Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Employment. Since the budget was handed down, over 30,000 job losses have been announced. I ask again how many more Australians the government forecasts will lose their jobs over the next 12 months.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the Deputy Leader of the Opposition for her question, and I will explain the matter again.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am glad you have read the budget, because that is reassuring me a little bit, as you go around punching a hole in its surplus. The forecast in the budget papers is for a revision upwards in the unemployment rate to 4.75 per cent. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition may also be aware that in its latest statement on monetary policy the RBA stated—and this is actually the employment growth figure—that annual employment growth is forecast to average three-quarters of a per cent over the next year before gradually picking up. They are the forecasts in the budget papers, and they are the reflections of the RBA on the question of what is going to happen with employment growth.

As I indicated to the Leader of the Opposition—admittedly in response to an interjection from the Leader of the Opposition—we are of course concerned about the circumstance of every person who loses a job. In order to respond to the circumstance of Australians who lose a job when there is a company that announces that there will be a retrenchment of a number of workers, there is of course an immediate response in terms of employment assistance and the like. There is, from time to time, a need to access the GEER Scheme if people are not going to receive their full entitlements. The question of redundancy entitlements is very important to this government; that is why we are seeking to protect them through our fair and balanced industrial relations system, because they were not protected under Work Choices. Of course the government is also strengthening our employment services through the redesign and retendering of the Job Network.