Chris Crewther (Dunkley, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm very surprised by this matter of public importance from the member for Wakefield, claiming that Australians are losing their jobs because of this government when in fact it is the very opposite. We currently have the strongest full-time jobs growth in Australia's history. In my electorate of Dunkley, in fact, unemployment increased under Labor, peaking at 6.2 per cent at the end of their terms of government in September 2013. In March 2017, after four years of coalition government, it dropped to 5.4 per cent, on the latest Dunkley-specific figures that I have. This compares very favourably to national figures. We have seen the unemployment rate decrease by 0.1 of a percentage point over the last month, to 5.5 per cent in September 2017. We've seen over 825,000 jobs created under our government, with employment standing at a record high of over 12.2 million jobs in September 2017. The participation rate is at a five-year high, and jobs growth is the highest since 2008. Over the last 12 months, 371,000 jobs were created. We've also seen, under this government, employment increase strongly, rising by 3.1 per cent over the last year, well above the decade average rate of 1.6 per cent.

Specifically in Dunkley, since I was elected, the federal government has made over 200 different funding investments, many of which contribute to jobs growth locally. One key investment is the $4 million going towards our Dunkley rail plan, which will be a business case to extend Metro rail from Frankston to Baxter. This project in and of itself will create 4,000 jobs, cutting unemployment in our area by up to one per cent. It will reduce youth disengagement by two per cent, increase local university enrolment by up to 20 per cent and provide hospital accessibility. But, like their federal counterparts, Victorian state Labor decided to delay this jobs growth over the past 12 months by stopping our federally funded business case going ahead. Only after a year of continual advocacy by me and the minister have they finally signed off.

On similar matters, federal Labor are worse than their state counterparts, and they were even worse when they were in government. To start with, they want to increase our energy costs, which will only make it harder for businesses to create more jobs. Labor failed working Australians. Under six years of their government, the jobless queues grew by around 203,000. In the period that the Leader of the Opposition was the Minister for Workplace Relations, the number of unemployed people increased by around 77,000 while his government was busy signing off on more and more 457 visas. Consider, for example, that when Labor were in government previously they made it harder for businesses to employ people by hitting them with a $9 billion-a-year carbon tax, hitting them with a mining tax and abolishing the Australian Building and Construction Commission—all things that contributed to Labor losing government.

In contrast, we have a plan to grow the economy and create new jobs. To this end we have, for example, included in the latest budget $75 billion in infrastructure funding from now until 2026-27. We've cut the tax rate for small businesses to 27.5 per cent. We've also invested in the establishment of a $10 billion National Rail Program to deliver rail projects that better connect our cities and regions and create job opportunities. I hope that once the state government figures out that the Baxter electrification in my electorate of Dunkley is a good thing it will contribute state funding, and then the federal government could co-contribute to this important local project. We've got the Regional Growth Fund, which will invest $472 million in regional infrastructure projects. And we've also seen several successful programs in Dunkley funded by the federal government, such as those via the Brotherhood of St Laurence or the Work for the Dole program within vision services.

In conclusion, I say to the member for Wakefield and Labor: stop the falsities and tell the truth—coalition governments create jobs. (Time expired)

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