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

As a government we understand the benefits of work. We as a government are focused on growing our economy, on getting more people off welfare and into work and also on delivering well-targeted social security. That is funded, of course, through a strong budget. A strong economy and a strong budget allow you to do so many things. As I've stated, since we were elected to office more than 1.5 million jobs have been created. But, on top of that, our strong economic management, led in particular by our Treasurer and also by the Leader of the Government in the Senate, the Minister for Finance, has now seen welfare dependency hit its lowest level in 30 years. In fact, Department of Social Services analysis shows that the proportion of working-age Australians receiving welfare benefits has fallen to 13.5 per cent. This is a decrease of 100,000 working-age people in receipt of income support from June 2018— (Time expired)