Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received a letter from the honourable member for Gorton proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The Government’s failure to help create decent jobs for Australian workers.

I call upon those honourable members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Creating decent jobs for Australian workers is a huge challenge for this nation and yet the government is slacking in its focus on a jobs plan to provide those decent jobs for Australians. Last month's unemployment figures paint a very disturbing picture. There are already more than 700,000 unemployed Australians, and 1.1 million extra Australians are looking for more work but cannot find it. There are more unemployed people today than was the case when the government was elected in 2013. What was most disturbing of all in last month's unemployment figures, according to the ABS, was that there was a fall of 53,000 full-time jobs, totalling over 100,000 full-time jobs being lost this year.

Added to that, we have the lowest wage growth on record. Wage growth in our labour market is lower than at any time for more than a generation. As a result, people are feeling the pinch. People are having trouble making ends meet. If you are talking to your constituents—and all members of this place should—you will find one of the reasons why they are having such difficulty is that wage growth is so low. According to the Reserve Bank, it is stagnating. Indeed, in some sectors of the labour market there is a wage recession. That is happening under this government's watch. There is underemployment and insecure work in a stagnant wage growth economy. If wage growth does not improve, which accords with the Reserve Bank's recent analysis, recent lows will see a knock-on effect for household income consumption and economic growth. Meanwhile, the true mission of this government is to create a labour market that is a low wage, easy to hire and easy to fire society. That is what they want to see.

With all of these challenges in our economy, in our labour market, you would expect the government to be focused—focused on delivering jobs for 700,000 Australians, focused on finding more work for the over one million Australians struggling to find sufficient work. But of course this government is divided, it is dysfunctional and as a result it is distracted from dealing with a most important national priority—jobs.

Whether this government is surrendering to the extreme Right on marriage equality or race hate laws, watering down gun laws or doing a tawdry side deal in refurbishing the office of a senator, the fact is that it is not focusing on the issues that most Australians are concerned about. That is why we are seeing a lack of attention to and a lack of regard for the growth of jobs in this economy. We will have to see whether that changes, but we do not hold out much hope that the government has any interest in maintaining employment conditions, improving and maintaining employment security, and finding opportunities for workers in this nation. There is no doubt that we want to see, as most Australians want to see, jobs that are decent jobs—jobs that provide some security of work and that make sure people can pay the bills, pay the mortgage or the rent, keep a car running and look after their kids. Not only do they want to have a decent quality of life; they want to make sure their children are afforded the opportunity to have an even better life. Well, that aspiration is being lost under a government that is completely distracted, fighting with itself and not focusing on these issues. The labour market that we want is one that treats workers with dignity and that affords them the opportunity to contribute fully to society.

Before the election this government promised jobs and growth. We have seen neither growth nor decent jobs. In fact, there is very little that sits under the mantra 'jobs and growth'. There is one commitment, one policy—a $50 billion tax giveaway to big business and multinationals, the only constituency that seems to have the ear of this Prime Minister. The fact is that the theory of trickle-down economics has been repudiated by eminent economists and, indeed, by history. The idea that you take $50,000 million and give that to big business and multinationals, and that that will, through some kind of osmosis, provide opportunities for people in the labour market is a nonsense.

The reality is that this is voodoo economics. It did not work in America in the 1970s, when it started. Just look at the United States. If you want to work out why there has been the rise of Trump, why there is an internal anguish within that country, you only have to look at what has happened over the last 30 years. Thirty years ago, it was a country where the median household income was in excess of that in Australia. It was a country that, at least in that area, people aspired to match, but not now. The middle class of America has been hollowed out. Working-class Americans are working full time but are still below the poverty line in many instances.

That is not a society we want to see here. It is the rich getting obscenely richer that leads to this disquiet and anguish, and to this anger towards those who have presided over a system that does not include people in the benefits of growth. We say to the government: don't try and replicate the American system; stop trying to make it easier for workers to be sacked; attend to the exploitation that is in the labour market.

You only have to look at 7-Eleven as an example. It is a franchising model in which, as we know, up to $100 million was ripped off its workers, yet there has been no effort by the government to remedy that problem. In fact, 7-Eleven workers are still not paid their due. There has been another task force set up by the government—the minister has had three task forces—which seems to have no tasks and no force. It is about time they attend to that.

Let us look at the record of this government. Firstly, they killed off the car industry. They sacked Australian seafarers on our vessels and replaced them with foreign crew on $2 an hour. They have cut 120,000 apprentices from the system. They have actually treated their own workforce with contempt. Mr Deputy Speaker Broadbent, you always get an idea of a government's view of the world from the way in which it deals with its own workforce. What we have seen in the last three years from this government is an effort to not pay any wage increases to its workforce. Eighty per cent of its workforce have not received a wage increase, even though its ministers have. It has deliberately stymied the efforts of the unions and workforce to get any wage increase whatsoever, and that is an indictment of this government.

