Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

The government is absolutely focused on getting Australians back into work and creating strength in the employment market yet again. When we went to the last election, one of the key achievements that we took to that election was the creation, across the Australian economy, of more than 1½ million jobs during the work of our first six years in government. It absolutely devastates us, as we know it devastates many, that this pandemic has created chaos for many of those jobs and the households that depend upon them. But what we do welcome is the fact that we've seen 650,000 jobs come back, recreated over the course of the last five months. This is about making sure that we do get Australians back into work and, in getting them back into work, we recreate strength in the labour market and, through that, across the wages market too.