Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business) Share this | Hansard source

Put quite simply, nobody benefits when somebody languishes on welfare. That is why, as a government, we have our plan for a strong economy, which we're implementing. You create jobs by ensuring a strong economy. Those jobs are then able to be taken up by people who are on welfare. Again, we unashamedly believe that the best form of welfare is a job, and the economy under us has created almost 1.4 million jobs since we were elected to office.

But, more than that, welfare dependency in Australia under the coalition government is the lowest it has been in 30 years. As you know, when you get people off welfare and into work they stop taking from the system as a benefiter of welfare and they start giving to the system as a taxpayer. There are so many other benefits to getting people off welfare and into work, and we will continue to focus on that.