George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Gallacher. What I can tell you is that, since the Abbott government was elected, there are 534,400 more jobs than there were before—534,400 jobs have been created in the Australian labour market since the election of the coalition government in 2013. You referred to the labour force statistics. But what you did not refer to is one of the pleasing outcomes of those statistics, which show an increase in full-time employment of 27,100 jobs. You and your colleagues, on a previous occasion, were critical of the government because the increase in a particular reporting period was in part-time employment. But on this occasion, in this reporting period, the increase has been in full-time employment—27,100 additional jobs. That is what the latest labour market statistics report.