More recently, we have seen a loosening of the 457 visa provisions. Labor support the use of temporary work visas, and there are legitimate demands in the labour market that need to be attended to. But what we do not support is the misuse and exploitation of workers who are on those visas, which also lead to downward pressure on wages and do not afford opportunities for locals to get work. We need to get the balance right here. Of course, the government are not focused on these issues.

We have a government that are bereft of policy ideas when it comes to fighting for jobs in this country. We see that they are not interested in providing support for workers in the workplace. They have only contempt for their own workforce. They are not providing support for people who want to get into vocational training. They are not providing sufficient investment and partnership with industries to grow economies. They are not anticipating the emerging demand in our labour market in the new economy. They are not engaging with small businesses in the way they say they will. They like to say that they are the party of small business, yet they do not engage with them. There is no business confidence, and there is no consumer confidence. As a result, we are seeing major problems in our society. The reason this is occurring is that the government are fundamentally at odds with themselves. They are fighting with themselves. They are distracted. They are not dealing with those matters that are of most concern to the Australian people.

We need to see a government that partners with business, that creates consumer confidence and business confidence, and that actually restores some confidence in the system so that businesses start hiring people and, indeed, so that consumers start purchasing. What we are seeing is low wage growth and stagnation in the economy. Where we do see jobs growth, we are seeing it only in the form of part-time work. As I say, 100,000 full-time jobs have been lost this year and the government sit idly by and do nothing.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I thank you for the opportunity to rise and speak to this matter of public importance on employment. It is rather absurd that we are talking about what we are trying to do to create jobs on the day the Labor Party have signed a Faustian pact with both Senator Jacqui Lambie and One Nation on the backpacker tax. What is their proposal? Their proposal is that they will have a tax rate for foreign workers at 10.5 per cent, whilst Australian workers are working in the same field at 19 per cent, if they are above the tax-free threshold of $18,200. Obviously, what this means for Australian workers is that they are at a disadvantage. Obviously what the Labor Party have signed up for today with Senator Jacqui Lambie and One Nation is something that actually gives an impetus not to employ Australian workers in the agricultural sector.

We understand that you cannot have a tax rate at over 32 per cent, because no-one from overseas would turn up and we need that labour. But to go to the absurd position where we are offering a rate of 10.5 per cent means that if you are in the field and someone next to you is from Provence they will probably be on a cheaper tax rate. If they are from the Steppes at Ulaanbaatar, they will be on a cheaper tax rate. If they are from Umbria, they will be on a cheaper tax rate. If they from good old County Cork, they will be on a cheaper tax rate. Who proposed this? The Labor Party.

This is a complete disincentive to Australian workers, and today, of all things, Labor have an MPI on Australian labour. How on earth? We could never get something like that through. How did the party that are supposed to represent Australian workers manage to come up with that? How did they come up with a proposal that makes it a strategic advantage to employ people from overseas over Australian workers? Where is the logic in that? We stick to our position of a 19 per cent tax rate so that they are comparable. The Labor Party are coming up with a policy merely to tear the scab off an issue that had been resolved. Who are they putting on the fire as they tear off this scab? Australian workers. Australian workers are the ones they are attacking. It is bizarre that someone from the National Party has to stand up on behalf of Australian workers—Australian farm workers—because you today, with Senator Jacqui Lambie and One Nation, your new cabal of friends, have announced that you are going to come up with a disadvantage for employing Australian labour.

You say, 'Well, maybe it is just there,' but, no, their desire to take off the scab and create dissent and turmoil is in other areas as well. It is at the Adani coalmine, in Central Queensland, which would employ up to 5,000 people on construction and 4,000 ongoing workers. Who fights against it? The Labor Party fights against it. The Labor Party takes up the cudgels against the working men and women of Central Queensland. Why? Because it is advantageous. It gets them closer to the Australian Greens. Their battle is not for the Australian worker any more. Their battle is in Balmain. Their battle is with the Greens. They have given up on representing regional Australia. They used to be the party of shearers. They used to be the party of tradesmen. They used to be the party of miners. But that is no longer so. They have given up on that. Now they are the party trying to fight their battle street by street in Annandale, all the way up Trafalgar Street and all the way down to Glebe wharf. That is where the battle is. It is no longer a matter of looking after Australian workers. It was absolutely beyond compare seeing the shadow Treasurer and the member for Hunter, who in this place has not asked a question in the last year—he had a crack at it today but got kicked out—which is better than the shadow water minister, who has never asked me a question at all.

Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Assistant Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How come?

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They don't believe in those jobs! They are two jobs they do not believe in. So the shadow Treasurer, the shadow minister for agriculture and the member for Grayndler launched themselves into a press conference to announce that the new tax rate for the people from Umbria, for the people from Vermont, for the people who are making their way over here from Lithuania, for all those good backpackers making their way in from all countries around the world, will be at some stage a third of the marginal tax rate of Australian workers.

