Karen McNamara (Dobell, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Alright. To get back to the MPI: Australians will only have wages and conditions as long as they have a job, and let's not forget what happened to Australian jobs under Labor's watch. Two hundred thousand more Australians were unemployed, 129,000 manufacturing jobs were lost—over one in 10 disappeared completely—and, in the period that the Leader of the Opposition was Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, unemployment rose from 5.2 per cent to 5.7 per cent and the number of unemployed people increased by 80,000. During Labor's time in office, unemployment went from 4.4 per cent in November 2007 to 5.7 per cent in September 2013. Getting back to the other topic we were talking about before, the reality is that, under Labor's watch, in Dobell more small businesses shut their doors than anywhere else in Australia, and under Labor 412,000 jobs were lost in small business.

Unlike members opposite we saw this as a serious problem that needed to be addressed, and unlike members opposite we have a plan to build a stronger economy, to get more people off welfare and into jobs, and to support the growth and sustainability of Australia's small business. It is our plan to see more Australians in jobs. (Time expired)

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