Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Following the Prime Minister’s trip to the G20 summit last week, will the Prime Minister inform the House of both the Australian and the global outlook for employment?

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

I thank the member for his question and thank him for his keen interest in jobs for Australians. As I was attending the G20 and APEC, what was at the forefront of my mind was the question of jobs for Australians. When I was there at those international meetings, the talk between leaders was about the circumstances of employment around the world. Here in Australia, of course, we have proudly created 375,000 jobs. Our unemployment rate is at 5.4 per cent. Our participation rate is going up as more people are seeking to move into our workforce so they too can experience the benefits and dignity of work.

When we look around the world, economies are in a very different circumstance. If we look at America, for example, unemployment is at more than nine per cent, pressing on so many Americans, pressing on them with the loss of dignity and independence that comes with the loss of work, pressing on them in a really practical way as mortgage foreclosures hit rates like eight per cent as Americans who lose jobs lose their homes. At the same time, governments in many of these economies with high unemployment and sluggish growth are needing to engage in fiscal consolidation. That means many cutbacks to services that citizens in those countries have come to rely on, and that is also creating a great deal of pressure for those economies and for the citizens within those economies.

At the global meetings, we talked frankly about the pressures on leaders in some of these economies—the pressures for protectionism. Once again I am pleased that those protectionist measures will be resisted. Here in Australia, through economic stimulus, we have worked hard to support Australian jobs and I am proud that we have done so. We have created 375,000 jobs and we look forward to creating more jobs. In order to do that, we do need to be involved with dialogue with our regional partners and more broadly about what needs to be done to keep lifting global growth. I am very pleased indeed that we have agreed on further measures that will facilitate trade. We are a great trading nation and trade equals jobs—jobs for Australians in so many sectors and so many parts of our country. So I thank the member for his question and I also thank the leaders with whom I met at both the G20 and APEC for their determination to keep focusing on global growth, keep focusing on freer trade and keep focusing therefore on jobs here and jobs around the world.