What else have we noticed lately? The closure of the power station at Hazelwood, costing 750 jobs. Who is responsible for that? Labor is responsible for that. These people are losing their work. Then, we try to get more work going by standing behind the construction of Rookwood Weir, which would create 2,100 jobs. Who fights against us on that? The Labor Party. Who is going to take away the funding for that? The Labor Party. Who is going to take away the extra billion dollars a year for Central Queensland? The Labor Party.

When you peel back this onion you find that there are no friends in the Labor Party for the workers. When we try to ensure we have reliable electricity, we look at the policies of South Australia, where the Labor Party is, and what do we see? A blackout. What is the result to industry? They are trying to work out how they can get out of there, because the policies of the Labor Party are so unconducive to keeping people in full-time work. We look forward to the Labor Party's explanation. It is a shame that the shadow Treasurer was also booted out today, because maybe he could explain to us how he is going to pay for his rate at 10.5 per cent—how he is actually going to pay for the half a billion dollars.

Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ask George Christensen.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will take the interjection. At least the member for Dawson stands up for workers, such as would be employed at Adani, because you do not. You do not believe in the mining workers any more. You have given up on the mining workers, because you are mates with the Greens. You know your true friends. That is who you are fighting for, and people get it. People know that you are not serious about the mining industry in Central Queensland. Today they were absolutely flummoxed that you have come up with an idea where foreign workers, imported workers, taking Australian jobs are going to be taxed at a marginal rate—my daughters will be up there picking fruit and their marginal tax rate will be 19 cents in the dollar. It would have been the same as for the foreign workers working beside them, but in your stroke of genius today their tax rate is going to be half of what the other farm workers are paying.

That is what you think of Australian workers. That is where you put your heart. What is your explanation for that? Do not laugh at the fact that you make a disadvantage. You do not laugh at the fact that you make a strategic disadvantage against Australian jobs, against Australian workers. You do not laugh at the fact that your party now is making it easier to employ overseas workers than Australian workers. You should not be laughing at that. You should be standing up on behalf of your workers, but you do not.

It is all rhetoric and rubbish. You do not actually believe it. You do not stand up for it—or you have no weight in caucus and you cannot get things turned around. Did you actually know about it today? Did you know about their announcement? Did you care about it? Did it matter? How could you possibly come in here and move an MPI on jobs for Australians the day you brought about a disincentive for jobs for Australians? This is amazing. It would be interesting if the next speaker could explain to us—I put this challenge to you—why, today, you have created an incentive to employ overseas workers over Australian workers. Explain to us why you are doing that. Explain why a person who is over a tax-free threshold of $18,200 a year—my daughter, other farm workers—will be paying tax of 19c in the dollar and your proposal today is that the people who will take their jobs will be paying 10½c in the dollar.

You explain that to me. Explain to me how that fits into the ethos of the Labor Party. What part of the Labor Party platform is that? And while you are at it you can explain why you do not believe in decentralisation, explain to me why you do not believe in the inland rail, explain to me why you do not believe in electricity reliability. You can explain so much, because it is a complete and utter hypocrisy, on a day like today, that you would be talking about Australian jobs.

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He asked me to respond! The Deputy Prime Minister would win a gold medal for jibber! How am I supposed to respond to that? This is an MPI about jobs, and he has spent most of the time talking about a backpacker tax, and even in regional Australia they all know that this will hurt business and put pressure on jobs. He spent all this time talking about that, but the Deputy Prime Minister cannot deal with the reality that there is a big jobs problem in this country. It is summed up by this one stat from the Reserve Bank. When you look at all the jobs that are being created, and with unemployment down to 5.6 per cent—when you look at the way jobs are being created this year alone—part-time work accounts for all of the increase in jobs in 2016 and two-thirds of the increase since 2013. The bulk of the jobs that are being created are part-time work.

You will hear those opposite say that this is a good thing—that it means people have choices, flexibility. Wrong: when you ask most people, they want a full-time job; they do not have part-time mortgages, they do not have part-time bills. They need to know that the money is coming through to pay for the things that we all, rightly, understand are required for a decent standard of living. But this government does not care to worry about it and does not care to have a plan to provide for more job growth in this country. This government is quite happy to see people struggle and quite happy not to have an answer as to where the jobs will come from.

Look at youth unemployment. Those opposite used to say all the time, 'We're all about fixing youth unemployment; we're going to fix it.' Where is youth unemployment at? Under the Turnbull government's watch, youth unemployment now stands at nearly 13 per cent—double the national average. According to their own figures—

Mr Taylor interjecting—

No, it is not. It is through estimates. Listen to your own departments. Your own department, in Senate estimates in May, handed over the figure about what youth unemployment is like and where it stands. The assistant minister might want to know that there are nearly 300,000 unemployed young people between the ages of 15 and 24 in this country right now. On top of this, the department acknowledges that there are another 170,000 who have been unemployed for more than a year and who are disillusioned by the fact that they look for jobs that simply are not there—170,000 on top of that 300,000, all admitted to by your own Department of Employment in estimates this year. But there is no plan for jobs.

