Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy President. I appreciate that protection, particularly from Senator Bernardi. All the opposition can do is launch personal attacks. The core issue that Senator Hutchins was referring to was unemployment. He was talking about the Australian unemployment figures of over five cent. I would like to drill down into those figures a little. He did not refer to some of the state figures. What are the state figures in South Australia? You will be interested in this, Mr Deputy President. In South Australia the unemployment figures are 4.4 per cent. That is well and truly one per cent lower than the national average.

At a crucial time in our history, when all the other countries in the world were seeing their economies fall into recession and unemployment rising, what was happening in Australia, and particularly in South Australia? In South Australia unemployment has fallen to 4.4 per cent. I think it is worth noting that that is the lowest unemployment rate that the state has ever recorded. Why have we done that? Of course it has been due to the stimulus package of the federal government, but I have to also give some credit to the state government, because they have also played a crucial role. One of the things that the Rann Labor government did in South Australia at this crucial period was to ensure that they were very quick off the mark to implement the federal government’s stimulus package. One of the reasons why unemployment amongst the states in mainland Australia is the lowest in South Australia is that, when the federal government introduced its stimulus package, South Australia was quick off the mark to take advantage of that.

When you compare what has happened right around the world, in those 33 economies that Senator Hutchins referred to, where are we? Our economy has not gone into recession. Young people in particular have been able to find jobs and the economy has stayed out of recession. That, principally, is what we needed to do at a crucial time in our history. The rest of the world was falling into recession. We have avoided it. In South Australia, with a combination of Rann Labor and Rudd Labor—the two Rs—we have kept our country out of recession, unemployment is going down, not up, and we are going to find that those figures continue to go down because we have adopted the correct policies. (Time expired)