Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for that very concise question, which allows me, I think, fairly, to give a comparison between where the government has placed Australia right now and the circumstances that we inherited. The Leader of the Opposition speaks about the economy, social policy and a whole range of matters, and I'm happy to go through them. The unemployment rate now is 3.5 per cent; it was 3.9 per cent when we came to office. The participation rate is 66.8 per cent, up from 66.4 per cent. The gender pay gap is down from 14.1 to 13.3 per cent. The number of women employed full time is up from 3.6 million to 3.9 million. The number of long-term unemployed is down from 122,000 to 100,000.

In relation to industrial disputes—this is a good one, Mr Speaker—there were 128,000 days lost in the June quarter of 2022. Do you know what it is for the March quarter, which are the last figures available? It's 7,700. Remember the industrial relations legislation and the catastrophising of those opposite. There were 128,000 days lost under them and 7,700 lost under this government. Inflation figures, we know, were at the highest this century. It was 2.1 per cent in the March quarter of 2022; in the June quarter of 2023, it was 0.8 per cent. Annual wage growth has risen from 2.4 per cent to 3.7 per cent. The wholesale electricity price was $264 a megawatt in the June quarter of 2022; now it's $108. Gas was at $31.76 in May 2022; the August average is $10.73. Private business investment was at 10.8 per cent in the March quarter of 2022; it's at 11.3 per cent today. And of course the humdinger: the state of the budget—a $78 billion deficit under them; under us, a surplus of around about $20 billion.

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