Look at what job programs they have. Work for the Dole has been around under both coalition and Labor governments. Under this government nearly 90 per cent of participants who go through Work for the Dole are not in full-time work three months after they finish the program. Just a shade over 9,000 do get full-time work, which we are happy for, but it costs nearly $28,000 per head to get those people into work. The stunning fact is that nearly 90 per cent of people who go through Work for the Dole and expect to get a job as a result of it do not get one. This government does not have a plan to help those people.

Instead of fixing Work for the Dole, they have said they will bring in the internship program that the House will debate later today. It is an intern program but they cannot define what an intern is and they cannot define what work they will do. They have created a pool of cut-price labour in an attempt to get people jobs, but it will potentially displace jobs and cut wages. There are no protections in place.

George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's rubbish! There is! There are multiple provisions!

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I hear the alternative Prime Minister chip me. Maybe you could use your powers for good instead of evil for a change, and get the Prime Minister to fix this sham of a program. The longer young unemployed people are locked out of the employment market, the longer they will stay unemployed. There are bigger changes happening in terms of automation and technology that will change the face of the job market in this country. We cannot afford for people to be de-skilled. Everything the government touch turns into a shambles. They are incompetent, dysfunctional and divided, and the unemployed of Australia are paying the price for it and they should not be forced to do just that.

Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Cities and Digital Transformation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a great pleasure to speak on this matter of public importance on jobs today. I am surprised that Labor has chosen today to talk about jobs. If I were the Labor Party, I would not be talking about jobs at all this week. It is always important when we talk about a topic like this to be thinking about the history. History is a great leveller. It tells us much about how to understand any particular issue.

It is important to remember that in the six years of the last Labor government the Keynesian taps were turned on. There was 4.2 per cent spending growth a year, which is pretty Keynesian by any measure. We have an economist over here, the member for Shortland, who went to a very good university. Unfortunately, they did not learn how to link spending growth to jobs. Despite the fact that there was 4.2 per cent spending growth, we saw the unemployment rate rise from just 4.4 per cent in November 2007 to 5.7 per cent in September 2013.

We heard from the member for Chifley about youth unemployment. Let us look at youth unemployment. For 15- to 24-year-olds the youth unemployment rate rose from 10 per cent to 12.7 per cent over the same six years—that is 13 per cent, which is the number he quoted. We saw 200,000 jobs lost under Labor. The jobless queue grew by 200,000 people. They always look for excuses. That is what you expect from the Labor Party. But in the period when Bill Shorten was the workplace relations minister the number of unemployed people increased by around 72,000. The only job he cares about is his own. From November 2007 till the end of Labor's time in office, 128,800 manufacturing jobs—one in eight manufacturing jobs in this country—disappeared completely. During the two years of Labor's carbon tax 125,000 more Australians joined the unemployment queue.

This is economic vandalism if we have ever seen it. If we want an example of economic vandalism, let us look at the way Labor has looked at the loss of jobs in Victoria at the moment. It is astonishing that only three weeks ago federal Labor deliberately declared its intention to close down thousands of blue-collar jobs.

Pat Conroy (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, it didn't! That is untrue!

Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Cities and Digital Transformation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You should listen to this. Federal Labor senator Sam Dastyari moved in the Senate to close down power stations, such as Hazelwood, as well as major industrial facilities around the country. Make no mistake, messages such as 'You are not welcome,' and 'We want to close you down'—from your own senator—are heard loud and clear by business and investors around the world.

Indeed, this is the very policy federal Labor took to the recent federal election, and that message has been exacerbated by the decision of the Victorian Labor government to triple royalties on Victorian power stations in the Latrobe Valley. That is job creation, Labor style. We know they talk about jobs plans—the last time I saw a jobs plan from Labor it looked more like something from the Soviet Union in the 1950s—five-year jobs plans that deliver nothing. That is exactly what we saw under Labor.

Since the coalition came to office, in September 2013, 474,300 jobs have been created, with employment standing at just under 12 million in September 2016. That was with one per cent spending growth, as against Labor's four per cent. We have created far more jobs than in the time under Labor. Under this government employment has continued to grow, rising at 1.4 per cent over the last year. This has been a focus for this government, whether it is tax cuts for small businesses, whether it is historic free trade agreements, whether it is a record investment in targeted infrastructure from our fantastic urban infrastructure minister. We have seen serious growth in jobs, serious investment in the economy and a serious focus on the real job creators in the Australian economy, businesses. Every dollar of tax that is paid for a public sector job has to be paid for by a business somewhere. They are the real job engines, the real job creators, of our economy. That is who we back to create jobs in this economy.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

All Australians want is a government that can create good secure jobs, jobs that they can count on. That is all Australian workers want. That is all Australian grandparents want—for their grandchildren to have good secure jobs that they can count on. All parents want is for their children to have access to the same employment opportunities that they themselves had when they were younger. Yet what we have seen from this government is no plan. What we have seen from this government is attack after attack on workers.

