Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Minister for Education and Minister for Social Inclusion. Is the minister aware that in the first 17½ months of the operation of the Productivity Places Program fewer than seven per cent of the job seekers who enrolled in the training program went on to obtain a job? At a seven per cent success rate, does the minister believe the program represents value for money for Australian taxpayers?

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

I am very glad the Leader of the Opposition asked me about the Productivity Places Program because it enables me to explain three things about it—three vital aspects of this program. There is the stream that the Leader of the Opposition has referred to, which is the stream supporting job seekers, and obviously that stream is very important during the days of the global recession. It is not easy during a global recession, as unemployment in this country rises, to assist into work people who have been unemployed, particularly the long-term unemployed. This is a program that has delivered training to more than 100,000 Australians. Just over 30,000 have completed their training and, of those referred by employment services providers, we have seen people get jobs. I think that kind of support for training of job seekers during a global recession is vitally important.

Importantly, the Productivity Places Program has been sufficiently flexible through our structural adjustment places to support people in jobs in companies that are bearing the brunt of the global recession. To take just one example of that—the example of Holden: I think that everyone would be aware that the global financial crisis and global recession have borne down on the car industry. People would be aware of the circumstances faced by General Motors in the United States. Our structural adjustment places through the Productivity Places Program have been able to partner with a business like Holden so that they could strike short-time working arrangements and we could provide training places so people stay in a job and upskill during the days of a global recession that is bringing powerful force to bear on that business. If we had not had that flexible response through the Productivity Places Program, if we had not had the kind of cooperative workplace relations necessary to strike that sort of arrangement, what we could have seen is large-scale redundancies. We know from statistics that for people who lose their jobs during an economic downturn it can be a long, long way back.

The third stream of the Productivity Places Program is to assist with upskilling people in the current workforce. We are committed to broadening and deepening the skills of Australian working people. This is a program that has responded flexibly to difficult circumstances.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, a point of order on relevance: the question was whether a seven per cent success rate was good value for money.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat.

Simon Crean (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Crean interjecting

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Pyne interjecting

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Minister for Trade and the member for Sturt are getting much closer to going out and sharing a cup of tea. The Deputy Prime Minister has the call. She is responding to the question.

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

What I think is important is understanding the full breadth of this program and how it is supporting jobs and job seekers. It is one part of our investment in training. There is more than $5 billion in addition in apprenticeships and related measures. We are also moving to an uncapped system of higher education places so more Australians get the benefit of university training. This is a suite of related measures to solve the skills crisis.

Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment Participation, Training and Sport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, a point of order on relevance: 111,000 job seekers, 7½ thousand jobs—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Boothby will resume his seat—and he is warned. I appreciate comments favourable to the member for Boothby’s normal disposition, but he cannot go to the dispatch box and add to his point of order with argument.

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

Can I say in conclusion that, if the Leader of the Opposition is genuinely interested in the full suite of training measures and how they are working with job seekers and working to support employment then he should study all of the Productivity Places Program measures and all of our apprenticeship measures as well as what we are doing with the biggest structural changes to higher education since the Dawkins reforms. I would also ask the Leader of the Opposition to contemplate where we would be with unemployment numbers right now if we had kept the skills settings which created the skills crisis of the Liberal government and if we had not provided economic stimulus, which was his policy.

Jodie Campbell (Bass, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Will the Treasurer outline for the House the OECD’s assessment overnight of the impact of economic stimulus on the Australian economy?

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Bass for her question because the OECD report delivered overnight has provided powerful new evidence that the stimulus measures in Australia have led the advanced world in their impact. I would like to quote the OECD report. It says:

Even though many countries moved quickly to enact large fiscal stimulus packages, these packages generally have not had a strong effect in cushioning the initial decline in employment caused by the crisis, although Australia is a notable exception.

Australia’s fiscal stimulus package seems to have had a strong effect in cushioning the decline in employment caused by the global economic downturn.

This is a fact denied by every one of those opposite. The reason for this is that the government moved quickly, decisively and powerfully to support jobs in the face of a very sharp contraction across both advanced and developing economies around the world in both the December and the March quarters. The government have supported activity, supported jobs and provided a massive boost to confidence, although we do have some very substantial employment challenges still before us across a range of sectors, including retail.

But the good news is that today we have seen the Sensis business confidence figures. These figures show that business confidence in Australia has risen to its highest level since August 2007. Sensis finds today that small businesses are more optimistic about Australia’s economic direction than they have been in more than a decade—that is, this survey identifies the government’s economic stimulus as a key factor behind the improvement in confidence. This is yet more evidence of what the OECD has found and said in their report issued overnight.

As I was saying earlier, there is broad support in the community for the government’s economic stimulus program. Today, the ACCI, who were looking at the Westpac Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s survey of industrial trends, have commented. This is their conclusion:

Overall, we don’t think it is an environment where there should be any winding back of the stimulus measures given the general fragility of the economy.

That is a very strong case which backs up the assessments of the IMF, the OECD, all of the business sector in this country and the community more generally—everybody except those opposite.