find that small business and large business have never had a lower level of confidence, and this is after barely 365 days of Labor government. The National Australia Bank’s most recent economic outlook survey has unemployment increasing to 6.5 per cent—well in excess of any government forecast—by mid-2010. In the mid-year forecast, sure, the Treasurer upgraded the anticipated number of unemployed—although not to the extent that independent people said—but the reality is that this government is fiddling, it is talking, it is abusing the opposition and it is playing party politics. It is doing everything other than addressing the desperate job crisis that is now confronting Australian families.

Just imagine, Minister, what it is like to be a breadwinner and to be threatened with redundancy because of the economic situation. Many of these people voted for the Labor Party last year and now many of these people are seriously worried. Minister, I ask you to stop playing politics. I ask you to stop seeking solutions from us. I ask you to think very carefully about the need to save Australian jobs, because the government will not have the economic wherewithal to deliver desirable social outcomes unless the government receives income from taxes—and you do not receive income from taxes unless you have got Australians in real jobs.

I listened carefully also to an answer given during question time by the Deputy Prime Minister in relation to jobs. She talked about the 75,000 jobs allegedly to be created as a result of the stimulus package. Mind you, I will believe that when I see it. I would like to believe it is true but, given the government’s comprehensive failure in so many areas, I am not confident that that is in fact going to occur. She then moved to support services in the area of unemployment. So she did not have any answer. She had even fewer points to make than the Minister for Employment Participation did in this MPI. Maybe that is the reason why the senior minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, has run away from her parliamentary colleagues in this MPI.

So no matter where we go, no matter where we look, we find that the Rudd Labor government simply do not have an answer with respect to jobs. The Rudd Labor government are simply wringing their hands. They have collectively made a decision that this is just too difficult. They wish that next year would come. They wish that the economic crisis had not occurred—as, indeed, we all do—but they simply do not have the mettle to take on the challenges presented to government at this time. Any party can provide government in good times. The test of a good government or a bad government is the ability to govern for all Australians in bad times. At the present time we face increasing job challenges, lack of job security, high levels of concern in the community, and yet this minister has the audacity to come into the parliament and not give us any response. He comes into the parliament and waffles on, he talks, he fills up his 15 minutes, but at the end of the day we are little clearer than we were at the outset of this debate on just where the government are going. The government have run out of steam. This is amazing after 12 months! (Time expired)

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