Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence Materiel) Share this | Hansard source

I withdraw. I wonder whether the member for Indi tells those workers what she said in the Work Choices debate when she said that Work Choices was 'big but fair'. The fact is that there is only one champion of Australian workers in this place and it is the Australian Labor Party. We are the ones with the runs on the board. We are the party that established workers compensation, that established the workers pension, that introduced universal superannuation and that got rid of Work Choices—and it is good to see the architect of Work Choices, the member for Mayo, in the chamber today. We are the party that has helped create 750,000 jobs in the last three years. At the same time in the United States there have been six million jobs lost. Before the global recession, unemployment in Australia and the United States was under five per cent. Unemployment in Australia now is 5.3 per cent and in the United States it is now 9.1 per cent. It tells us that we made the right decision and that the Liberal Party made the wrong decision in opposing the stimulus. If we had not acted, unemployment today would be more like it is in the United States—eight or nine per cent. The fact is that unemployment goes up quickly but takes a long, long time to come down. It would have taken five, maybe 10, years before unemployment reached the level that it is again today. That would have meant a decade of unemployment for a generation of workers.

What does the Leader of the Opposition say about this? In his first major speech as the Leader of the Opposition on economic matters in March 2010, he said:

The economic stimulus wasn't necessary to strengthen Australia's economy at a time of global recession …

His was a speech called 'Economic fundamentals'—and he got it fundamentally wrong. It shows bad economic judgment. But his judgment is bad on other things as well, because, if those opposite really cared about jobs, really cared about Australian industry, they would vote for the minerals resource rent tax. Think about this: over the last two weeks BHP has announced its largest profit ever on record—over $23 billion, its highest ever. On the other side of the country you have got BlueScope Steel, another great Australian company, announcing a $1 billion loss. A high Australian dollar has helped to create a two-speed economy and this is one of the best examples of it. Miners are earning more, pushing up the value of the Australian dollar, and that is making it harder for Australian industries like manufacturing. It is only fair, then, and it only makes sense, that mining companies pay a little bit more to help other industries like BlueScope Steel, like the industries that the member for Indi pretends to care about, to pay a little bit less.

Mr Briggs interjecting—

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