Andrew Nikolic (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I hear the intervention from the member for Wakefield. These skills are skills and competencies under the National Training Framework. These are things that will make a real difference to their ability to get a job into the future. I do not understand why members opposite are actually talking down some of the things that we are doing that will address some of that disadvantage, particularly in regional areas like mine where youth unemployment has been a problem for far too long.

It is self-evident that the best way to create more jobs into the future is by ensuring that our economy continues to grow, and it is growing at an annual rate of 2.7 per cent. Under Labor it was only 1.9 per cent. Job advertisements are up, as measured by the ANZ, and it remains strong, rising in 10 of the past 11 months to be up 7.3 per cent over the year to April 2015 in seasonally adjusted terms and up 9.5 per cent in ANZ's preferred trend terms. There is so much more I could say about those green shoots of recovery, but I would simply say to those opposite: when it comes to job creation and when it comes to job creation for the most vulnerable in our society, get behind the coalition's program.

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