Libby Coker (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Mark from my electorate is 40 years old. Because he is over 35, Mark is locked out of the hiring credit, and he believes it will only make it harder for workers in their 40s to get a job. What does the Prime Minister say to Mark, who describes this as 'a kick in the guts'?

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Our message to Mark, as our message to all Australians is, is this government is supporting the Australian economy with $507 billion of support, the equivalent of 26 per cent of GDP, both balance-sheet support and direct fiscal support. When it comes to the JobMaker hiring credit, our focus has been about getting younger people who have been unemployed into work, because we looked at previous recessions and we saw that in the 1990s it took a full decade to get the unemployment rate back below six per cent, from where it started, but for younger people it took 15 years to get the unemployment rate back below where it started. Today, you've got an unemployment rate for those aged 15 to 34 that is more than double the unemployment rate for those aged 35 to 44. So we have worked with Treasury on a program to support getting younger people who have been out of work into work. And in this budget there are many other measures that support economic activity right across the economy—tax cuts for more than 11½ million people, including in the honourable member's electorate: 66,000 members of her electorate are getting a tax cut, thanks to the policies from those on this side of the House.

And I say to the member for Corangamite more than 6,000 businesses in her electorate are able to access JobKeeper, another measure that has been introduced by members on this side of the House. So whether it's the tax cuts, whether it's the expanded instant asset write-off, whether it's the loss carry-back measure, whether it's the support for apprentices with a 50 per cent wage subsidy, whether it's also our JobTrainer program with 340,000 training places, or whether it's the infrastructure program that is now $110 billion that's supporting constituents in the member's own electorate as well as right across the country, it's doing one thing: helping to create more jobs.