Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

On Tuesday night the Treasurer handed down a budget that the government promised would be about taxes coming down, debt coming down and unemployment falling. Instead we were witness to a budget where taxes are rising, debt is rising and unemployment is rising. Even on the government's own forecast, unemployment will be rising next financial year to 6.5 per cent. This is the highest unemployment rate for 14 years. This is a very, very big problem for the 800,000 Australians who are seeking work. What we see, over the forecast years, is a forecast where unemployment will be higher than was forecast in last year's budget. So the fact is: things are getting worse, not better, when it comes to job opportunities for Australian workers. What we need to see from this government instead is a plan for jobs. What we need to see from the Treasurer, the Prime Minister and other ministers of this government, including the Minister for Employment, is a plan for jobs for those 800,000 Australians. Instead, we have today an unemployment rate of 6.2 per cent. We have 80,000 more Australians on unemployment queues today than we had at the last election. We have a government with a very modest goal, in terms economic growth, of a million jobs in five years, and yet there are more than 80,000 jobs fewer than there should be, given the government's commitment to that goal.

The Prime Minister's goal is certainly not being met; indeed, there are more people unemployed as a result of this government. Why is that the case? When this government was elected it confected a crisis and scared business and consumers. That is why we have an economy that has been flagging. That is why we have employers who are not hiring. That is why we have consumers who are not spending. As a result, we have an economy that is in trouble. A confected crisis by this government caused problems. It dampened consumer confidence, it dampened business confidence, it has led to unemployment increasing and, unfortunately—despite this budget being called a 'jobs and family' budget—even the forecast within the budget shows that unemployment will rise over time. That means, if these forecasts are right, we are going to see tens of thousands more Australians in unemployment queues.

The question the opposition asks is: where is the government's jobs plan? Where are the jobs for the 284,000 people who are looking for work? The unemployment rate for young job seekers is nearly 14 per cent, which is well above twice the national rate of unemployment. We have young job seekers not earning or learning and they are seeking answers from this government. They want to enter the labour market. They want to be productive. They want to have a purpose and they want to have a decent job, and yet there are no jobs for them. And there is nothing in this budget that would suggest there will be job opportunities over the course of the next few years. That is a major problem and something that this government has failed to attend to, and one of the reasons is that this government and these ministers have a callous disregard for Australian workers.

We saw that writ large early in this term when we saw the Treasurer turn up at this dispatch box, in December 2013, and threaten an iconic company like Holden to leave our shores—and they are leaving. We saw it when the government said that Australian shipbuilders will not build ships. We saw it when the Prime Minister tried to do a deal with Japan to stop submarines being built in this nation. We see it when it comes to the failure of this government to invest in skills, to invest in infrastructure, to invest in those things that will create the opportunities for businesses to hire and for workers to have productive lives. These are the reasons that we are seeing unemployment rising. The figures in the government's own budget illustrate that opportunities will not be there for those Australian workers.

Some areas of this nation are at crisis point. In Northern Tasmania, in Northern Queensland, in parts of Melbourne and Sydney and in northern Adelaide, unemployment figures for young people are at 20 per cent There are major challenges for our economy. It is awful to see young people without opportunities for work, and yet there is not enough in this budget; there is not enough effort by this government to attend to this issue. And it is not just those young people who may have left school early. There are university graduates trying to work out where their jobs are for the future. There are apprentices finishing apprenticeships who cannot find work. There are trainees who cannot find work. This is a major challenge that is not being responded to by the government.

Not everything is rising. If you look at the budget figures, you see that we have the lowest rate of wage growth since the ABS started collecting information. Even for those workers who do have a job, there is very little wage growth at all. Indeed, at the very best in the next financial year it will be matching inflation. This is the lowest rate of wage growth we have seen for many a year. So, with the cost of living rising, you are going to see more families under pressure because of those very low rates of wage increases.

We have heard a lot of talk from this government about employment participation. They have suggested that they want to see more people enter the labour market. That was the reason the Prime Minister used to advocate having a paid parental scheme. He used to talk about a paid parental scheme that would ensure that women would enter the labour market. What has happened since then? The Prime Minister used to boast about improving employment participation but the paid parental leave fiasco that we have seen this week is as good as theft. What we have seen by this government in introducing the initiative that will deprive 80,000 mothers of entitlements is an absolute disgrace. First we were going to have a paid parental scheme, then we were going to have a reduced scheme, and now we are going to have no scheme at all—but, even worse than that, we have a policy that will have a perverse effect on the current workplace agreements in place in this country. There are women in this country who are working for private sector companies and who will be deprived of entitlements, and the government has the cheek to call these women fraudsters, rorters and double dippers.

These women are not fraudsters or rorters; these women negotiated those entitlements. They forewent wage increases so that they would get this entitlement, and now we have a government that is going to steal that from those women. Women who have just had a child will have a reduced entitlement, an entitlement that came about through their own discussions and negotiations at workplaces as a result of the Prime Minister's and the Treasurer's budget. And that is an injury to those 80,000 women. The insult, of course, was this government having the hide to call these women 'rorters' and 'fraudsters' and 'double dippers'.

This is not double dipping; this is double crossing by the Prime Minister of mothers who are in the workforce. This will not help employment participation. This will not improve opportunities for women in the workplace. This is an outrage that the government should change. The Prime Minister himself should come to this dispatch box and apologise to those women for the insult and the injury he has caused as a result of that item in the budget. But we will not expect the Prime Minister to do that because, as I said, this government has a callous disregard for workers, a callous disregard obviously for working mothers as well.

We want to see this government outline a jobs plan but we have seen none of that in this budget. We want to see the government engage with business. We want to see the government ensure that there is proper investment in skills to ensure that businesses can find the skilled labour they need but we do not see enough of that. They took $1 billion in the first budget out of training and apprenticeships and we do not see any improvements on that front as well, so there are major problems with this budget.

Finally, it is also important to note the way in which a government treats its own workforce. The actual increase over the forward estimates for the Commonwealth would suggest there are going to be more job cuts in the public service or indeed a wage freeze. It is incumbent on Minister Abetz to explain where he is going to cut those public service jobs or whether in fact there is going to be a wage freeze, because the money is not there to ensure that the workers are properly treated or that they keep their jobs. This is a government that has failed on jobs and needs to attend to this major challenge for this nation.

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