Let us talk about the miners in Central Queensland and this government's failure to stand up for the directly employed Anglo American mine workers who, right this minute, are facing forced redundancies. Their employer has said that they are going to make 80 to 90 of them redundant. At the same time, their employer has advertised for labour-hire workers to replace the directly employed workers. Where has the Deputy Prime Minister been speaking out and calling out this employer on that disgraceful act? Where is the member for Dawson? Where are the Central Queensland members standing up and calling on this company to keep the directly employed people working at that mine?

This is not just happening in mining. This is happening across the sector. And the government is letting corporate Australia get away with it. There are 100,000 full-time jobs that have been lost since the beginning of the year and they have been replaced by insecure labour-hire casual jobs. Underemployment is spiking in this country. Full-time employment is crashing, yet all the government can do is champion business for creating insecure work. All the government can do is champion the productivity gains. This government does not care about full-time jobs, it does not care about Australian workers wanting full-time jobs and it does not care about families relying on decent full-time jobs to secure their futures.

This government killed off the car industry. They like to pretend it was not them, but it was. They are also stalling and failing to properly create industry to replace those jobs being lost in the car industry, particularly in states like South Australia and Victoria. All we have seen this week is crocodile tears from the government about what is going on in Hazelwood. Where are the tears for the Holden workers? Where are the tears for the component suppliers of the car industry, people in regional Victoria, people in the south and the north of Melbourne? Where is the government's plan to help those workers into decent full-time jobs?

This government has also attacked its own workforce. It has sacked thousands of hardworking public servants. It has put pressure on our public system, making queues for Centrelink longer, making problems within our immigration department and within our education department. This government is antiworker by the way it treats its own workforce. Let's take our cleaners here at Parliament House. One of the first things this government did back when it was elected in 2013 was cut the Clean Start guidelines. To this day, whilst every member of the House has received a pay rise, the cleaners who clean our offices have not received a pay rise. That is how much this government cares about low-paid workers. The cleaners who keep this building clean to this day have still not received a pay rise under this government's watch.

We have seen this government try to cut paid parental leave for 80,000 new mums. It is going to affect people who are pregnant right now and are making plans about how they will afford their mortgages and how they will work as a family unit. This government is saying to them, 'We are going to cut your paid parental leave entitlements.' This government has scrapped the low-income super contribution, hitting the retirement, again, of low-paid workers.

And then we get to what this government is doing in terms of temporary workers. We have seen a 5.6 per cent increase of temporary visa workers in our labour market, and that is putting pressure on local jobs. For all of their crocodile tears about the backpacker tax, what members of the government are not talking about is how they are going to clean up the exploitation. The Fair Work Ombudsman report exposed that one-third of backpackers are being ripped off, yet there is no plan from this government to clean this up, and that is putting direct pressure on the labour market. What Australian people want is a secure job that they can count on. What they are not getting from this government is a plan on how the government is going to create these secure jobs.

George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today's MPI is intended to be a criticism of the government, but in reality it speaks volumes about the opposition that proposed it. Certainly what spoke volumes was the whining delivery we just heard from the member for Bendigo then. It really demonstrates her lack of understanding when it comes to the economy. The Labor Party subscribe to this economic view that jobs are created by governments, controlled by the government and paid for by taxpayers. That is the only job creation that they can get their minds around. They believe comrades simply need to line up at a government office and have jobs doled out to them by the state. That is the limit of Labor's understanding of the economy: you can fix any problem by throwing money at it, going round and round in ever-diminishing circles until you run out of someone else's money.

A smart government can play a role in direct job creation; a dumb government would give away $900 cheques, free insulation that burns your house down or something else like that. But a smart government would directly create jobs by building the infrastructure needed for new and expanding industries, where business can grow and employ more people. That is what this smart government is doing, because we need an economy with sustainable jobs that do not drain taxpayer dollars. That is why we have invested $6.7 billion in the Bruce Highway, with projects like the Mackay Ring Road in my electorate about to be underway, creating 600 jobs during construction. That is why we are investing in more dam projects like the Urannah Dam project in the member for Capricornia's seat. That will create new industries, new agricultural employment opportunities and thousands of jobs.

Labor need to overcome a major hurdle in their thinking. Governments do not create sustainable jobs; it is business and private enterprise that create jobs. It is the government's responsibility—and I have to say it is the opposition's responsibility as well—to get out of the way of business and create an environment where business can get on with the job of creating jobs.

This brings me to the most telling point yet. I point to the North Queensland and Central Queensland economy, where we have seen the largest job-creating project in this country sitting on the shelf for the past six years. The Carmichael coal project will create 10,000 jobs through its mine in the Galilee Basin, the expanded port at Abbot Point and the railway line connecting the two. The flow-on benefits of the construction and operation are enormous, not to mention the billions of dollars that will be paid in royalties to the state government, and the income tax and GST that will be paid to the federal government. Thousands of pay packets will come into my region, throughout North Queensland and Central Queensland, and there will be spend in the region, which will create more industry, more business and more jobs.

