Michael Ferguson (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question today is addressed to the Prime Minister. What is the government’s response to the latest employment statistics? Prime Minister, are there any threats to this 33-year low in unemployment in Australia?

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Bass for that question. I am very pleased to inform the House that unemployment remains at 4.3 per cent, which represents the lowest unemployment rate this country has had for 33 years. An additional 21,800 jobs were created in July. All of those jobs were full time and half of those jobs were created in Victoria, which gives the lie to the argument advanced by the opposition that all of the jobs growth in Australia over the last few years has been due to the mining boom in Western Australia and in Queensland.

I am happy to tell those who sit opposite that 387,500 jobs have been created since the new industrial relations laws were introduced in March last year. I say that again: 387,500 jobs have been created since the new industrial relations laws were introduced, despite the warnings of the former opposition leader, echoed no doubt by the current opposition leader and by leading union officials, that, so far from creating new jobs, the new industrial relations laws would in fact destroy jobs.

I am also happy to note that 84 per cent of the jobs created since the industrial relations changes have been full-time jobs. One of the features of the new industrial relations laws is that they have encouraged the provision of full-time as distinct from part-time jobs and that is very welcome and very pleasing to the workforce in Australia today. What today’s labour force figures tell us is that there has been no change in the underlying strength in the Australian labour market. Unemployment remains at a remarkably low level and the participation rate remains at a record high.

Looking below the headline figures, there are some interesting further statistics which paint a picture of a wonderful social and human dividend from the good economic policies of the last 10 years. Between 1997 and 2006, the proportion of single parents in the labour force has increased from 52 to 62 per cent, an increase of 10 per cent over the last 10 years. The proportion of lone mothers in the labour force rose over the same period from 49 to 60 per cent and, very significantly, the number of dependent children aged 15 or less in families where no parent is employed has fallen by 117,200 or 17½ per cent since June 1996. I would have thought that that particular figure is a wonderful validation of the value of a sustained fall in unemployment in Australia.

Since the introduction of the Welfare to Work reforms, the number of all welfare recipients has fallen by 100,000, a reduction of 3.9 per cent. Welfare to Work has been a great success. It is a reform that was bitterly opposed by the Labor Party when we introduced it. We were told that we were heartless, we were told that we were indifferent and we were told that we were contemptuous towards people who, after their children had reached a certain age, were being asked to return to the workforce.

The evidence has been to the contrary. Welfare to Work has been a great success. And now, of course, we hear not a word of criticism offered about Welfare to Work from the man who sits opposite me, the Leader of the Opposition. Having scathingly attacked Welfare to Work, he now of course faithfully says that he agrees with me on Welfare to Work. He is practising ‘echonomics’ on this, as he is on so many other issues.

The member for Bass asked me whether there was any threat to the very low level of unemployment in Australia at the present time. I would have thought the biggest threat to the low level of unemployment in Australia would be the abandonment of the workplace relations reforms of this government. If we go back on workplace relations, if we turn back the clock, if we retreat on a major economic reform, that will not only have a negative effect on the economy overall but specifically, if we bring back the unfair dismissal laws, small business in Australia once again will be frightened to take on new staff.

One of the spectacular features of the labour market at the moment is that there has been over the last year a fall of about 26 per cent in the level of the full-time unemployed in this country. They are people who have been out of work for more than a year. It should be a matter of jubilation for everybody in this parliament that that figure has fallen by 26 per cent over the last year. We should all be saying, ‘What a wonderful thing for the unemployed of this country.’ Why has that happened? I think one of the reasons it has happened is that, faced no longer with the threat of the old unfair dismissal laws, many small businesses in this country have taken on more staff. They have taken a risk. They have taken on more staff knowing that if, unfortunately in some cases, it does not work out somebody can be allowed to go, without the small business operator facing the prospect of paying $30,000 or $40,000 of ‘go away’ money and eating into the meagre profits that some of them make. I think it would be a tragedy for long-term unemployment in this country if we bring back those old unfair dismissal laws. And the only party that is promising to do that is the Australian Labor Party.