Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) condemns the Queensland Government for failing the people of Queensland;

(2) notes that:

(a) Queensland is leading the nation on job losses;

(b) more than 30,000 jobs have disappeared from Queensland in the last year and almost 40,000 people have given up looking;

(c) Queensland's participation rate is at a more than 20-year low and more people are giving up looking for work; and

(d) Queensland is in a jobs crisis and it is clear that the Premier of Queensland has no plan for the future; and

(3) calls on the Queensland Government to end its empty rhetoric on jobs and actually start delivering for the people of Queensland.

It was just a few short weeks ago that we were treated to the news that the Queensland government had miraculously delivered a jobs budget in my home state of Queensland. In fact, the term was a jobs 'bonanza', a veritable goldmine of opportunities for our jobseekers. The Palasczczuk government promised this, but in the same breath they admitted they could not even guarantee that Queensland's unemployment rate would fall below six per cent in the foreseeable future.

What a sham it is from this state government that keeps spouting the rhetoric that it is providing for Queensland but in reality there is no clear strategy for boosting employment figures. Current figures show that Queensland still has the second-worst unemployment rate in Australia. I will acknowledge that some 42,700 jobs were created last year but just 6,600 of them were full-time positions and, in reality, 11,200 full-time jobs were lost just last month. The unemployment rate in Queensland has not budged from 6.3 per cent since the beginning of this year, and the gap between the Queensland and the Australian unemployment rate has tripled.

It is true that Queensland's unemployment picture looks prettier currently but this has only been because of a declining participation rate of jobseekers. Fewer people are actively participating in the labour market, meaning they are not reflected in the unemployment numbers, which is artificially lowering the headline unemployment rate. If the participation rate in Queensland had actually remained steady instead of falling, as it has under the Labor government, the trend unemployment rate in Queensland would actually be about seven per cent. Instead of leading the nation in job creation and job security as we should be, we see record unemployment rates in Townsville and sky-high youth unemployment rates in regional centres. We are fighting for the wooden spoon, for last place. That is not where a state like Queensland should be. But this was not always the case.

When Labor came to power, Queensland's unemployment rate was equal with Victoria, just behind New South Wales, and well ahead of South Australia and Tasmania. So what has happened? I know the effects of this softly softly Labor government are being felt in my own electorate of Forde, with some 2,000 jobs disappearing from the Logan Beaudesert region in the past year. It is clear Queenslanders are being let down and left behind by the Palaszczuk Labor government.

In a refreshing contrast to the same old rhetoric we are getting from state Labor, the state opposition leader, Tim Nicholls, recently highlighted in his budget reply speech how too many rules exist in Queensland that stifle enterprise and hamstring entrepreneurship, with the ultimate price being paid but fewer jobs created. Mr Nicholls and the state LNP have committed to focusing on six key drivers to drive jobs and diversity in the economy: tourism, agriculture, resources, construction and manufacturing, science and technology, and education.

It is the state LNP that clearly has a plan for the future, not one working off some arbitrary ideology of politics that delivers no real outcomes for Queenslanders. Compounding this, we at a federal level are seeking to support jobseekers in Queensland. Our tax cuts for the small business sector are specifically aimed at helping drive down unemployment figures in local communities and at giving employers the confidence they need to take on new and well trained staff. We are committed to creating job opportunities in Queensland but we cannot continue to be hamstrung by the Palaszczuk state Labor government, a government that continues to promise a whole lot and deliver a whole lot less.

Queenslanders are crying out for leadership on this issue. I call on the Queensland state government to cease its hollow arguments on job creation, to stop the dithering and the debating, and to actually start working to create and provide employment opportunities in our great state of Queensland.

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