Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Hand on heart indeed, Member for Lalor. It says here:

The Abbott government came up with its pledge to create 1 million jobs in five years solely on the employment growth rate achieved under the former Howard government, a Coalition insider says.

So there was no map; there was no economics; it was just: 'We'll just pull out the history books and see what they did and we'll apply it here.' That was the great level of analysis that went into this.

I admit I have got here the Diaz version of the master plan. It has got bigger text and a lot more pictures. It has the member for Wentworth here. He needs no airbrushing, the jaw of Bondi! Look at that square jaw right there! There he is. It is a good front cover. We went through it. We had the Minister for Small Business talking to us about how well they were going to help small business. I checked it out in here as well. This is well thumbed—you would think I would get straight to this. They talk about lowering taxes and reducing business costs for small business. What is the first thing they do when they get in? The asset tax write-off, gone; loss carry-back, gone. How does that help small business?

All these things have happened and now we are getting this move back, this move that says: 'It's not us that creates the jobs,' like there was an asterisk at the end of that pledge 'We will create one million jobs.' There is none of that. Now it is: 'It's business. We are going to help business create those jobs. That's what we meant.' I actually remember the Prime Minister coming in here and saying, 'It's not us; it's you. You don't understand English as we say it.' They now say it is others that have to create the jobs: 'It's business. We'll make the environment right.' I actually reckon, now that I have got the Diaz plan, I am just going to make a quick amendment and put here 'Real excuses for all Australians'.

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