Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Vocational Education) Share this | Hansard source

They got rid of all the incentives Labor had put in place for small business and replaced them with nothing—nothing. Therefore, after 12 months, they have decided they actually have to go back to the issue and try to repair some of the damage that they have done.

I just have a little challenge for members opposite. I extended it to the Assistant Treasurer during our chat at the table. Anybody who is sitting here is welcome to take it up. They criticised the shadow Treasurer and the shadow small business minister for not putting out any positive press releases about government initiatives. Well, I challenge them, over the entirety of the years of the Labor government, to find me one press release—just one; that will do; I will be happy with that—from a shadow minister congratulating on or endorsing a Labor government initiative. If they can do that, I will accept that the minister may not be delusional on these matters, but I doubt very much that they will be able to find a single one.

Let us come back to the reality. Before the election, the commitment of the now Prime Minister—who at that time was the Leader of the Opposition—to the Australian people was that he was going to create a million jobs. What is the reality with unemployment at this point in time?

I am going to use the government's own budget to outline what the current system will be. This government budget as released this week confirms that unemployment will be higher and stay higher as a result of the budget.

Despite all the rhetoric we hear, the budget forecasts unemployment to reach 6.5 per cent—

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