You would think that is the kind of project that would have the wholehearted support of a party that once cared about the worker, that once championed the coal mine worker. They do not these days because in their climate change action plan, which they released this year, they pledged to ensure the orderly transition of Australia's generation capacity from old and heavily polluting coal power to modern sources of clean and renewable energy. They are giving way to the green preference god that they chase, sacrificing those jobs. Thousands of jobs would be created in the Carmichael coal project—not created with taxpayer dollars but by private enterprise; not by government but by business, if they are allowed to do it.

We have got a situation where extreme green activists are abusing the Australian legal process with their own ideological agenda. They are using frivolous legal challenges, or lawfare, to frustrate and delay that project as long as they can. They are desperately hoping that Adani is going to get tired of waiting and simply walk away. If those opposite want to talk about a failure to create jobs they should get up now and talk about their failure to allow business to create thousands of jobs. They have had their chance. The government put forward legislation in this place to say enough is enough. It was legislation to allow legal challenges from those directly affected by a project, but not allowing frivolous political tactics to abuse our legal system for a green agenda. The Greens voted against that legislation, and that was hardly surprising, but Labor came in here and also voted against it and voted against all of those jobs for potential mineworkers in the Galilee Basin. We proposed that that legislation be brought forward again and immediately the Labor Party came out and said that they would oppose it, that they would not support it. So I say to those opposite: do not come in here and lecture us about creating jobs when you are standing in the way of creating jobs. You are happy to sacrifice thousands of mineworking jobs for your own political purposes on this altar of the green goddess Gaia— (Time expired).

Chris Hayes (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Like most members here I am very proud of my electorate. My electorate is multicultural and I get to see what the diversity of my electorate has produced. It has a rich tapestry of colour, vibrancy and ambition. I actually get to see the determination of people—they are committed to hard work to get better lives for themselves and their families. We are not a rich area in south-west Sydney, but I am often taken aback when people tell me that they work three and four jobs to support their families. What we need in south-west Sydney—it is what we need everywhere—is real jobs. We have seen the growth of part-time and casualised employment out there. The banks are being protected by this government and do not want to be sitting before a royal commission, but none of these banks want to lend part-time mortgages for all those people who I represent in my community that live on casual employment. People cannot support a family like that and they are the jobs that are being created.

We heard a lot about jobs during the eight week election campaign—'jobs and growth' rolled off the tongue, but it was all about creating part-time and casual employment in this country. The fact is since the start of this year we have seen a reduction of 112,000 jobs in this country. So much for jobs and growth. But I will give it to the government—they have actually created growth in the casualised employment sector, there is no question about that, but none of the banks that they are protecting are going to be prepared to lend on casualised employment. So much for jobs and growth—you really cannot take it to the bank.

This is the same government, the same mob over there, who goaded Holden and Ford to leave the country. They got rid of our car industry and all the downstream activity that goes with that. So much for jobs and growth. This is the same mob that have made a response on how to address the issues of employment. What do they do? They go and make a referral to the Productivity Commission for it to have a look at penalty rates for the lowest paid workers in this country. If they get a successful outcome it could affect everyone on penalty rates. But they wanted to target retail workers—people who are working in the hospitality industry, people who really do rely on their penalty rates to make a living. They targeted them. So when they want to come in here and preach jobs and growth, just remember their record in this regard.

These are the same people who brought us Work Choices. I remember when they did that. I got to see people who were genuinely affected. For the first time in Australia's history, those opposite made it legal to pay people below the award rates of pay. That is their record when it comes to jobs. They want to target penalty rates. Notwithstanding the fact that at the moment we have the slowest wage growth on record—it is sluggish and it is affecting the economy—they want to put downward pressure on wages into the future. They are showing a total misunderstanding about creating employment opportunities—employment opportunities that sustain local businesses and sustain the local economies that we all represent here.

Youth unemployment in my area is running at about 15.7 per cent. That is dreadful. People are missing out on career opportunities, but this is really bad for communities. Young people have nothing to do and no job opportunities, and people wonder why they get into trouble—why we have issues on our streets. Why do law and order issues emerge out of that? You only have to stop and talk to your local police officers to know that, unless we can provide opportunities for young people, these problems will become manifest in the future of this country. We need to have a view—we need a plan. That is a good idea! Let us have a plan for jobs and growth—not just a slogan. Let us have a plan. We have a commitment in that regard. We have shown that we will work towards delivering sustainable employment opportunities for young people in this country. We need to make a difference. We need young people to make a difference. We need to give them some sustenance on why their ambitions can be realised. If we show that there is no benefit in working hard in this country, we are really relegating our country's future. (Time expired)

David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is really good to have the opportunity to speak on this MPI on employment this afternoon. I want to pick up on one of the comments made earlier by the member for Gorton. He used the term trickle-down economics, and he said that the opposition did not support the government's proposed reductions in tax, because they were all targeted at people and businesses that would not benefit employment and so on. Frankly, it is just absurd, because what those opposite oppose is any tax reduction for any business that has turnover of $2 million or more. It is important to note—and this is often overlooked by those opposite—that turnover is not the same thing as profit. Turnover just means you might have taken $2 million in the door, but it does not mean that you are a very wealthy person with $2 million. It means that, probably, you have a very small percentage of that $2 million as the profit of the business. But those opposite oppose tax relief for any business that has a turnover of $2 million or more.

