Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise this afternoon to contribute to another senseless debate of legacy weeping by the Labor Party as they look over their failed tenure as the government of this country and their lack of investment and foresight and as they start to attempt to lay the blame for an economy in transition at our feet, which is simply not the case. I am glad, Senator Carr, that you have chosen to join us in the chamber for this particular contribution, because the primary focus of the Abbott government and the primary focus of the Turnbull government is on Aussie jobs right through our economy and right through our nation—not just focused in capital cities, not just focused in old technologies and old manufacturing—actually understanding that our economy, coming off the mining boom, requires jobs in new industries. I will go to that a little later.

When we are talking about legacy weeping, we really only need to look at the jobs that were slashed under the Labor Party's tenure. I think about the live cattle export trade when Joe Ludwig and Prime Minister Gillard woke up one morning after they had got a few emails over the weekend and were very, very happy to shut down an industry and, with careless disregard, slash jobs right through regional Queensland, regional Northern Territory and regional Western Australia. That had flow-on effects right through those communities and those states, and those effects are still being felt. They were very, very happy to whack on a carbon tax. Down in the La Trobe Valley, in Senator Carr's and my home state, there was grave concern from those workers in the coal mines about the effects of the carbon tax on their very livelihoods, on irrigators and on the dairy industry. The impact of that tax, that policy setting by the former government, slashed jobs. Indeed, it was the Labor government that saw the introduction of over 2,000—sorry, I got my zeroes wrong!—20,000 pieces of new red tape on business, burdening them with a regulatory impost which essentially sees a small business enterprise having to decide, within that tight regulatory framework, that it is not going to be able to put on new jobs and that it is going to be hiring less, hurting Australian businesses and costing jobs.

The Labor Party stand here today and criticise the government on unemployment when they have an appalling track record themselves. All these fumbles have cost the Australian economy and the Australian people millions of dollars and thousands of jobs. Since the coalition government has come to power, more than 350,000 jobs have been created. More Australians are now in work than at any other time in history. Indeed, the most recent labour market reports show a 2.7 per cent growth in total employment. That has to be a good thing. If only we could amend this motion. Youth unemployment has fallen by 1.7 per cent and the unemployment rate itself has fallen to 5.9 per cent. I think it is important that everyone in this place recognise the travesty of high youth unemployment and particularly of high youth unemployment in regional areas, but I will go to that a little later.

I think that, on any reading of those figures, all measures indicate that our economy is not in the deep unemployment crisis that Senator Carr is claiming in his campaign of fear and misinformation. The Australian economy remains strong and stable. Last year, the Australian economy experienced economic growth greater than any of the G7 nations, and our levels of unemployment remain lower than in the majority of the developed world. Senator McAllister, in her contribution, raised several of the challenges facing the very developed high-wage economies, such as ours. There is a need to be agile; there is a need to be able to innovate; there is a need to have the skills, education and capacity settings within our communities to take advantage of all the opportunities that the 21st century has to offer.

Youth unemployment is a serious economic issue because of the economic and psychological health effects it has on our young people, but our youth unemployment rate is one of the lowest in the developed world. It is almost half that of the United States and of our European friends. That in no way diminishes my focus, and the focus of everybody in this place, on reducing high youth unemployment. We do need to recognise that we need to change. A recent report by the Foundation for Young Australians looked at youth unemployment and recognised that 70 per cent of the entry-level jobs that young people would be going to will not exist because of three factors: globalisation, automation and a lack of digital literacy. When we look at how we will give our young people the skills and experience they need to be ready for the job opportunities that will exist in the future we need to ensure that the education system includes coding as a basic fact--

Senator Bullock interjecting—

Senator Bullock, you laugh—