Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

In particular, I recognise, and the government recognises, that it has been a difficult few years in North Queensland on the jobs front. A few years ago there was a significant mining downturn in other parts of North Queensland, like Cairns. It's been a tough time for the tourism industry, when there was a high Australian dollar.

But there has been good recent news. We have been working hard to bring job-creating projects like the ones I mentioned in the first answer, and there has been significant improvement recently. Unemployment in Cairns is down to 4.7 per cent, a 1.7 percentage point reduction over the past year. In the Townsville region, an area that's had high unemployment recently, the rate has fallen to a still too high 7.1 per cent, which is a 2.1 percentage point reduction in the past year. In Wide Bay it's 7½ per cent, a two percentage point reduction. We are focused on making sure we target these areas of high unemployment to bring more jobs to people in them.