Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Can I say to you China existed more than two years ago and the boom and other matters were already happening prior to that time. But for 20 months during that boom the unemployment rate hovered between 5.2 per cent and five per cent and could not break that psychological barrier. Indeed, there were many commentators saying, ‘Look, the government should be satisfied with five per cent unemployment,’ and that that really represented full employment. We who saw the social misery of unemployment said: ‘No, that’s not good enough. We will do everything we possibly can within reason to drive it down further.’

Whilst I am willing to accept that possibly not every single job can be directly related to the changes, the simple fact is that the vast bulk of those jobs were a result of the change, because nobody can point to anything other than those changes that were made some two years ago as the reason for that dramatic fall to where we are now—technically below four per cent, on 3.97 per cent. I accept it is four per cent. But to have crashed through that psychological barrier of five per cent, and now even through four per cent, is something for which I think there are many tens of thousands of Australians genuinely thankful to the previous government—albeit we accept the verdict of the Australian people, of course, on 24 November. Just as 47 per cent of people wanted us to stay in office, we accept that, in round figures, 53 per cent did not, and that is why we are not standing in the way of these changes. I remind the Senate that we do not stand in the way, unlike the way the Labor Party treated us when we won government on certain policies such as GST, balancing the budgets et cetera.

I note that I did withdraw something prior to question time, at 12.30 today. It is amazing, when you are on radio and you have to withdraw something, how the information flows into your office. I have been advised that somebody in a lumberjack type shirt was in fact spotted outside the doors of Parliament House shortly before they came down. I will not take the matter any further, but it was interesting the person that was identified to me by that information.

Question negatived.