Helpfully, the Australian Tax Office has done some numbers on what the typical profit margin of a small businesses is. Let us take a newsagent. A newsagent with a turnover of around $2 million, according to the ATO, would typically have a profit margin of about six per cent. That means that the operators of that newsagent, after paying all their cost and so on, would be taking home about $120,000. They may be a family and there may be kids to support. And they may be employing other people in the newsagency. Those opposite think that is a big business—a newsagent making $120,000 a year—and they should not be entitled to a tax cut. We have all visited pizza shops. The ATO estimates that a pizza shop would make about 10 per cent on turnover—about $200,000. Again, they would no doubt be supporting a family and many other people for that quite small amount of money. But those opposite think that tax relief should not be provided to those small businesses that are employing so many millions of Australians. The list goes on. Furniture is seven per cent. A $2 million turnover furniture business, if it is doing well, will make $140,000 and support a family by doing so. But they think that is big business, and it demonstrates again the lack of understanding of how jobs are created.

Government does not create jobs; government simply facilitates an environment in which businesses can go forth and create jobs, and that is what this government has done very effectively. Since we came to office in September 2013, about half a million jobs have been created—half a million additional jobs since we came to office. Just in the last 12 months, the unemployment rate has fallen by more than half a percentage point. Dr Philip Lowe, the incoming Governor of the Reserve Bank, said back in September:

We thought a year ago that the unemployment rate would now be above six per cent, and here we are now at between 5½ per cent and 5¾ per cent.

Of course, in September it was 5.6 per cent. He said:

The various forward-looking indicators of the labour market that we track—job ads and job vacancies—are on a gradually improving trend. So I think we can look forward to continuing reasonable employment growth.

So there is declining unemployment and there is a plan to further boost the economy through providing tax relief to small business, but this is vociferously opposed by those opposite, who have a very bad record when it comes to job creation. Talk though they may about manufacturing, under the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd governments one in eight manufacturing jobs was lost. One in eight manufacturing jobs was lost under the previous Labor government, and that is a real indictment of their record.

What we do is take positive action that leads to job creation—nowhere more so than in the free trade agreements. Labor talked about such agreements for a long time but achieved nothing, with no major trade agreements closed in the six years in which they were in office. We then completed the China free trade agreement, and those opposite sought to oppose the China free trade agreement. They came to this place day after day after day, finding fault with the China free trade agreement, and of course that agreement has been a great boon to the agricultural sector and many others across Australia, delivered by this government. Under the stewardship of the member for Bradfield, we have an infrastructure plan, with $50 billion in investment across Australia, creating 10,000 jobs in the construction phase of WestConnex, a very important project in my electorate and another example of the very strong record of this government in job creation.

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My electorate of Calwell has suffered a stream of job losses in recent years. The latest has been the closure of Ford and the thousands of jobs in total that have been lost as a result of the end of car manufacturing in this country. In addition, the alarming rise in insecure work—especially underemployment, casualised labour and depressed wages—is adding to the financial burden of people in my electorate, who already have to deal with narrowing job opportunities.

If we look at the average unemployment rate under this government—which sits at six per cent as compared to 5.1 per cent, where the average unemployment rate sat under the previous Labor governments—we see an alarming rate of unemployed Australians: today, some 700,000 people, many of whom are residents of my constituency. Underemployment is at its highest on record, with 1.1 million Australians who are desperately in need of more work but cannot get it. Youth unemployment is double the national rate, at 12.8 per cent, and in my electorate of Calwell youth unemployment is double that, at 23 per cent and in some cases as high as 26 per cent and rising. In September, full-time employment fell by 53,000, the largest one-month fall since April 2011. Full-time jobs are down by 112,000 since the beginning of this year, and part-time jobs are on the rise and now make up one-third of all jobs, compared to 10 per cent in the 1960s.

If you look at the slowest wages growth on record, you begin to understand that this government is not interested in protecting and advancing the interests of working Australians. The people in my electorate understand loud and clear that this government is committed only to assisting the profit margins of big business at their expense. This government has turned a blind eye to the growing inequality in Australia. Nowhere is this more obvious than in my electorate, where the government is missing in action when it comes to putting forward proposals for creating the jobs desperately needed by my constituents. People in my electorate want more than smooth talking about innovation and start-ups. People in my electorate want to see real and practical plans that create jobs and offer a real and viable future, especially to our young people. They do not want to see massive company tax cuts to big business while they have to endure the hardships of unemployment and exploitation. They want to see support for local manufacturing. They want to see support for genuine, good-quality training and retraining that leads to real jobs.

