Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

Unlike Senator Abetz, we do not think 14,000 job losses in Queensland is a laughing matter. I welcome the release today by Minister Shorten and Minister Ellis of a package that will provide help for Queensland workers sacked by the Newman government—the Premier who told Queenslanders that the public service had nothing to fear from him. Oh, how that changed so quickly! The government is rolling out immediate and targeted support in Queensland in the wake of the decision of the state LNP to axe 14,000 public sector jobs, contrary to what they told Queenslanders prior to the election. The package that was announced today by Ministers Shorten and Ellis is aimed at helping workers find new jobs and to minimise the flow-on impacts to non-government organisations that will no longer have access to state government funding to deliver services in Queensland.

This government is providing targeted additional assistance to those affected by the savage cuts in Queensland because we do not believe you should just abandon working people. Unlike those opposite, we have been focused on job creation. Since we came to government, over 800,000 jobs have been created in this country. The only people who are not happy about that are those opposite, who I hear are very quiet now. You only hear them when they want to talk down the Australian economy because they do not actually want to back the Australian economy, Australian jobs and Australian workers. The position is this: on this side we support jobs; those on the other side support job cuts.