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

I thank the senator for his question. I can absolutely guarantee that the industrial relations reforms our government proposes—alongside, indeed, all of the measures our government is proposing—are about ensuring that Australians have access to more jobs, have access to more job opportunities and are able to work in an economy that is growing faster and more strongly. In creating those jobs, we are putting pressure on wages over time to drive wages growth too. Indeed, what we want for Ann or for any employee across Australia is for them to have more opportunity overall. So our determination through this passage, having spent many hours engaging with the union movement and engaging with employer organisations, is to try to find efficiencies within the operation of the industrial relations system such that there can be far greater confidence for employers to grow their businesses, to hire more people and to create more opportunities. That is precisely what we have been driving at as a government.

As we've worked through the period of the pandemic, we've been able to say that, according to the Reserve Bank, some 700,000 jobs have been saved as a result of some of the direct policy actions of the government. We've been able to bring back more than 90 per cent of those employees who found that their hours went to zero or lost their jobs during the depths of the pandemic. We have been able to see around 800,000 jobs recreated, jobs growth over recent time and, pleasingly, very significant jobs growth among women. One of our greatest achievements prior to the pandemic was to see women's workforce participation reaching record levels, and it's fantastic to see it driving back to that point yet again. (Time expired)