This government is not interested in supporting the survival of Australian manufacturing. It has killed off the car industry in Calwell and it sits on its hands while other local industries are struggling to survive. And here I want to refer to Willow Ware in my electorate, the iconic Australian company that is most famous for making the esky. Willow is based in Tullamarine and is one of Australia's oldest companies. Founded in 1887, it has been run by the same family since. It employs about 200 people in my local area and manufactures housewares, including pegs, plastic buckets and baking tins. Willow is pretty much the only supplier left in Australia for many housewares but is facing huge pressure from cheaper imports preferred by Coles, Woolworths, Bunnings and Kmart.

I have visited Willow on three occasions, and I want to thank the Leader of the Opposition for coming out with me on the last occasion. Willow approached this government both before and after the election seeking assistance from the federal government to save their business. They need help in order to invest in new machinery so as to improve their productivity and remain competitive. We first wrote to the government when the member for Sturt was the Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, and we received a less than satisfactory result—something akin to 'on your bike'. Willow is still waiting for a response from the current industry minster, and so are the 200 people who rely on Willow's survival for their employment.

Labor has shown an interest in helping Willow in the same way that it has an interest and a commitment to helping working Australians by creating real and meaningful job opportunities. Unlike this government, Labor has a plan for our economy. We have a plan to grow full-time work and to improve my constituents' pay packets. Labor has a plan to protect workers from exploitation. Labor has a plan to tackle the growing misuse of 457 visas. But most of all, Labor believes in Australian manufacturing and believes that the path to employment and prosperity lies in investing in our economy for the good of all Australians, not just a rich few.

Damian Drum (Murray, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a great opportunity to be able to stand in this place and talk about employment and jobs, especially when the opposition has put the MPI forward. Since the coalition came to office in September 2013, 474,000 jobs have been created, with employment standing at over 11 million in September 2016. Under this government employment has been steadily rising by 1.4 per cent over the last year. Compare that against Labor: in the six years that Labor was in government, the job queues grew by over 200,000 people. In that period, when Bill Shorten was the workplace relations minister, the number of unemployed people rose by 72,000. During the two years in which Labor's carbon tax was in place, they lost 125,000 positions of employment. Labor made it very difficult for people to employ anybody by hitting employers with a $9 billion a year carbon tax, hitting them with a mining tax and abolishing the Australian Building and Construction Commission.

It is also interesting that we have some Labor members who want to talk about how we were somehow party to the demise of the Ford Motor Company. It is a historical record that the Ford Motor Company decided to stop manufacturing in Australia under the Gillard government. It was in May 2013, not long after they had taken a nice handout from Prime Minister Gillard, that they then decided to turn around and stop manufacturing, at the end of Labor's six years. And we all understand that, once one of the three motor vehicle manufacturing companies decided to stop their manufacturing processes, it was always going to flow on and make it much more difficult for Toyota and GM Holden to continue to manufacture in Australia—when you took away so much of the critical mass.

Talking locally about what is important in the seat of Murray, you cannot help but think about what is going on in this House right now in relation to the backpacker tax. We have just heard from the Deputy Prime Minister—

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Hunter!

Damian Drum (Murray, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Deputy Prime Minister has put down the Labor Party as one that is prepared to introduce a tax into this place that is going to see overseas workers pay half the rate of tax that Australian workers pay. I do not know how the Labor Party is planning to explain this to the workers around Australia—that they are happy to have overseas workers—

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Hunter on a point of order.

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I know he is a new member, but he cannot mislead the House. He does know that Australian workers have a tax-free threshold, as well as backpackers.

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Hunter will resume his seat. The member for Murray has the call.

Damian Drum (Murray, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As we know, there will be Australian workers working in the field with overseas workers and the overseas workers will be paying 10 per cent tax. This is a ridiculous proposition that has been put forward by Jacqui Lambie and is supported by the Australian Labor Party, the party that is supposed to support and look after Australian workers. It is an absolutely ludicrous situation. Worse than anything else, the Labor Party understands that this is a time-critical issue. As I said yesterday, what you should always do in opposition is be very careful about doing no harm. When you are in opposition and want to attack the policies of the government that is fine, but, whatever you are attacking, make sure you do no harm to the industry. The way the Labor Party is going at this one is that they are just going to go ballistic and attack whoever, and they do not care whether any damage is done to the industry itself, providing they can have a go at the government.

I also want to touch on the member for Bendigo. During the signing of the last free trade agreement, the member for Bendigo spent most of the negotiating period attacking the free trade agreement as some horrendous attack on Australian workers, making out this free trade agreement was going to be the worst deal for Australia you could ever have signed. Then, once it was signed, without anything different being done, the member for Bendigo was on the front page of the Bendigo Advertiser saying what an amazing deal this free trade agreement was going to be for the wine growers— (Time expired)

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The discussion has concluded.