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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

I wish to make a few comments in relation to this document because the document specifically relates to the package that the Senate has just been debating, and in this particular department there are matters of great moment for us as a Senate and indeed for the Australian people to consider.

In relation to the employment aspect it should be remembered that this is the department that is able to advise us about employment and employment matters. When asked if there is a difference in terminology between ‘creating’ about 75,000 additional jobs as opposed to ‘supporting’ up to 90,000 jobs the officials tell us that there is a significant difference.

Why do I raise those two terms? The reason I raise these two terms is this: for the government’s first stimulus package of $10.4 billion, which we supported because it was coming out of the surplus, there was a promise in the second reading speech—and I know these words off by heart—that that stimulus package would ‘create’ about an additional 75,000 jobs. Now, with this additional estimate document, we are being told that a package four times the size—$42 billion—will ‘support’ up to 90,000 jobs.

The officials in Treasury told us that we should understand these two phrases as meaning the same thing. I still remember the official who told me that. So when we had the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations before us I asked them if there was a difference between ‘creating’ a job and ‘supporting’ a job, and there are no surprises here. Like every other Australian, we were told that the meaning was completely different. Creating an additional job means there is something new. ‘Support’ means supporting something that already exists.

So what we have here, according to the experts in the employment department, is an indication that this is a government concerned with spin over substance. When we asked the officials, ‘Are there any jobs that can be pointed to as having been created as additional jobs as a result of the first stimulus package?’—and we were promised about 75,000—they could not point to one.

So for the next stimulus package we get rid of the word ‘create’, we get rid of the word ‘about’, we get rid of the word ‘additional’ and the weasel words that are employed now are ‘to support up to 90,000 jobs’. And of course if you say ‘about 75,000’, as they did with first package, it suggests that there might be a few less or a few more. But ‘up to 90,000’ suggests an absolute cut-off of 90,000, but it could include the number one, and that was not refuted.

So we have here a package being sold to the Australian people that will lumber them with a $200 billion debt overall—$9,500 per man, woman and child in this country. That $9,500 debt per man, woman and child in this country, plus interest, might possibly sustain—according to the advice—up to 90,000 jobs. Chances are it will support more than one, but if there is a range why weren’t we told what the lower range is—that it might be between 50,000 and 90,000? This is all about weasel words and it is all about spin. That is what concerns us.

We as a coalition are concerned as to how the government is going to bankrupt this nation and put it into great debt that will need to be paid by future generations. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.