Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Labor Party has the temerity to come in here today and lecture us about job creation. This from a party that gave us the recession we had to have—unlike this recession, created by a global pandemic, a recession created by policy decisions of the then Keating government, a recession that gave us 11 per cent unemployment and 34 per cent youth unemployment, a recession for which the response from the Keating government at the time wasn't the sort of positive plans that we saw last night from the Treasurer, wasn't the sort of 'let's get people into jobs' approach of the Morrison government. It was instead a 'wash our hands of the situation, it's all too hard' approach. The employment minister during the Keating recession—and the minister at the table is right to remind us of this history—to quote from a journalist at the time, 'Didn't seem to be putting his heart and soul into the portfolio.' Another journalist, who later went to work for him, said 'The greatest ambition harboured by the highly relieved minister was a change in portfolio from employment—read unemployment.'

They didn't have their eye on the job. The Prime Minister at the time, Paul Keating, didn't have his eye on the job in terms of fixing the unemployment problem. He was padding around the Lodge in his pyjamas, listening to Mahler and coming up with insults for question time rather than focusing on unemployment. We have heard from him recently. The Labor Party in those days used to call him 'captain wacky'. Well, wacky is back and he has a new tax—and his tax is a death tax. I can tell you that most of those opposite have him on speed dial, so you can add the death tax to the $387 billion of new taxes they took to the last election. The truth is that the Labor Party has an abysmal record on employment. Keating himself, in the middle of that recession, famously told a group of students, 'Go get a job.' That's the Labor Party, in the depths of a recession, that's the Labor Party when they are dealing with issues to do with job creation.

There could not be a greater contrast than that between the Labor Party and the Keating government and the Morrison government and what we've done in relation to employment. Everything we have done since the start of our government, but particularly since the start of the pandemic, has been focused on job creation. JobSeeker and JobKeeper have created over 700,000 jobs—760,000 jobs have been created since the pandemic started. Sixty per cent of those jobs were for women. Many of the measures in last night's budget were focused on job creation. The JobMaker hiring credit is at the centre of this. It's very important that we get young people who find themselves unemployed into work as soon as possible, because history demonstrates that the longer a person is unemployed at the start of their career the harder it is for them to get into employment and to stay in employment longer term. That's why the hiring credit is so important. It's a program that will create 450,000 jobs. The increase in JobTrainer, which will create 100,000 new apprenticeships, with a 50 per cent wage subsidy, provides new jobs and a pathway to jobs for people. The tax relief for 11 million taxpayers will create 50,000 jobs, as a result of the new economic activity. The instant asset write-off and the loss carry-back provisions will create an additional 50,000 jobs. The infrastructure investments—the increase on the 100,000 jobs in infrastructure investments we have already created—will create an additional 40,000 jobs. The increased home ownership from the First Home Loan Deposit Scheme and the HomeBuilder program that we have previously announced, will create more jobs in the housing construction sector.

These programs are all focused on job creation. So, to hear from the Labor Party that we are not focused on job creation, that we are not putting all of our efforts into giving businesses the opportunity to focus on job creation, to give businesses the tools they need to employ people, is just laughable. It's laughable particularly at a time when it shouldn't be laughable, when we are dealing with the greatest economic crisis Australia has faced since the Great Depression. Our response has been focused on how we get Australians back into jobs. The totality of last night's budget measures will create 950,000 new jobs. These are jobs that are important for Australians, important for our recovery and important for our future.

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