Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Energy and Resources) Share this | Hansard source

Almost a million people were without a job in the Keating years.

It took a coalition government to do something about it. When the previous government, the Howard government, came to power in March 1996, the unemployment level was 8.2 per cent. Gradually, as the Howard government’s policies worked, the unemployment level came down. Who would have thought that, with an eight per cent level, we used to fantasise about having a ‘five’ as that figure. We then got excited because we were actually going to put more people in jobs and create a four per cent unemployment level. During the Howard years, the golden years of government in this country, the unemployment level came down to 4.2 per cent—that is what it was when we left office. It had almost halved.

Two million jobs were created in that time. In the less than half a term of this government, they have suddenly reversed that trend and a million people are going to be out of work. Their own forecasts and the forecasts of all reliable commentators in this country say that, by the end of this year, almost a million people are going to be out of work. So much for doing the right thing by the workers! The best thing you can do for a worker is to give them a job. If you really want to represent the workers of this country, make sure they have a job, they are meaningfully employed. That is how they can get a mortgage, they can pay for their own, they do not have to be welfare dependent and they can have self-esteem—unlike the 50,000 people who lost their jobs last month and the 50,000 who lost their jobs the month before that. A rogue figure came out last month of an increase in employment by 20,000. Nobody believes that figure. Even the Prime Minister said the other day that that figure is a rogue figure.

Next month, after this budget, expect the unemployment figure to blow out. In the previous budget, in May last year, they forecast an extra hundred-odd thousand people to be out of work—they actually budgeted for that. Now they are budgeting for a million people to be out of work. So much for being the friend of the workers! They said their initial stimulus package would create 75,000 new jobs. Since October last year, not one new job has been created. That is the track record of this government—they are actually putting people out of work, putting them onto the dole queue. Tonight’s budget is going to confirm that.

Yesterday in the Age Michael Costa said:

“the Prime Minister and his Treasurer don’t know what they’re—

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