Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to the central program announced in last year's budget, JobMaker. Can the Prime Minister confirm that, instead of the 450,000 jobs that were announced, just 1,000 jobs have actually been achieved? Is it also a fact that just $2 million of the $4 billion that was announced for this failed scheme has been spent?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very happy to provide an update on these matters. As we assembled our policies throughout the course of this pandemic, we were going to throw everything we had at it to ensure we kept Australians in jobs. Every tool we could bring together, we were going to put in place to support jobs in this country. That included the hiring credit, which, as usual, the Leader of the Opposition supported and opposed in the same breath, as he has with pretty much every measure we've been engaged in through the course of the pandemic. The JobMaker hiring credit was one of those measures.

When you put these measures together, I don't care whether it's the JobMaker hiring credit, the boosting apprenticeships scheme, the JobMaker program, the cash flow boost or the JobTrainer program—I don't care which of these programs delivers the result, just so long as the result is achieved. I'll tell you what the result is: 13.1 million people in jobs today, compared to 13 million before the pandemic started. I do note that on the hiring credit, what occurred is that, at the time we put that together, the jobs market over the course of the March quarter actually proved to be much stronger because of myriad measures the government had put in place. There were some 440,000 more people employed in March—that figure has a familiar ring to it, doesn't it?—than we had forecast in the budget. Whichever road we have to take to get people back in jobs, that's what my government's doing.

Mr Rob Mitchell interjecting—

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

The member for McEwen is warned!

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Whether it is the JobMaker hiring credit, the boosting apprenticeships program and the extending of apprenticeship support—we thought we would be able to get 100,000 apprentices in the space of 12 months. We got it in five, and we extended the program, and that is in place as we speak today.

The Leader of the Opposition can complain about the measures we're putting in place to get Australians into jobs. He can have a bet each way, as he does on every single issue, particularly when it comes to the economy, but I'll tell you what: we'll get on with the job of creating jobs for Australians. Tonight's budget is about securing that economic recovery. It is about creating those jobs. It is about guaranteeing the essential services that Australians rely on. It is about proving up and building that resilience that Australians need in a time of great uncertainty both in our region and more broadly as we face this pandemic. This government has been producing the policies and plans that have kept Australians in work, that have saved lives and that have saved livelihoods, while those on the other side have bickered and complained.